BUILDING FOUNDATIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS PLATFORM DEAR FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND FELLOW NE-GOOT-GOOK COMMUNITY MEMBERS: It has truly been an honour and a humbling experience to serve you and Ne-goot-gook in the last two years as your first female Chief. Two years ago I was elected to represent all of you and to serve our beautiful community in order to work towards its betterment. It is my avid belief that I have achieved this and have spent every day of my term relentlessly striving to reach this goal. While my service of Ne-goot-gook and its peoples has been an honour and humbling, it has not been easy and has come with many challenges. Despite these challenges, many things have been accomplished during the last two years, which have laid the foundation for a strong and viable community. You are all well aware that the biggest challenge to our community has continually been financial debt. When taking office the debt was 52 million. Since I was elected Chief, the financial debt has been reduced by 60%. I have managed to reduce the overall debt to 19 Million. The task of reducing the debt has not been easy on our community and has involved many sacrifices. However, these steps were necessary in order to give our future generations a strong and stable financial footing. Within the next year we will be out of Third –Party Management, and will at the same time have built a strong financial administration. Ne-goot-gook will have healthy budgets for the first time in 7 years. This will allow Chief and Council the ability to deliver more programs and employment to you, the members. My commitment to you in my next term is to develop a Chief and Council Code of Ethics, which would allow for transparency of Chief and Council and accountability to its members. My commitment is to govern as a Chief and Council that acts in the best interest of you, the members, and to maintain your trust. My commitment is also to continue to resolve longstanding issues and to continue to work on ongoing programs and proposals, which include: LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS: Debt, Land Claims, Education, Housing, Infrastructure, Health, Economic Development, Employment. Debt: Currently we pay 3.2 million in loans to banks and creditors on a yearly basis with various interest rates that makes cash flow for programs tight. To address this I am currently engaged with financial institutions to consolidate the debt at a lower interest rate. What this means is that we would pay all our loans out and only have one payment a year, instead of paying 3.2million a year it would cut it to 1.5 million a year at the same time replenishing our budgets giving you the members more opportunities. Land Claims: Since being part of the Specific Claims Process, Canada has not dealt in good faith and in a way that is consistent with section 35 of the Constitution, the principle of reconciliation, and the honour of the Crown. In 2007 we were told that our claims was one of the biggest in the country leading us to believe we would get a fair and equitable deal. However, this has not been the case. Canada came with an offer of 40 million; this is unacceptable and an insult to our community. I propose that we go to the Specific Claims Tribunal, which can make a legal and binding ruling it will force Canada to deal with us in good faith. We cannot and must not shortchange our future generations. Education: Since becoming Chief, one of the major concerns, which continue to be a priority of mine, is to improve the educational outcomes of our children. During my term we signed an enhancement agreement with the Federal and Provincial Government. What this means is that 50% of the tuition dollars paid to the Province for our kids comes back to enhance our own programs. In addition, I have brought a world-renowned non-profit literacy organization called Elephants Thoughts to improve our children’s outcomes. Benefits of Elephant Thoughts included the employment of over 80 students in the last two summers, the employment of specialized members to share with our students the traditional knowledge and practices of the Maliseet people and our community and the employment of over 30 of our own people on a full-time basis. I also brought Sistema New Brunswick into our community. Sistema New Brunswick is a world known music program and is the first in any First Nation Community. It is now in its second year in Ne-goot-gook and we have 23 of our own children who attend the program, along with 11 from the Perth- Andover area. Our children are learning the art of music and the discipline to read and compose music along with other children from different cultures. Our Future Generation will be able to teach the Generation coming up this art form. I have also worked with Mawiw Council and proud to announce a Bridging Program for our High School students that will enhance and prepare them for Post- Secondary Educational Institutions beginning Fall 2015. Post-Secondary is one of the programs that always take a hit. AANDC always targets this program because it is discretionary. However, with revenue generators in my platform, we will be able to increase our post-secondary from own source revenue. Due to the rebuilding success in our community finance department over the last two years, when re-elected I will announce a plan to increase student allowances through a shared contribution regime from forestry and fisheries revenues. This will be implemented immediately after election. Strengthening our support efforts for students will promote graduation thus capacity for Ne-goot-gook and its members. This will allow our members to return to our community after graduation and make our community stronger. They will continue laying the foundation for future generations. Housing and Infrastructure: Housing and infrastructure is one of our community’s major concerns, which I share, I currently have a submission in AANDCC for the development of 100 lots for housing. That being said, the issue has been how we can build houses under third-party without a Ministerial Guarantee. I have found a way. Adequate housing is crucial for members in order to improve the overall well being of families and our community. Social Housing for families on welfare will be a top priority. To meet this commitment, I have a tentative approval for 40 social housing units as phase one. Within the next five years, we will have the potential to build over 200 units at a rate of 40 per year. Our challenge will be to overcome the infrastructure demands that will support the housing plan. Once realized, this will improve our housing stock and asset base for Ne-goot-gook. With the strategic alliances in both governments and the private sector, our goal will be to build a new road system in the summer of 2015. Proof backing this up is my most recent success where I was able to obtain partnership funding to reconstruct