PST creates issues for Cote

Page 1

The treaty day celebrations for the Cote First Nation on May 19 was not just about celebrating the signing of Treaty 4. This year the community also held a panel where 12 treaty issues were presented and discussed. The issues were on hunting, fishing, education, child welfare, concepts of treaties, treatment of war veterans, health, employment, funding and taxation. The panel was held in the gymnasium at the Chief Gabriel Cote School on the reserve.

"What we had along with treaty days was Treaty Awareness Days. We had our vice chief from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nation Lindsay Cyr, attend and we talked about the outstanding issues that Treaty 4 was dealing with," said Rob Cote, guidance counsellor. "Some of the points raised during discussions were the promises that were made in the original treaties, how the promises have been kept, and other key issues. On Friday students in the school had a chance to ask questions on one or more of the topics," he said.

Cote uses the provincial sales tax issue as an example of the type of discussion that the150 participants were involved in during the two-day event.

"As of March 30, we as Aboriginal people have to pay the PST tax. What we wanted to address at this gathering was how it is going to affect us now that we are equal citizens as everybody else in the province, how are we going to have access to the money that is allocated to our students for education," said Cote. "So we came out with this treaty awareness days thing and it turned out to be very informative for everyone. Right now the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations has a claim in court regarding the PST tax," he said.

"What we were doing at the school was creating an awareness and taking it to our leadership, but we also wanted to create an awareness to the students," said Cote. "If we had our own economic development on the reserve we would not have to pay the tax. So we are looking at ways of getting involved in economic development on our reserve. Out of the 600 people who live here, only 60 have jobs. So what we are trying to do as a First Nations community is to start creating our own employment. Right now we are in the planning stages of creating a gas station and quite possibly maybe even a mini-mall on our reserve," he said.

Presently the band is putting together a proposal to create jobs for the students on the reserve.

"We are looking at ways that they can work here on the reserve and just making them aware that staying in school is the only way to go, that they cannot really do anything with just a Grade 12 anymore, that they need more education," said Cote. "So far we have 12 students who are graduating from Grade 12 this year," he said.

According to Cote, a poll released by the University of Saskatchewan indicated that 75 per cent of non-Aboriginal people believed that everyone in Saskatchewan should have to pay the salestax.

"We as Aboriginal people have to start paying the tax, but we believe that it is our treaty right not to. Before March 30 all we had to pay was the GST. We now have to pay for both," said Cote. "It is going to affect the students that want to go on field trips because there won't be as much money for them to use. What is going to happen to our funding in education? How will it be affected? We did not know ahead of time that this was what was going to happen. When the budget came through, that is how we knew that we had to start paying [PST]," said Cote.