Deachman: Ottawa Council struggles with how to give Indigenous people a voice in city affairs

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Only a couple of years after Ottawa city councillors voted to appoint an Indigenous person to a non-voting seat on council, the idea is dead in the water, because officials say that the Ontario Municipal Act won’t allow it.

We might charitably put this failure down as an honest oversight on the part of I-don’t-know-who, considering council unanimously endorsed creating the seat. But let this situation also serve as a reminder of the need for closer working relations between the city and those on whose unceded land we live, work and play.

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“Any role that is carved out for an Elder will not/cannot be a Member of Council as defined under the Municipal Act,” said an email to me last week from the city’s media office and attributed to Dan Chenier, general manager of Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services. “Other opportunities to foster Elder engagement with members of City Council will also be explored,” Chenier’s email vaguely added.

The decision to appoint an Anishinabe Algonquin elder as a non-voting, ex-officio member of council was perhaps the most high profile of the nearly 80 actions identified in the City of Ottawa – Anishinabe Algonquin Nation Civic Cultural Protocol and accompanying implementation plan. Both were approved by council in April 2022.

The goal of the exercise was to increase the role and participation of Anishinabe Algonquins in matters concerning municipal arts, heritage and cultural programming, and formalize policies for consultations between the Algonquins and the city. It was crafted by the city’s Cultural Development and Initiatives Unit along with other city departments, community members  and Indigenous nations and organizations, and it forms part of the City’s Reconciliation Action Plan, which was approved in 2018.

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The identified actions, to be implemented by 2026, range from some pretty low-hanging fruit — “Continue to incorporate Honouring Statement at formal ceremonies and events, and as part of the opening announcements at theatre performances,” for example, and “Maintain a list of Anishinabe Algonquin Nation representatives with contact information” — to much more complex and important ones, such as “Conduct a review of existing programming to determine where gaps and/or barriers may prevent Anishinabe Algonquin participation.” And it included what turns out to be the impossible task of appointing an elder to council.

Exactly how the overall implementation of the strategy is progressing is a mystery. When council approved the plan, it was expected that an update would be provided by June of this year. That update has been pushed back to next spring, to allow the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation Consultative Culture Circle, formed a year ago and comprising representatives of four Anishinabe Algonquin groups, time to develop its terms of reference. The Circle, chaired and led by the host nation, meets three times a year to guide and monitor the implementation of the protocol, and respond to questions from city departments about Anishinabe Algonquin heritage and culture.

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Fair enough. Far be it from me to say how long that should take, but two-and-a-half years seems like plenty of time, especially when you consider the historical foot-dragging you’d hope would be avoided. Meanwhile, when I requested an interview with Natalí Zúñiga, the city’s project lead, I was told she was unavailable.

Tareyn Johnson, director of Indigenous Affairs at uOttawa and author of that school’s Indigenous Action Plan, says the Algonquin nation has every reason to be frustrated, going back to the creation of the city of Ottawa. “Any gestures towards reconciliation are long overdue already, so a further delay is frustrating.

“They should have done their due diligence ahead of time,” she adds, “because once you put it in a plan and then renege on something, that’s never a good thing, especially when you’re on Algonquin territory.”

But as Orléans West-Innes Coun. Laura Dudas, who chairs the Community and Protective Services Committee overseeing the project, said, this process is far more complex than, say, simply updating a bylaw. “This is a nation-to-nation relationship, and in order to have a meaningful collaborative conversation, one that is respectful, it requires some nuance. It takes recommendations and structural changes, and that’s going to take some time. So we want to make sure the city is getting this right, that it’s being respectful.

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“If we try to push something through and pay lip service to our First Nations, then we’re just doing a disservice.”

Jean-Guy Whiteduck, the recently elected chief of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, says the appointment of an elder to a non-voting council position was “tokenism” in the first place, although he agrees that having a consultative voice in city matters has merit.

For apart from giving Indigenous voices greater access to municipal institutions and decision-making, it could also help city officials avoid some unfortunate, if well-intentioned, missteps, such as when former mayor Jim Watson in 2022 proposed renaming Wellington Street “Reconciliation Boulevard,” a suggestion he quickly withdrew after it was criticized by Algonquin leaders.

Dudas believes the council-seat setback shouldn’t affect the objective or outcome of the broader plan. “Council’s goal was to improve the level of collaboration and the relationship our City has with the Algonquin Host Nation. There will continue to be conversations between City officials and the Host Nation about how that will evolve and in which form that will take. I look forward to seeing the recommendations that come as a result of those conversations.”

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(The offices of Greg Sarazin, chief of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan, and Savanna McGregor, grand chief of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council, were also contacted for this story, but did not respond by deadline.)

According to Brad Duguid, former Ontario minister of Aboriginal Affairs and now senior counsel at Sussex Strategy Group, which advises municipalities on reconciliation efforts, Ottawa is actually a “best-practice” city when its comes to putting forward an Indigenous strategy. “You’d be hard-pressed to find many municipalities that have done more,” he says.

So it’s especially unfortunate that the notion of a seat on council was floated in the first place without ascertaining whether it was possible, because for many, it will be looked upon as simply another unfulfilled promise.

Hopefully, it won’t be the start of a pattern.

Hopefully, when the implementation update is presented in the spring of 2025, it will include concrete, doable plans to bring Indigenous voices into the fold, not just as a token gesture, but with the creation of a representative position with an actual voice, similar to the Indigenous Affairs Office that exists in Toronto.

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And while the Ottawa implementation plan didn’t specifically mention renumeration for the position, that should be included. After all, we created a paid position for a nightlife commissioner; surely it’s not hard to create one for an Indigenous voice?

And let’s not for a moment think of this as simply atoning for past sins.

Two years ago, Algonquin elder and human-rights activist Albert Dumont described to me how he felt whenever he read one of the identifying road signs along the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, which, until it was renamed last year, honoured Canada’s first prime minister and one of the authors of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools program.

“It’s a slap in the kisser or a kick in the groin,” Dumont said at the time. “It’s like somebody is rubbing your nose in it, always saying they’re superior.”

His remark stuck with me, because it reminds me of my own challenges in, and the importance of, viewing the word as others see it, in this case those whose forebears were here long before the arrival of European settlers.

As we commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Monday, it’s important to remember that the land acknowledgement we frequently hear before meetings and events should be more than a hollow recitation; we are, after all, on unceded Algonquin land, and we need to remember and respect that.

Meanwhile, we — the city and its residents — can learn much from Indigenous experiences, teachings and attitudes. Listening and acting on them can only make us better, council seat or not.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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