John O'Fee

John O'Fee in his office.

John O’Fee comes to the Tk'emlups Indian Band from the other side of the river. For nearly three terms, O'Fee sat on Kamloops city council as a councillor. Now, he's made the switch over to the band and has just taken over the role of Chief Executive Officer.

O’Fee’s background is in law. Prior to taking this job, he’d been practicing law for almost 23 years and that’s part of the reason why he wanted to make the switch.

 “For me it represented an interesting challenge and a way to apply the skills I’ve obtained over the last few decades in a different way. This is an organization that runs its own businesses,” he said.

Sitting in his sunny office overlooking part of the South Thompson and the back parking lot of the residential school, he compared his experience of band politics with his work on city council. 

“I think that First Nations organizations at the leadership level typically try to build consensus. They put their membership at the very top and the whole organization exists to benefit the member and what they are trying to do goes a bit beyond what a city does in that they run a school. They’re in engage in social housing projects. They engage in educations programs for their members. They try to employment opportunities for members and something you wouldn’t normally see a city council or regional district board to do so they take more of an active in their day to day lives of their members then you would see at a municipal letter,” he said.

As a band, the role of First Nations governments is different than other governments.

“Your mandate is to look out for your membership. You’re not just there to plow the streets and pick up the garbage in those kind of municipal functions that you see, it’s a social development agency and in that respect it is different in that it takes on the role of the provincial government does in the sense of social development and the federal government does and education and things that you don’t see at a municipal or local government level typically.”

“With in a first Nations organization there’s a much broader mandate then there is in any one level of government,” he said. “People don’t understand what it does. They see it as an equivalent municipal government and it’s not a fair comparison.”

That level of governmental responsibility is resulting in a different relationship with other governments. In his experience, the City of Kamloops works with the Tk'emlups Indian Band on a government to government basis.

 “We have a very good relationship. We cooperate on a lot of things,” he said. “There have been lots of partnerships in that regard and there will be more in the future, I’m sure.”

But this strong relationship has not always been in place.

“The relationship matures over time. I think that the city realizes that theTk'emlups Indian Band is here and vice versa. There are opportunities that can be realized by that, that there is some very good real estate on the Tk'emlups Indian Band that could be developed in a ways that would both benefit the membership and bring in the in the maximum revenue for the members,” said O’Fee.

“Any organization, the longer you have a relationship with them generally the more that relationship matures…the relationship between the band and the city is maturing and both sides have reasonable expectations of each other in terms what they would get and how the relationship will work.”

For O’Fee, he’s has a lot of faith in the band’s plan for the future.

“The band is coming into its own. It’s got a good strategic plan, it’s got a good master plan for the use of its property. It’s going to build out in a rational way and always putting the membership front and centre. When I talk to managers, we exist for the benefit of the membership, that’s what we’re here for so membership always needs to be front and centre in everything we do and we’re looking not only for the economic dividend but there needs to be a social dividend, that we’re employing band members, that we’re giving them training opportunities, the ability to advance in life and obtain certain skills. We’re also looking for ways to express the culture and the heritage of the First Nations that are here, that were here long before European settlers arrived. There needs to be a sense of place here in the things that we do and the future that says this is Secwepemc territory and that there is a cultural component to that.”

He’s like to see that cultural history acknowledged by more people in Kamloops because it’s an important part of the community’s past and present.

“It’s part of our shared heritage now and I tell that to people because if you’re an Italian and they’re digging up Roman ruins, you’re not Roman, but you’re interested in seeing the coliseum and the Roman ruins because that’s part of the ancestry of the territory that you’re in and I think that all cultures should be interested in the ancestry of the people who settled here first and that history and that story that needs to be told,” he said.

“There’s a statue outside city hall with the Schuberts who were the first European settlers. It’s kind of a stylized, they’re coming down on this raft on the river, you know, that’s part of our history too. It’s not necessarily a great day for First Nations people but it’s part of our history and we have to acknowledge that. Not all of our history is good. We have to acknowledge internment camps, we have to acknowledge lots of bad things, residential schools, the kind of abuse that First Nations endure, that’s part of our history too but it’s important that people know that and know that story. And one story that I don’t think we tell well enough is the story of the original settlers which are the Secwepemc people and their history and how they lived and what they’re about… you want to express that in the things you do. When you build a building like the Sk’elep school, there are design cues to that, statues and art that gives you a sense of where you’re at. It’s kind of go a lean-to look to it. It’s kind of got a neat feel to it, right. You want it to be an expression of your culture in some subtle way. It doesn’t mean it’s not a functioning school and obviously the original peoples weren’t setting schools like that with gymnasiums and things like that but it doesn’t matter. There are design cue that can incorporate those. You see buildings, they have a Roman look. You have buildings that have a neo-Spanish look and we can have buildings that have a neo- Secwepemc look.”

That perspective as a non-First Nations person is why I am pleased to be doing this project. It’s important for people of all different background to understand the history of the land and it’s key to have community leader put those ideas out there and get the conversation about First Nations issues going in a positive way.