Submitted by Dustin Rivers (Khelsilem) - Running for Council

1. What qualifies you to be in Chief and Council?

I would say what qualifies me is two-fold: I have experience understanding and navigating politicals systems. I understand how governance works and understand the role of Council. I have experience from serving on non-profit boards, the Vancouver Planning Commission, and leading different groups in various capacities.

The second quality I would bring is that I would be an advocate for our members with an eye for real results. I don’t think it’s enough to just "speak up" but to also come forward with ideas. I would say too that I would want my plans to include input, feedback, and direction from our Members.

2. What does it mean to be on Chief and Council and represent the community?

The way I see it... Council’s most significant role is to act as a fiduciary for our members. Our lands and assets, and the revenue generated from them are collectively owned by our Members and Councilors are chosen to make decisions on behalf of the Members. That is a sacred responsibility that absolutely needs to be done from trust, respect, and love for our people.

Within that role is approving policies, budges, by-laws, and agreements with our nation.

Then finally, the most critical role, is listening to and responding to the needs of our members. A Councilor should be accessible and responsive. They should want to seek the input of our members when decisions affect them.

3. What are your feelings with regards to the Governance Manual? What were its good points and bad points? Please provide examples.

I’ll first state that I feel the process of developing the Governance Manual was not done correctly. It didn’t involve Membership. It didn’t seek input or feedback from Membership. And it was Council creating their own rules for themselves.

In broad terms, I do support clear guidelines for Council’s work, including their job duties, responsibilities, and roles. The governance manual includes some of this, but I feel it’s not representative of what our people want or need from our leaders. 

The governance manual includes many provisions I feel infringe on a leader's right to free speech. Our elected leaders should not be restricted from communicating with our Members on their activities and decisions as a Councilor. 

4. What are your thoughts on the draft Election Law? Good or bad points that you noticed? Please provide examples.

The law was an earnest effort to achieve a vision for our elections and governance with direct input from our Members. It was the most comprehensive engagement process for the development of any law or policy in our Nation’s history.

If elected, I will bring in a motion to call the Electoral Commission to return to Council to request a new referendum date within 30 days of being sworn in. I will support a referendum being called immeidately as recommended by the Electoral Commission, and I will campaign for a yes vote in that referendum with all five suggested questions for the referendum.

However, being that there are sixteen positions on Council and you need at least 9 Councilors to pass a motion, I am asking Members to elect 9 new Councillors who do support election reform.

This is an issue our Membership has been asking for decades, and we’re very close to delivering on that request, but we need leaders ready to make the decision to give Membership the opportunity to decide if they want this law or not. 

5. Do you know of any issues that currently effect Squamish Nation? This can be internal or external issues.

Issues that I am aware of that impact the Squamish Nation are:

The Vancouver Housing Crisis

The Kinder Morgan Pipeline

The Woodfibre LNG Export Facility

Internally, I would also say health is a looming issue as our population grows and costs to support our Members’ health issues will rise.

6. Do you believe enough is being done for our elders and youth?

There are many great things our nations provide for our elders and youth. We offer services to elders that many First Nations would dream of. We have many fantastic programs for our youth lead by really hard working staff.

That being said, I see some issues.

One is the inequity between our support for on-reserve elders and off-reserve elders. For on reserve elders, their hydro and gas bills are covered by the Nation, but the same is not provided for those elders living off-reserve. I think this should be fixed. The funding for this program comes from own source revenue, so it just means budgeting for the increased expenditure.

Another issue I see is the need for more healthcare support for our elders.

For our young people, I would like to see more investments made in the future for our young people. I’m interested in researching and exploring trust fund programs where the Nation matches weekly contributions from the parents into a trust fund that accrues interest and can be withdrawn at 25 years old for housing, education, purchasing property, etc. We could be generating real wealth for our young people and giving them a hand up instead of a handout.

I also believe we need to examine our post-secondary student funding amounts. While this is a federal program and our needs for post-secondary are huge, I think we should explore how to increase the monthly allowances to reflect the rising cost of living, inflation rate increases, and general support for our young students.

Other ways we could be doing more for our youth is setting up a Youth Advisory Committee for Council that meets 11 times per year with two Councilors appointed as liaison members. This would be a benefit for Councilor to hear from our young people and a place to train future leaders of our community.

7. How could you help the community trust Chief and Council again?

Love & Trust is the principles I’m running on. To restore trust, I want to see some changes made to our governing practices, such as:

• Make all Council meetings livestreamed or audio streamed with archives posted online.
• Do verbatim minutes of Council meetings to be posted online within 2 weeks of the meeting.
• Require Council Meeting agendas be posted a minimum of 5 business days before a Council meeting, so Members know what items are planned to be discussed.
• Add a "comment" period to the Band Council Resolution process to allow Members to speak to a BCR like what is done in municipal councils.
• Require all Band Council Resolutions be posted online, including who voted yay or nay for the resolution.
• Include evening meetings for essential topics so Members can attend, witness, and speak to specific issues being debated by the Council.
• Require more detailed financial information shared yearly to be transparent on Nation finances.
• Require all contracts above $10,000 be put to a public RFP process and that quarterly reports of who bid, how much, and who was selected for all Members to see.
• Post quarterly Councilor expenses like what is done in municipal Councils.

I also support a return of the General Meeting or a yearly Annual General Meeting but with good practices approved by Membership to make General Meetings efficient, successful, and productive where the purpose is to give Members an opportunity to put forward ideas and statements to be supported by the Council if passed.

I think the reason our people do not trust our Council anymore is that we need a Council that trusts our people with information, and with input. Everything I’ve described above I feel would begin the work of restoring that trust, but I would also want to hear from more Members on what they think could be done to restore trust.

8. What is your community involvement (pertaining ONLY to Squamish Nation community)? 

I’ve been involved in the community in many initiatives. I’ve participated in numerous canoe journeys as a canoe family leader. I attend community events and band meetings regularly. I attend ceremonies such as namings, memorials, etc. regularly. I lead a Squamish dance group to promote our culture amongst our young people.

9. What are you hoping to accomplish (besides housing!) once elected? 

The first reason I decided to run was to hopefully have enough power to support Election Reform immediately upon being elected.

But beyond that, I am really interested in fixing the governance of our Council. We need to create more avenues for Council to hear from Members, both when it’s complaints (aka feedback) and when it’s insight, input, or ideas.

I hope that by the end of my term if elected, our Council is more open, transparent, and accountable to our Members. I would lobby fellow Councilors to support initiatives to make it as such.

I am also committed to communicating regularly with our Members. I hope to do this through social media by posting Council resolutions voted on, including my vote record, my attendance record, and give bi-weekly "reports" on activities I have undertaken as a Councilor. I will utilize Facebook and a website to accomplish this.

10. Do you agree with your possible $80,000 annual salary?

I do not agree with the $80,000+ salary. 

My position is:

• A Councilor should only be paid for work completed.
• The Councilor salaries should be approved by Membership at an AGM.
• Beyond those two principles, I am open to various options for compensating Councilors for their time based on input from our Members. In the short term, I would support a reduction to $50,000, but also less if desired our Members.