Dolan Paul

Dolan Paul in his office.

I managed to meet with Dolan Paul after rescheduling with him twice. He was struggling with a cold when I sat down with him to chat about his role as a councillor with Tk’emlúps Indian Band. He holds the education portfolio. At just 37, he’s a young councillor but is quick to point out that there are others on the council who started when they were even younger than him.

I sat down with him in his office. It overlooks the band school, the Sk’elep School of Excellence and the old Kamloops Residential school building.

“They’re two very different buildings. One has a lot of negative history behind it and one is one of proudness, that will help us regain what was lost with the other building. Always having being aware of that history is an important part to understanding where we come from and not be held down by it,” he said.

For Paul, education plays an important role in the community and its future.

“I see it as a major point from where our community, our people have to really develop our numbers especially nationwide and in regards to First Nations people is very low in regards to any kind of post-secondary, masters, business, doctorates, anything like that, our numbers are very low and we’re working on bringing that up, the literacy as well. There’s a number of people, First Nations community members that have the leaving school certification opposed to the dogwood so to bring that up and to have a number of our community members with education only helps our community, to bring them to a point where we’re at a level with all the other communities,” he said.

“It’s important for people to actually be prominent, be helpful with not only themselves but every avenue with society.”

Part of the path to increasing the role of education in the lives of Tk’emlúps Indian band members is the Sk’elep school.

“It has many possibilities. Like a lot of our youth in today with the numbers we’ve seen with our studies is that we have under 10 people in our community that actually speak Secwepmectsin fluently and so the first thing is to actually realize why that is and to start with our youth, that’s the best place to start is the language, giving people that tie to our culture and to continue that on from those younger generations, hopefully that will have the same effect on the older, their parents. Myself, I’m only starting to learn my language as well. I wish had more access, like my mother doesn’t know, my grandmother barely knows the language anymore because she doesn’t practice it as much as she used to,” said Paul.

“Language and culture, it’s to identify ourselves and to create that pride that you’ve seen lost for a number of years with just certain things in history that have we practiced not to be, to not have that pride. That was instilled in probably the generation before me and so I’ve never looked into it myself, but getting back into it is really a major thing with our community and our people.”

When he took over the education portfolio, it was a lot to take in all as once.

“There was so much emphasis and so much things going on now with different levels of Federal, provincial government that is changing and it is really exciting to see it really starting to grow like with our school and having so many people phone and express their concerns on which direction we should go in regards to our different levels of education,” he said.

Tk’emlúps Indian Band’s ability to be in control of its own future is also tied to education in Paul’s eyes.

“It goes hand in hand because without the education to back that up there’s no real direction you can go in regards to self-determination and it’s not only with that, it always has to stay culturally sensitive in regards to education and that’s why we have those different schools,” he said.