Tag Archives: #leadership

Two name problems

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One problem is the association of the name Powell with residential schools, and its history and trauma for indigenous people. This deserves recognition, & appreciation. The effects of that trauma are clearly present; including amoung others, mental health challenges & addictions.

The other problem; Powell represents identity for many people here. Questioning identity amounts to a personal threat for many who were unprepared for it. A natural reaction has been defensive and little has happened that hasn’t essentially only bolstered defensiveness. This needs recognition too, and appreciation.

Many people also want to do something about what is relatively new knowledge for many about what happened to indigenous people. Reconciliation? Change the name? This question has divided our community since we stopped doing anything about it since the last civic election in Oct. 2022.

Yes or no divides us.  The community we need now, to face increasing challenges, needs to work together to find our way forward. It doesn’t matter how slowly; we just need to do it together. Division is our real current challenge. We must deal with that within our Powell River community before we can ever reconcile with the people who first asked the name question.

The Tla’amin Nation is thriving now like never before. Strength and pride have surged culturally and acquisitions of mill lands and TFL39 promise future economic prosperity. Meanwhile, our city faces sagging revenues, increasing costs, and people suffering mental health challenges, addictions, and homelessness too. There is a lot for us to work on together.

These two “name” problems are not two sides of the same problem. We are basically two distinct peoples with very linked but different histories. Some of us, or our ancestors, migrated here so we have inherited a problem, and now it is ours. Opportunity to reconnect within our community is ours. Failing to do that these past few years has resulted in antagonism, and conflict between us, prejudice, racism, blame. This is painful at a community scale, and it has gone on too long. Let’s take a breath, step back from reacting and taking it personally, and get working together again, for the good of ourselves and our whole community.

This fall we will have opportunity in a civic election to choose new leadership. The choice is very clear. Will we choose those who make promises that focus on what we fear, and deliver continued division and misery? Or will we choose leadership committed to reconnection with each other in spite of our different views, in spite of our apparent divisions, willing to face whatever is ahead of us together, however hard that might be, together as one community.  I hope and pray we all care enough to vote with true hearts, and take the path back toward thriving together.

Let’s Listen & Talk, about identity and heritage

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A little over four years ago I met with a man I respect.   He wanted to talk about something that felt urgent and important.  It was hard to address, and deeply personal.  We sat in his truck beside the ocean. I listened.  

A short time before that, the question had been asked of city council while in a C3 meeting with the Tla’amin legislative council and the qRD Board, “will you consider changing the name of Powell River?  The name Powell has painful associations for indigenous people here.  It shook and divided our community.  But the question being articulated by this brave friend was “what of my identity and my heritage? I had no good answer.   His question stuck with me.    

Back to the City, a working group was formed, and meetings and public gatherings followed, and by the summer a year later that group produced a report with 11 recommendations.  It was a serious effort to address the name change question and underlying reasons it was asked.     What it didn’t represent was the question this man had asked, “what of my identity, my heritage?    Now, four years after both those questions were asked, one very public and one not public at all, something has become clear to me. 

The name change question devolved into a simple binary; yes or no, and most of us aligned with one side or the other.   For three years there’s been division in our community.  Some want a poll to democratically decide.   Doing that now would confirm division.  It would belie that we are one community, that we all have our community’s best interests at heart and all love being here.  My friend’s question points to a way through.  What is my identity?  What is my heritage?

The answer to that question is as varied as we are.  We are from many places in the world, with many backgrounds.  We bring diverse, rich heritages and identities.  This community is world renowned for culture, athletics, and natural beauty.   We are rich in these things.   Can we unite in pride and celebration for this wealth we all happily share here?   Yes, we can!   We can remember who we are, remember we are one community.   We can grieve losses together, personal and community-wide.  We can celebrate all the good we have together.   However, we have work to do now to remember that.  There is no way around it. 

We have to start somewhere.  Council and the City have been unable to restart us; this is work for community.  If we acknowledge & celebrate everyone’s identity and heritage, maybe then we can consider our name.  

Let’s meet in the Cran Hall Tues. Oct. 28 at 7 pm to talk and to listen.    

A question for our community     

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  For months I have tried to figure out how to address the festering pain in our community that has grown out of the unanswered name change question. 

I have asked various people and discussed it at length with some; how can we get this conversation started again?    They care as deeply as I do about our community and our mental health.   Apparently, no one I know on any side of this picture wants to approach it directly any more.  A lot of hurt has happened.   There are at least three camps representing at least three distinct viewpoints, probably more.     Years now of hurt, frustration, and disappointment have sent most of us into corners, far from talking, but I am convinced, talking is the only way through.   

I thought to bring this to council.   Council could discuss Strategic Priority 1-2: “Take substantive steps toward reconciliation with Tla’amin Nation, by engaging the public on the topic of a name change, including a possible new name, leading up to a public opinion poll timed with the 2026 municipal election.”    It doesn’t say we will hold a referendum in Oct. 2026 to ask, yes or no, do you want a name change?    However, when the deadline comes to commit to what can be included with the election vote, it would be disingenuous to simply say no we can’t do a poll if we haven’t by then made a genuine attempt to “…take substantive steps… by engaging the public…”.   That means us.   That means talking.   Talking is how we engage. 

It is clear to me the original question “will you consider a name change?” can’t be answered by a simple yes or no.  If it could be, it would have been, long ago.  That it caused such strong reactions from both yes-supporters and no-supporters strongly suggests deeper questions must be asked first.      Both yes and no leave a lot of people out.   Leaving people out is not how community works.  We need to face it.  We are in conflict and conflict is never actually resolved by winning or losing.

Deeper questions?    How many of us have tried to figure out what they are on our own or with friends?  Nothing is resolving.   We’re quite stuck in our positions.   We need to break the logjam we all seem to be in.    Might that be possible if we got yes-camp people facing off with no-camp people?   Could that happen without just hurting each other more?  

Who has what it takes to step beyond personal beliefs, and face others who possibly believe the opposite, and talk about it.  Can our community be more important than our beliefs?   Could this work for us?   

We’re all here.   I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love our home, this community.   We have that in common.   Instead of fighting, lets find a way to talk and find our way through this mess together.        

Together

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The role of leadership is not to choose sides or one arbitrary view, but to listen to all views expressed by community, to chart as safe as possible a course forward, and to change the course as necessary. 

Individually we can choose to separate ourselves from each other according to our beliefs, but despite how different or contrary they are from each other, our individual gifts and uniqueness don’t need to separate us if we simply accept that we all potentially have a place, and usefulness.  Who of us don’t believe we belong in our community?  How prone are we to consider beliefs that don’t agree with ours to be wrong, and the people holding them wrong too?  Do we seek to understand why they’re different or do we just write them off, denying their potential for belonging, and their value to community? 

What works will thrive and what doesn’t will not, and that is the way of nature, the way of the ecology of our Earth home.   Are we each not truly a part of that?  How can we be anything but part of it? 

It is vital for leadership to put the best interests of community before any particular ideology or belief, however apparently justifiable or popular, even if it is science.  Science is alive.  It changes.  If ideology is put before community, people will be excluded.    Ideologies, and beliefs alone ultimately divide us.   Together, we thrive.