Respected chief honored by his community

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Recently retired Yorkton Tribal Council (YTC) chief Tony Cote was honored by his community with a "toast and roast" banquet held Nov. 16. Seen as both a great leader and an outstanding role model in the First Nations community, Cote was recognized for the many programs and initiatives he began during his six year term, which ended this past October.

Cote was the founder of the first Saskatchewan Indian Summer Games, as well as the Yorkton Tribal Council Winter Festival. He also founded the first all First Nation Junior B hockey team with its team members coming from Saskatchewan First Nation communities.

"The way I see it, he gave all of himself to the First Nation community and he committed a lot of his belief in his First Nation people," said Bev Whitehawk, director of health and welfare for the YTC.

Cote worked to bring the casino to Yorkton,and was involved in the founding of Project Safe Haven, a safe shelter for battered women. He was also instrumental in the formation of the White Spruce Rehabilitation Centre, the Urban Services Project, and Yorkton Child and Family Services.

Thanks to his terrific skills as a negotiator, Cote was able to help his people get what they needed to run the health department more efficiently, explained Whitehawk.

"When he started here, there was only five people here in the health department, and he was really a political attribute for our unit,"she said.

"Now we have 45 staff. You know how it is, when you go into negotiation for government funding. He knew how to negotiate with the government. Naturally, he always walked out with what we wanted."

Before Whitehawk got the job she has now, she was working in negotiating and bargaining.

"I was more of a technical person, developing the programs, but he really helped us in our health programming. All our funding that we had applied for, we had received."

A major attribute Cote brought to the office, according to Whitehawk, was "knowing the communities, and knowing where we came from. He worked with veterans, he worked with youth, he worked with Elders. I don't know how he did his job, because now they've got two people doing his job. They have a tribal chief and an assistant."

At the banquet, Whitehawk was "shocked at the response the provincial leadership gave him, and what they said about him. They said he was truly a role model for them, because most of these politicians now are quite young. [He] said what he had to say, and people usually listened."

How will the YTC get along without him? According to Whitehawk, "It's going to be pretty hard to get that to work again, and a lot of provincial and federal leaders knew him. He had the reputation for never giving up.

"That's how we got that safe shelter. We had to negotiate for the funding. We got our land there for 99 years for a dollar a year. How could you get that now?" Whitehawk said.

"He is really a gifted person, really gentle. He said about the YTC staff he worked with, that he was part of the team. It was good to work with a team player."