Dakota Tipi residents to go to polls
Posted By Rob Swystun, Central Plains Herald-Leader
Posted 1 year ago
For the first time, Dakota Tipi First Nation residents will vote for three council seats instead of just two.
Band members will be able to vote Oct. 21 for three candidates out of eight to sit on council and one of three for chief. The adjustment from two council seats to three came because the reserve is allowed one council seat per 100 residents and this marks the first election where Dakota Tipi’s population is above 300.
Donna Pashe, 32, will be running for a council seat for the first time.
The Dakota Tipi School receptionist and adult education student aims to cut down on drug and alcohol abuse on the reserve, create more job options and build more homes to lure back off-reserve members.
“We have to get out of this not knowing who we are,” Pashe said.
She also wants to see more recreation opportunities for youth, including baseball and football teams and perhaps a skating rink for the community.
It’s important to keep youth motivated to keep them out of trouble, Pashe said.
“They’re just growing up the wrong way, that’s all,” she noted.
Although Pashe’s campaign has not taken her out and about in the community to chat with residents, people have come to her with what they want to see. Most people she talks with, Pashe said, talk about whom they don’t want to see in office rather than actual issues.
Pashe said a lot of people in the community are tired of having what they perceive to be one family running the band administration.
“There’s a lot of people who are tired of being treated wrong,” she said.
The candidate also said she wants to see more housing at Dakota Tipi so the band can welcome back off-reserve members.
Current councillor Keith Pashe, 49, has decided to throw his hat in the ring again for re-election. The traditional healer said he has lived his whole life on Dakota Tipi and knows what struggles other band members have gone through.
“I pretty well get along with every community member on the reserve,” Keith Pashe said.
In his time in office, the councillor said he helped start the poverty relief system, which sees people suffering from food shortages eligible for Sobey’s vouchers.
The incumbent councillor pointed to the need for more housing, more land, better education and more initiatives for youth, but cautioned the band has budgetary constraints to work within. He said it can be frustrating as most band members not involved with administration seem to think funding can be spent however the band wants but, in fact, they have budgets to follow.
If possible, some things Keith Pashe said he wants to bring to the reserve are good quality teachers for the school to convince parents to keep their children on the reserve for their education. The band is losing funding dollars each year to the Portage School Division because students attend schools in the city, he noted.
Bringing back funding for traditional healing and ceremonies is also something Keith Pashe wants to put energy into. Funding of $35,000 for such things was cut by the First Nation, Inuit and Aboriginal Health branch a couple of years ago, he said.
“That program was for people who wanted to see their own kind,” Keith Pashe commented.
Karl’s Smoke Shop owner Karl Stone, 40, will be running for council for the second time in this election. He served on council from 1991-2001 and said he would draw on that previous council experience to help him govern if elected.
“I want to see some things changed in the community,” Stone commented, pointing to a need for economic development and more transparency from band administration over how money is coming in and going out.
More band meetings, like holding one every one or two months, are something else Stone wants to see.
A more open policy with regards to administration is also a high priority for Darryl Taylor, 44, a native drug abuse and alcohol program worker who works in the Dakota Tipi Health Centre. Taylor said band members he has talked to have been calling for a more open policy.
“They’d like to see more accountability, more transparency,” he said.
Taylor echoed Stone’s comments about getting monthly financial statements out to residents and holding more band meetings. Plus, he said there is a need for more housing and more land for the reserve. He would also like to see boards set up to handle the different areas of administration, like an education board and a recreation board.
“It puts the onus on the people to make the bulk of the decisions,” Taylor noted.
As for Dakota Tipi members’ choice for chief, current chief Cornell Pashe, 45, who has held the position for six years, will once again seek re-election.
The University of Manitoba political science graduate said he originally wasn’t planning to run again, but was coaxed into it by other residents.
The chief said he, too, wants to see more houses for the reserve, as well as more health services and the need for the band to be self-sufficient with a priority being to create more employment opportunities.
His main goal? “The need to break from dependency,” he said. “In 10 years, we’d like to be self-sufficient.”
That self-sufficiency would include a better education system on the reserve, with education being considered a top priority there.
A lot of people let education slip down the ladder of their priorities for their children because of their personal experiences in residential schools, Cornell Pashe said.
Cornell Pashe said he also wants to see the reserve expand so it can continue to grow and welcome back off-reserve members.
“We’d like to bring them all home,” he said.
The following candidates could not be reached for comments: for council, Juanita P. Miller, Desmond Pashe, Frances Pashe, and Mary Pashe; and Corrine Smoke and Lance Wells for chief.
rswystun@cpheraldleader.com
