Vancouver council has handed an Indigenous rights strategy that it says will make the town a nationwide and world chief in implementing a plan towards reconciliation.
The strategy (which you’ll be able to learn right here) seeks to combine the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into the town’s municipal governance and makes 79 calls to motion.
“It’s meant to be a primary step,” stated Squamish Nation Council Chairperson Khelsilem, who was on the joint committee created in 2021 with representatives from the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh and City of Vancouver councils.
“Everyone has approached it with humility and kindness, and there is a side that we’re speaking about very large concepts and legal guidelines and proposals and what they might obtain.”
The framework for reconciliation focuses on themes of cultural and financial well-being, ending Indigenous-specific racism and the fitting to self-government for the three nations on whose land the town is constructed.
It will now be as much as metropolis employees to find out what is required to implement every name to motion and report again to council with an motion plan. Outgoing mayor Kennedy Stewart emphasised that a few of these suggestions might show controversial.
“It’s one factor to say you assist reconciliation, nevertheless it’s one other to champion it,” he stated.
“Some of the suggestions listed here are round tax forgiveness, land return, joint governance. Those are large steps. And will they take these, or will it sort of sit fallow? There’s quite a bit on this that is extraordinarily difficult however may herald a real reconciliation.”
Looking ahead and again
Short and long-term politics loomed over council’s vote Tuesday, because it was the final main determination on its plate earlier than the Nov. 7 inauguration of mayor-elect Ken Sim and the brand new ABC majority on council, faculty board and park board.
“Vancouverites gave us a mandate, and that is a part of that mandate,” stated incumbent ABC councillor Lisa Dominato.
“We had a really sturdy dedication in our platform round reconciliation, and this strategy will assist us additional.”
Dominato and her fellow ABC incumbents (Sarah Kirby-Yung and Rebecca Bligh) supported all components of the movement, as did Stewart and councillors Christine Boyle, Jean Swanson, Adriane Carr, Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe.
Coun. Colleen Hardwick, who completed third in her marketing campaign for mayor earlier this month, finally voted for many components of the employees report, however not with out voicing sturdy misgivings.
“I battle with the overarching lack of session with all concerned,” she stated, arguing “it would enrich among the wealthiest landowners of Vancouver,”
“It recommends layers of particular remedy with out transparency … Explicit discrimination on the premise of races, which this stories calls for, is at all times all over the place flawed, as we have been reminded by Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.”
It was an opinion not shared by anybody else across the council desk.
“I do know there’s angst on the market. People do not absolutely perceive,” stated Dominato.
“But individuals are anxious when there’s change. This is the fitting factor to do.”