My name is sxʷamisaat (Laura Cassidy) and I am the Chief of Tsawwassen First Nation.
National Indigenous Peoples Day is a day for all to celebrate Indigenous culture and heritage in Canada.
As one of just eight First Nations with a modern treaty in B.C., it is a unique feature of Tsawwassen First Nation, and I want to take this opportunity to share about our modern treaty, also known as the Tsawwassen Final Agreement.
The Treaty, signed in 2009, is the first of its kind to be signed in B.C., although we learned a lot from our Nisga’a Nation relations who also negotiated a treaty under a different process.
Our Treaty is a tri-partite agreement between Tsawwassen First Nation, the Province of B.C. and Canada. The Treaty affirms our inherent rights to self-government, which our Peoples have practised since time immemorial. Importantly, it also creates a framework for protecting and implementing these rights within the Canadian legal system, making it a fundamental step towards reconciliation.
Though we are just 15 years into our Treaty journey, we have already seen positive impacts in our community. First and foremost, has been to reclaim and celebrate our self-governance, our lands, our laws and our values. For many of us, this work has rekindled our pride in our culture and identity as Tsawwassen, and as Indigenous Peoples.
More tangible benefits include significant investments in infrastructure and facilities to provide services that most Canadians take for granted, like paved roads, drinking water, and sewage treatment. We have also worked hard to provide culturally relevant child-care, education, training, health, and other supports to our community members, and these services continue to grow each year.
Through Treaty we also regained true ownership of a small portion of our Traditional Territory and through our laws, the land will never again be alienated from our People.
We have undertaken significant engagement on land use planning with the goal of managing our Lands for future generations.
One initiative I am proud to share is our community farm, which allows us to sustainably supply food to our Nation and to teach future generations about farming, which is important with so much farmland in our region.
We have also been able to invest significantly in our language and culture. This year alone, we have erected three house posts which tell stories of Tsawwassen legends, demonstrating strong ties to our Coast Salish culture in our community and the passing of our cultural knowledge to our young ones.
We also have several youth in full-time language programs to help support the revitalization of the hun’qumi’num language.
We often say that the Treaty is not a “divorce” from B.C. or Canada, but a “marriage”. We are here to stay. We continue to work closely with our Treaty partners as well as our local neighbours, and we have learned that when Indigenous communities thrive, those around us also thrive.
For example, Tsawwassen has welcomed thousands of residents onto our lands through multiple housing developments over the last decade, helping to combat the current housing crisis. Other developments facilitated by the Treaty include Tsawwassen Mills and Tsawwassen Commons shopping centers, which provide convenience and local employment. We are proud of these contributions to the local economy.
The spirit of National Indigenous Peoples Day is for everyone, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, to learn, celebrate, and uplift our culture together. I am proud to say that our Treaty also works in the spirit of coming together, working alongside other governments and communities toward benefits for all.
At the end of the day, the Treaty is a tool that has enabled our strong leaders to pursue our own vision and to begin to address the harms of colonization. While these harms cannot be solved overnight, or even over 15 years, the Treaty has helped us to set our own path and to walk down it holding our heads high.
Haychka, thank you, for taking some time to learn about the Tsawwassen First Nation and our Treaty, and I hope you have a fun and meaningful National Indigenous Peoples Day.
