Governance Centre now open

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One minute passed. Then two.

At the podium, the Grand Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations temporarily lost his composure. He was reading the names of the 13 chiefs who originally signed Treaty 4, 126 years ago to the day when he suddenly put his hand over the microphone and began sobbing.

The afternoon of Sept. 15 was a very emotional time for the crowd of more than 300 attending the Treaty 4 Governance Centre's grand opening. It marked the day that one of the original treaty promises had been kept - that chiefs could gather on their own land to discuss matters of common concern.

"Welcome to Treaty 4 sovereign territory," said master of ceremonies Fred Starblanket in welcoming the crowd to the new facility, the highlight of the week long Treaty 4 commemorations.

"The circle is complete," he added. "This new facility reflects our treaty rights, our inherent rights as Indigenous people, and our duties and responsibilities of self government."

The most prominent part of the new Governance Centre is what engineer Gary Bosogoed calls the largest tipi in the world - a conical chamber to be used by the 34 Treaty 4 chiefs as their legislative assembly.

Chiefs met in the facility in their first legislative session on sovereign First Nations land in almost 120 years.

After the signing of Treaty 4, chiefs who signed the document met every September at the shores of Mission Lake until 1881, when federal Indian agents banned the meetings. Around the same time, the federal government seized about 1,800 acres of land in the Fort Qu'Appelle area that had been originally promised to bands under the terms of Treaty 4.

The First Nations were moved out of the area because Ottawa believed the Fort Qu'Appelle area could become the new capital of the Northwest Territories.

For almost a century, little was done by First Nations to promote and advocate the honor and respect for Treaty 4. There was little that could be done due to restrictions placed by the federal government, through the Indian Act, on First Nations' economic, political and social lives.

That attitude began to change in 1985, when workers excavating an area near the Fort Qu'Appelle Provincial Court building discovered the bodies of 27 First Nations people. It's believed these are the corpses of people who died while attending camps and congresses of First Nations people in the Fort Qu'Appelle area between 1874 and 1881.

A park and a plaque mark the burial spot today on a site where a condominium project was to have been built.

"Our Elders spoke to us from the grave," said Ron Crowe. "They speak to us still."

In 1987, the first plans of the Governance Centre were unveiled. At the time, Bellegarde admitted, the response from both the non-Native and the First Nations community was less than over-whelming.

"I remember people saying to us, 'ah, you're just playing around with our money,'" he said.

But the new facility "is a continual message that our treaties are alive and must live forever."

In their speeches, Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor Lynda Haverstock and Post-Secondary Education Minister Glenn Hagel called the Governance Centre a model of co-operation and mutual trust between Saskatchewan's Native and non-Native communities.

"This is a most auspicious and deserving day," said Haverstock. "This new facility represents hopes and dreams turned into fruitful reality."

In addition to the legislative chambers, the $7 million building will also house the File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council administrative offices, other First Nations agencies, and eventually a cultural centre, a First Nations' archives and museum. The Governance Centre will also be the new home for Parkland Regional College's Fort Qu'Appelle campus. The Canada-Saskatchewan Career and Employment Service office will also move into the facility, Hagel told the crowd.

"We're hoping to develop a one-stop shopping service for everyone's training and employment needs," he said.