Governance

Overview

The ultimate goal in Sliammon governance planning is to arrive at a governance model which reflects:

1) our inherent right to self-government,
2) our culture and language, and
3) is fiscally responsible.

The term "Governance" is a broad descriptor meant to capture all the nation building activites that Sliammon is currently engaged in. These activites include planning in the areas of Program and Service Delivery, Intergovernmental Affairs, and Constitution Development. Sliammon is exploring ways beyond federal transfer payments to pay for the delivery of quality programs and services through taxation and resource revenue sharing. This planning work is happening through the Tax and Fiscal Modelling Project. Governance planning is also concerned with the areas of land and resource planning and economic development.

A great deal of work has gone into researching Sliammon's traditional forms of governance. This work began with the Kwuth Ta-ow {our teachings} report completed by Melissa Louie in year 2000, and was continued and expanded upon through the creation of a Traditional Teachings Toolbox by Michelle Washington in 2003. These reports contain a great deal of rich historical information and print copies are available for all Sliammon members.

Since the Sliammon people’s first recorded contact with Europeans in 1792, a host of external and internal factors have resulted in considerable transformations to the social, political and economic structures of Sliammon society. No single dramatic event, apart from perhaps first contact itself, allows us to pinpoint a specific moment when Sliammon culture changed and was replaced by a different pattern. Yet the facts suggest that during the last 200 years a variety of changes have led to fundamental transformation in the relationship of Sliammon people to our traditional territory. This period of our history was characterized by our displacement from the lands and resources that had sustained our ancestors. Aboriginal activities were gradually curtailed as increasing numbers of newcomers developed alternative uses for Sliammon land and its resources. Throughout this period of industrial growth, Sliammon people adopted, adapted and rejected aspects of a dominant culture that held a fundamentally different concept of land use and governance.

The cumulative impact of these conflicting views has been the loss of lands and resources that has led directly to a reduction in the Sliammon people’s practice of traditional pursuits, and also in our ability to exercise these activities in the future. Places once visited for harvesting resources, or for finding spiritual assistance, are now the sites of housing developments, parks and marinas, or scarred by clear-cut logging. Additionally, epidemic diseases that decimated our population, a residential school system, a legislation that restricted the practice of our language and culture, and an enforced system of government have all contributed to our sometimes variant and multiple views of the past.

It has been a long journey for the Sliammon people and we acknowledge that our Tlax tlah xay (‘Elders’) have passed on the knowledge from our O’tahqwen (Ancestors) under great hardship and duress. It is this traditional knowledge and our traditional practices that make us a distinct society with the inherent right to govern ourselves with Ta’ow as our guide.