Shoot-from-the-hip minister restores UBCIC funding

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Exercising the right to free speech almost cost the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs a half million dollars last month.

The provincial government cut the First Nations organization's funding by that amount ($250,000 in each of the next two years) because UBCIC President Stewart Phillip spoke out against the British Columbia Treaty Commission process and in favor of a political demonstration by the Cheam First Nation in south-central British Columbia.

Shortly after the UBCIC went public with the news of the funding cut, the province backed down. Phillip said he believes the Aboriginal Affairs minister, Dale Lovick, acted without thinking and was then convinced by his advisors and colleagues that the funding cut wasn't a move that could be defended.

The First Nation political organization has been involved in the Joint Policy Council with the province since the early 1990s. It uses the provincial funding it receives to participate in that council to pay for 67 per cent of its administrative cost.

Phillip, who is also the chief of the Penticton Indian Band, said the UBCIC office received a phone call from a senior Aboriginal Affairs official on May 1 who said the minister (Dale Lovick) was not happy with Phillip's public comments.

"It was a threatening phone call from one of their senior officials," he told Windspeaker.

Phillip and his staff met the next day with their lawyer.

"She saw it as an attack on freedom of speech," he said. "So we wrote a letter to Premier Dosanjh expressing our deep concern and we waited about two weeks for a response."

Eventually, the premier responded with a letter stating the matter had been referred to the Aboriginal Affairs minister.

Another week passed with no reply, Phillip said.

"In total, we waited three weeks and there was no response, so we decided to go public," he said.

UBCIC officials learned, after their issue was covered extensively in the mainstream press, that the First Nations Summit had been hit with a funding cut the previous October and had not gone public. Instead, they waited patiently to work things out in private and not embarrass the government.

The UBCIC has never shied away from controversy or confrontation. Once the issue was out there, the Penticton chief said, Edward John, a Summit executive member, arranged a meeting with the deputy minister of Aboriginal Affairs.

"When we arrived, the deputy minister was taken aback that we were both there together because up until January of this year the First Nations Summit and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs were definitely not on the same page," Phillip said. "At that meeting, the deputy minister basically was saying it was unfortunate this whole thing took place in the first place and he assured me the funding would be restored and everything would be back on track. Shortly after that, they issued a joint statement that basically said the relationship between the two of us through the Joint Policy Council was valuable and needed to be maintained. The whole funding matter is now back on track. I think Mr. Lovick is a very volatile, shoot-from-the-hip kind of individual."

The UBCIC president believes the attempt by the province to muzzle his organization's critical comments about the treaty process is a sign that their comments are hitting pretty close to the target.

"We're pretty good at getting the truth out there that the treaty process is . . . well, toast," he said. "I think that's what's really bothering the province."