Working with Oak Bay Council email and responses

Dear Mayor Murdoch and Councillors Appleton and Green:

Thank you for meeting with us April 28. Being unaware prior to the meeting of any concerns about our activities, we were not able to fully address those concerns on the spot. We’d like to take the opportunity to do so now:

1. The Feb. 1 agenda document shared with the Esquimalt Nation

The document flagged by the District (attached for ease of reference) is an agenda on which the only item of substance is the five questions ReconciliACTION asked to have included in order to receive updates. The two attachments to the agenda are the District document entitled “Truth and Reconciliation in Oak Bay—Community Resource Tool and Potential Opportunities Summary” from the March 28, 2022 open session of Council, a document which was posted publicly to the District website more than 10 months earlier, and a clearly marked one-page info sheet on the status of ReconciliACTION initiatives that we also contributed to the package.

We have been open from the beginning about the fact that we are in regular contact with the Nations to seek any guidance or direction they may be willing to provide to us.

2. District Relationship with the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations

At the April 28 meeting, the District expressed concern that the information shared with the Esquimalt Nation created “significant anger and anxiety” on the part of the Nation and “put the [District’s] relationship with the Nation at risk.”

We reached out to both the Esquimalt Nation, and the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and were assured this was not the case and that our activities to date are appreciated and considered to be helpful. As you know, Mr. Rankin had cited our work publicly in his recent address to Council about the Te’mexw Treaty process.

3. Status of the Oak Bay Reconciliation “Task Force” process

We were confused by the statement at our April 28 meeting with you that our sharing of the attached information with the Esquimalt Nation was the reason the District had suspended the “Task Force” process. Several weeks earlier (on Feb. 24) in response to our several requests to schedule the meeting to which we had jointly agreed, Chris informed us that the District had suspended the process:

“After reflecting upon the last meeting [Feb. 1], it became most apparent that the framework within which the District’s two-person Task Force, comprised of Councillors Appleton and Green, was operating under requires revisiting. While that takes place the Task Force is standing down.”

We have now learned that the District’s meeting with the Esquimalt Nation took place three weeks after Chris’ email.

After Feb. 24, we heard nothing further from the District for almost two months. On April 21 we were offered a specific date and time for a meeting with all of you on short notice to “discuss reasons around the suspension of the Council two-person Task Force and begin a conversation around re-starting a process to engage on community based reconciliation learning and conversation in Oak Bay.”

We continue to believe that having all of Council, the District and Community organizations and residents working together to advance Truth and Reconciliation in Oak Bay and build strong relationships with the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations in a good way is vital to the future of our community. It’s also the right thing to do. Advocacy to create that more just future together is a fundamental part of the ReconciliACTION Oak Bay Network’s reason for being.

We remain hopeful that some of the ideas we did identify and discuss on April 28 may form the basis for collaboration and joint action in the near future.

The ReconciliACTION Oak Bay Network remains committed to its work of building relationships with the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations where these are welcomed by and of value to the Nations. That should not in any way impinge on the essential government to government/Council to Council relationships that we are hoping the District of Oak Bay will itself build.

In the meantime, we look forward to finding ways in the immediate future to work together and continue the “conversation around re-starting a process to engage on community based reconciliation learning and conversation in Oak Bay” in which the District has expressed interest as well as other aspects of community concern.

We would welcome the opportunity to pick up the conversation with appropriate representatives before the end of this month and look forward to your timely response to this idea.

Yours sincerely,

Rev’d Canon Craig Hiebert

Bruce Kilpatrick

Felicite Stairs

Bronwyn Taylor

ReconciliACTION Oak Bay Network

Cc           Honourable Murray Rankin, Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and MLA Oak Bay-Gordon Head

               Gary Yabsley, Legal Counsel, Esquimalt Nation

               Selina Williams, Chief Administrative Officer, District of Oak Bay

               Chris Coates, Director of Corporate Services, District of Oak Bay