Brantford city council approved the creation of an Indigenous Affairs officer during their regular meeting on Tuesday.

The officer will help lead the city’s efforts to strengthen relationships with First Nations as well as urban Indigenous residents.

Before discussing the motion put forward by councillor Joshua Wall to create the position, council heard from Veronica Martisius, a former Ward 4 resident, who opposed the creation of the role.

After hearing Martisius’ thoughts, council began deliberating the motion which called for the city to immediately begin work on the creation of an Indigenous Affairs Officer position.

Wall was the first to address his motion. “I want to thank the delegation for coming forward and her commentary on the motion. While I am moving this motion, this was not entirely a creation of my own work. This was done in consultation with members of our community, of all different walks of life, members of council, our staff, and people in the community who I trust to provide me with their honest opinions,” said Wall. “Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is anything perfect? I would disagree, nothing is perfect. I would never imagine or consider myself an expert in Indigenous Affairs. We are talking about a very long history with many different peoples. As a member of this council, I rely on staff, consultants, and members of the public, who share their thoughts with this council on how we should lead and we can do a better job. I think everyone could agree.”

Wall said council needs someone who specializes in helping council work with, consult with, negotiate with and discuss situations with the Indigenous community.

“If this needs to get deferred, I will support it 100 per cent because we have waited this long, so we can wait a little longer. But, I don’t want to wait longer. I want to engage in meaningful, respectful dialogue, not just with specific peoples, everyone. We live in a democracy where everyone has a right to have their voice heard but, when it comes to Indigenous relations, it’s strained, it’s difficult. There are so many people we need to engage with, consult with and communicate with. And without somebody, whose job it is to advise us, we could make the situation worse and I don’t want to see that. I want to work with our staff to assign somebody whose responsibility it is to provide us with advice and opinion.”

Wall said the motion was brought forth to council for consideration so it could be heard.

“I want it to be known, loud and clear, that we take dealing with, working with and discussing and negotiating with our Indigenous neighbours seriously and that we are doing that by assigning this position,” Wall concluded.

Mayor Kevin Davis then provided every councillor with the opportunity to speak to the motion beginning with councillor Brian Van Tilborg.

“I do want to put it forward that I have a possible amendment to the motion that may alleviate one of the delegate’s concerns. This was not brought forward to be discussed tonight, we are discussing it because a delegate has come forward and it’s important enough for us to address tonight,” said Van Tilborg. “With the information that has been taken in, perhaps a deferral is in the cards.”

Van Tilborg continued, addressing some of the concerns brought forward by Martisius.

“I want to address a few of the points that were mentioned on who we are engaging, and the intent of the delegate was to use the deferral potential to engage with the Haudenosaunee and the confederacy and clan mothers. Quite frankly, I don’t know if we will be able to achieve that. The reason I say that is that in this term (on council) we really haven’t been able to have a good dialogue, discussion and engagement with the Six Nations Band Council,” said Van Tilborg. “Ironically, the reason that we need this position more than anything is because we have to get the ball rolling and the person we assign to this is the one that is going to bring us together and have our peoples meet. I can’t see it happening otherwise because it hasn’t happened yet.”

Van Tilborg concluded by providing an amendment to Wall’s motion for council’s consideration.

“That amendment would be adding members of council to the Office of the CAO and Mayor so that we are all included but I just wanted to explain that this is why we need the position so badly,” added Van Tilborg.

Councillor John Sless said he would be supporting the motion.

“The reasons I will be supporting the motion are numerous. It’s been said many times this evening that this is something that probably should have happened a long time ago and it hasn’t. We are not experts on this history and I think we need someone that is and can talk far more intelligently upon it than we can,” said Sless. “I think what we heard this evening is one point of view. My experience in attempting to deal with Six Nations is that there are many points of view and there are many diverse points of view. To take one point of view and mould everything the city does moving forward with that as the parameters I think would be wrong.”

Sless continued, “If we are going to consult before we do our own business, this won’t happen for a very, very long time. It would be a very long and onerous task to try and consult with everybody who feels they should be consulted with. I feel it’s important we move forward because, as I said earlier, this is something we should have done a long time ago. I will be supporting the motion and I hope it would pass because I think it’s important and it should pass.”

Councillor Cheryl Antoski added she was also one of the members of council that said this motion should pass sooner rather than later.

“This should have been done forever ago but I do hear Ms. Martisius’ comments but I don’t want to delay moving things forward. I am hopeful those comments can be taken into regard and those conversations can still happen. I have been saying over and over again that we need to have conversations people to people. We need to ask what is needed and what is going to be a win-win situation for both sides,” said Antoski. “I agree with other councillors, is it going to be perfect, no. But we need someone who holds the ball and moves it forward. We need someone who has more understanding of the complexities and really, someone who can come at it from a perspective of humanity.”

Antoski went on to address the possibility of deferring the motion.

“I understand the ask for deferral, and I haven’t made my decision on that yet, but I would have to be swayed that it would benefit us to do it because I still think we can have these conversations with the people that we need to talk with. We need to start fresh and we need all of the players involved to put their cards on the table and say how do we start with a clean sheet because there is some negative history for sure and it’s playing out now.”

For the full story, please visit our content partner, Brant Beacon.