Brantford Politicians agree on need for more meetings with Six Nations

By Michael-Allan Marion
Brantford Expositor
Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Brantford and Brant County politicians say they want to hold regular council meetings with the Six Nations elected band council and representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Representatives of the three jurisdictions met last Thursday in Ohsweken, a meeting city politicians consider successful in breaking new ground.

“It was a very positive meeting,” Brantford Mayor Mike Hancock said Monday.

Confederacy Chief Arnie General was also invited to address the gathering.

Hancock said it has been four years since the three councils got together for the first time. Those sitting on each body at the time said they were interested in more meetings.

“There always was an intention to meet more often but for one reason or another meetings weren’t or couldn’t be set up,” he said. “As a result of our last discussion, we now can see how important it is to meet regularly. It’s a matter of making a commitment.”

At the meeting, city and county politicians were interested in the positions of Six Nations on a range of issues, including the land claims process, economic development and health and social issues.

“I think we all found we have many of the same issues — differently articulated perhaps — but the concerns are the same.

“We can’t do anything about disputes over land claims. That’s in Ottawa’s hands. But, as we’ve found in tourism, we can work together on other interests we have in common.”

City Coun. Marguerite Ceschi-Smith said last week’s meeting was “long overdue” because much has changed in four years.

“All our councils have had a lot of change in membership and our interests are becoming more connected,” she said. “There is such a need for dialogue on a regular basis.”

Brant Coun. Roy Haggart said what constitutes meaningful consultation and accommodation will take time to flesh out through meetings.

He noted that Six Nations offered “nothing specific” about those items.

“I don’t think that Six Nations or the Confederacy have a bottom line answer for that,” Haggart said.

“I took away from the meeting that it’s a very complex issue. As Chief (David) General said, they have their own issues to deal with in terms of governance within their own people and have to come to grips with that.”

The parties agreed to do more work in the tourism area. David General and other band councillors indicated in interest in having the last link of the Brantford Southern Access Road built through the Glebe lands, which they are interested in developing.

They also agreed they all have a drug abuse problem in their jurisdictions and could work together on a joint plan to attack it.

Among other topics:

-- The city and county talked about implementing a communications process.

-- The county offered regular meetings between Brant and Six Nations staff.

-- All three governments recognized that together they might have more success bringing local issues to the attention of the province and federal government.

-- The county is in the process of trying to arrange a similar meeting with the Confederacy.

-- County council will discuss tonight what it considers priority issues with Six Nations that both jurisdications can tackle.