and permanently repair the area in front of the bingo hall where we have trained our own people over an 8 week period on proper road building. More training will be forthcoming and a new way of designing our infrastructure needs will be addressed through integrated sidewalks and street lighting. An area that has been on my mind for quite some time has been to reclaim green space at or around our old dump sites. I will announce a Green Space Reclamation Plan that will see the construction of a new playground, ball field and outdoor ice rink in the new apartment area at the intersection of New Road and Lagoon Road. I am confident that this will be widely used by our children and membership for years. Health: Currently we have one of the best health care programs in any First Nation in New Brunswick. Our health care team is dedicated in providing the best services that are up to date and available to you the members. I will continue to work with them in improving our health outcomes. Economic Development: In past years our economic development area has cost us a lot of money in terms of keeping business afloat, financing charges and doing it on our own. To be more specific, it cost us approximately 7 million of bad debts, which the entire community suffered for. Forestry and fisheries alone costs us several million dollars. Since becoming Chief, I turned that around. Now fisheries and forestry are generating revenue supplementing own source revenue. This revenue has helped to pay our bills. However, I acknowledge that much more work needs to be done in these areas and will work to seek input from industry and community members on how we can improve this area Further, I have made strategic partnerships with the private sector that will provide us the investment and training that will generate revenues adding to our financial stability while at the same time not burdening us with debt loads if things go wrong. A few examples are as follows: BioGas Production Facility: State of the art biogas that will generate 87% gasoline for the market place along with generation of 3 Megawatts of steam to produce our own electricity. This will also be one of the best environmentally safe plants in the world. Conservative revenue stream for Ne-goot-gook is 12million annually. E-Gaming ,E-Bingo: The current trend in the marketplace has seen a decline in land based casino’s. The player base is moving towards and will continue to move towards Internet based gaming and mobile applications. In order to be successful I have been in discussions with key players in this industry on development of our own E-gaming business that will generate revenue and employment for you the members. These revenue generators will position our community to be one of the best and profitable communities in the Maritimes. Assembly of First Nations Chiefs in New Brunswick: As many know, Tobique is an attending member of the Assembly of First Nation Chiefs in New Brunswick. While many have criticized this decision, my reasons for remaining a member are quite simple. When we look at our current regime of First Nation organizations in New Brunswick like Mawiw, UNBI, St John Tribal Council, MNCC, North Shore Mic Mac District Council, they all have one thing in common: they are all program facilitators and do not deal exclusively with rights based issues. The First Nations of New Brunswick needed a strong unified political voice to stand up where and when needed. An example is the fight against the social reform the Federal government tried to implement without proper consultation. The Assembly effectively mounted a legal challenge that was successful at halting the changes that would have devastated the poorest of the poor. One concern that has been voiced by many community members is with respect to the Trilateral Process. The Assembly has been working to examine ways to implement our rights without challenge through dialogue within a Trilateral Process bringing the Federal and Provincial governments to the table with us rights holders. The Umbrella Agreement signed in 2011 was step one of that process and is an agreement stating who will be there at the table and how to best guide the trilateral process so to reach a Framework Agreement, which is the next Process Agreement. The entire process will take years and will NOT diminish our rights. A referendum is required when a Final Agreement is drafted (after 15 years or so). This means that members will be required to vote and approve of the Final Agreement in order to move forward. Implementation of our rights must have lasting benefits or we simply do not enter into any agreements. The Assembly is not the villain, but rather a justifiable option we must observe and support until such time it no longer works for Ne-Goot-Gook. If I witness a time where the Assembly no longer serves the best interest of our community, I will pull away and seek alternative paths forward that will implement our rights both inherent and treaty. Employment: Instead of Government handouts and rollouts from the Federal and Provincial levels, It is time we challenge ourselves to succeed through the economic generators listed above and create our own network giving priority to you the members to have more opportunity and long term employment, not short-term ones. Better preparation: In the summer of 2014 we painfully endured through the dam closure for 3 months. We need to be better prepared for the 2015 dam road closure. Our goal then will be to ensure we are not without during the closure. We saw several areas where we were not prepared and that does not rest well with membership. Through proactive planning and taking from experience, we will be ready when the road is closed again. Paul Pyres Community Center: After Councillor Paul Pyres’s untimely departure, we were left with his mark. We thank Paul for his vision to bring the community together by way of a community center and his determination to see it through. Time ran out for Paul, but my pledge to him was to make it happen. My commitment to Paul has not waivered and I will not rest until the center is complete and his name hangs on the gable end. Work is currently ongoing but will kick into high gear in the spring of 2015. Our first community feast in the Paul Pyres Community Center will be on Aboriginal Day 2015, where we will celebrate his life and our proud people. Let us work together to educate and prepare our next generation of leaders, charting a brighter future for all of us. I am confident that we have laid the foundation for an effective dialogue to move forward. My pledge to you is to build a framework that allows us all to work collectively to continue to find a way forward towards economic sustainability, community pride and strengthening hope. Re-elect Chief Brenda Perley “Building a Strong Foundation for Future Generations”
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:09:28 +0000
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