Image Credit: Contributed / Mel Rothenburger

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: First Nations membership on TNRD board a complicated challenge

May 13, 2023 | 6:46 AM

RECONCILIATION is a challenging path to follow. It remains unclear as to what it will ultimately look like. It seems to me, though, that until there’s some sort of political structure to it, reconciliation will remain elusive.

As an example, one possibility at the local level is a formal alliance between the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc and the Thompson Nicola Regional District that would involve TteS membership on the regional board.

I encouraged this when I was on the board and broached it with Kúkpi7 Rosanne Casimir. She was certainly interested though I sensed her appreciation of the challenges involved.

“I believe that we will get there,” she said.

I’m pleased to see the TNRD actively pursuing the idea. Not only that, coincidental to discussions at the TNRD, the provincial government is signalling that it may legislate such arrangements as mandatory.

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It would actually become a two-part process, which I’ll get into in a moment but it would essentially require a re-invention of the regional district.

This might take years to become reality but, as was pointed out at a TNRD board meeting earlier this year, supporting “inclusive regional governance by advancing First Nations participation in regional district boards” has become part of the provincial government’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

As attractive an idea as it is, adding First Nations representation to the regional board presents a whole host of challenges.

Technically, the Band lands are within the TNRD boundaries. Band members have a vote in TNRD elections; TNRD residents don’t vote in Band elections. Residents on Band lands pay no taxes to the TNRD and the regional district provides no services to them.

It’s a rather strange situation but that’s the way history made it. So if the Band is to have representatives on the TNRD board, would they be eligible to vote on issues that relate strictly to non-Band lands within the TNRD, such as the budget and zoning or any of the 100-plus services the region provides to its municipalities and electoral areas? Would regional district reps have voting authority on Band matters?

Non-treaty First Nations currently don’t need legislative change to participate as non-voting members on regional boards or in an advisory capacity. That’s probably not good enough in the long run but it might be a place to start.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that within the regional district there are 25 different Bands. If one Band, the TteS, is provided seats on the regional board, shouldn’t all of them? How is it possible to give every one of them representation on the board? Let’s remember that there are already 27 directors at the TNRD table, the second largest in the province.

A 52-member board would be unworkable not to mention hugely expensive. One answer might be to designate a certain number of First Nations directors via the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. And the Community to Community meetings already held between various Bands and municipal councils might hold some important clues.

Would there be some sort of reciprocal restructuring of band councils to include at least limited non-indigenous participation in certain decisions? The federal government would have be part of the discussion.

What would happen with issues such as non-payment of hospital taxes by TteS? The Band so far refuses to participate. Would TteS representation on the regional board facilitate a resolution?

Consideration of all these questions comes at a good time. Last year, the TNRD board decided to review its boundaries to see if changes would be in order, either internally among electoral areas or externally with neighbouring regional districts.

At its meeting last week, the board set up a bloated special committee of 14 of its members to pursue the issue via setting up terms of reference for a study. (If you’re going to have a committee that’s more than half the size of the entire board, it would make sense to just hand the job to the existing Committee of the Whole.)

The new committee will require the services of an independent consultant to undertake the study, which is expected to take two years. There’s no estimate yet of what such a study would cost, but it will be very expensive, though it’s expected at least part of it would be subsidized by the provincial government. The study must deal with everything from financial issues to political representation to service delivery.

Changing the boundaries of the regional district would be no easy matter, either. Realigning electoral areas to improve representation or balance population issues would be easy (it’s been done before) compared to splitting the regional district into parts or infringing on other regional districts.

The latter scenarios have rarely been done elsewhere and never here.

So, it makes sense to investigate potential boundary changes and First Nations representation on the regional board as part of the same process. Obviously, the public and First Nations must be involved, and the provincial government as well, since any restructuring would require cabinet approval.

Putting the two of them together is a daunting task and there’s always the prospect of failure and the implications of that. It involves no less than the aforementioned re-invention of the regional district.

But it’s a challenge that has to be accepted. The road may be long but, as Kúkpi7 Casimir said, “We will get there.”

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.