Delorme building on a legacy of economic development

James Delorme was elected chief the summer 2011 in a by-election at Klahoose First Nation, "I grew up on the west coast. I was an army brat and my dad was stationed in the Comox Valley."

Delorme is in truth all-Canadian, "I was born in Nova Scotia where my dad was stationed, and we came west when I was age two." He schooled in Comox and made a career of working up and down the coast in logging and construction. "I went into shake block cutting and a friend of mine from Klahoose, the late Dave Noble, went to Surrey to work in a mill. I followed him and put my first aid ticket to work as an afternoon shift supervisor. Noble was on a housing list to return to his home village, at Squirrel Cove, Klahoose, four years waiting before he got there."

Delorme worked at the wood processing facility in the Lower Mainland and when Noble returned to Squirrel Cove, He was invited to the Klahoose reserve where he entered employment with Klahoose administration. "It seemed like a great place to live where I could be close to my roots in the Comox Valley." Eventually, "I transferred my Status from the Saskatchewan-situated Cowesses Band. My dad is a Cowesses member. We are Cree people." Delorme says, with a laugh, "That makes me the first Cree chief in Klahoose." (Klahoose is related to the K'Moks people of the Coast Salish Nation.)

Delorme says, "I transferred my Indian Status to the Klahoose Band about a year ago. I love it around Klahoose. Over the years I picked up some language, worked in administration, learned much about the culture, and my three kids are Band members. I made the decision to transfer and the Band accepted me."

Today he serves with three council members  Jessie Louie, Mavis Kok, and Cathy Francis, who were elected last year with former Chief Ken Brown. "I spend about four days a week in Squirrel Cove, and I rent on Cortes Island because housing on the reserve is at a standstill, so I rent a property off-reserve. This encourages me to get housing issues up to snuff."

The problem for Klahoose housing centres on an aging sewer system. "The feds are talking about upgrading the system so we can expand housing, and that is a primary goal for the community. We have a decent amount of reserve property but we need better infrastructure. "We aren't interested in re-inventing the wheel. We will learn from some of our neighbours," like Homalco First Nation. "This will open up improvements in our relations with our neighbours."

 When Chief Brown resigned this year, "I contemplated running for chief. I respected Ken's achievements. He was a good delegater and visionary in the direction the Band should take. No chief made such dramatic changes to our financial standing, and much of the success came from establishing Qathen Xwegus Managment Corporation. It's been in place about three years and was one of Ken's labours. Without his effort we may still be in a place without direction  and missing the ability to make firm economic decisions. This climate of economic development was opened to us."

Now Chief James Delorme has the opportunity to build for the future. "Ken had the ability to build his vision by delegating. But people sometimes forget that he was a big helper of the members. His ability to establish relations with government and industry weren't his only strengths. He was a generous man to the people and they remember that."

Delorme, who turned 40 in October, was elected into an organization that contains inherent strengths built by the previous leader, "Most of the team stayed intact. The economic development corporation was set up with a board of directors, and a logging program was established for Tree Farm License 10, and government relations were arranged. What has happened is the formula is intact and there's no point in reinventing the wheel. We were doing positive development under Ken and we have no reason to upset the apple cart."

There are changes, however, to band administration and tightening some gaps. "We are looking for positive ways to help the community, including expansion of health and education, employment. Huge gaps appeared when the economy dropped but we still have a strong economic base and forestry opportunities. We are recovering, and realize that we need to be taking care of each other, building social programs that government at both levels, federal and provincial, may be reducing over time."

The Band has work to do in treaty. "We believe in the treaty process and continue to work on it, but we require social support for members and this is the key element to my goals. We need to build longevity into social programs for Band members." Klahoose is not a large Band, "We total 317 members," he explains , "We have eleven reserves, two of which are inhabited. Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island is the traditional winter grounds. Toba Inlet, less inhabited, has been occupied related to forestry work iand run of river projects. We run Qathen Xwegus Managment Corporation and social programs from offices in Powell River. We have a majority of our membership spread around in B.C. and the USA."

He says, "Basically we have health, education, and other services targeted by the federal government for members on-reserve, yet the majority live off reserve, and we have concerns about how they get help with training, employment, health services, and social programs. Much of our membership has to go to the provincial government for extended health benefits and services. We have relations in USA with no extended health benefits," especially in Washington State."

Delorme says, "We need to create our own extended health benefits. It's going to take work, time, and energy. It's a big undertaking working with government and agencies to achieve these goals. Klahoose has a great relationship with School District 47 in Powell River, using various means of providing training and obtaining federal dollars to do this. Benefits come to the Band from this relationship with the school district, and some of these benefits spill over to our neighbours in Sliammmon and Homalco. We are working on a plan for post secondary education and small trades training in welding, core construction, and culinary arts."

Other news is the possible second phase of Run of River projects in Toba Inlet with Altira Power, who bought Plutonic Power, proposing a second phase of Toba Inlet run of river to proceed. “We are working on that now. We are hoping to have things firmed up in the new year. It was on the table prior to my being chief and a negotiation team is being assembled for talks in the coming year involving another Impact Benefit Agreement like the last one with Plutonic,” including royalties plus infrastructure, jobs and roads and services in these projects, which opens up Toba Inlet to more opportunities.

Another highlight in the community is the sawmill program started last year. "We had a sawmill operator come in and mill wood for smaller projects as well as the new administration building. We intend to buy our own sawmill and get School District 47 to train people to mill lumber. We will receive the timber from Toba Inlet forestry. We will train members, and market lumber with quality wood from the Community Forest in our IR NUMBER 1 property."

He says, "There are many things started by Ken and today we are stronger and more educated, but we need outside people who will fight on our behalf. My election is part of the change that is underway. I was elected by a younger crowd and had a lot of input, and I won by a significant margin in that by-election. I have 1.5 years left to go and I will do the best I can to continue Ken's legacy."

Klahoose First Nation setting an independent economic development course for the future

A new Klahoose First Nation administration facility puts a beautiful face on the future overlooking Desolation Sound from Squirrel Cove is being built from, "our own-source revenue that is funding the buildings," explains Chief Ken Brown. James Delorme editor of the Klahoose F.N.'s daily current account of the nation, says, "From the Squirrel Cove store you can clearly see the massive beams competing with the trees in the skyline. The main rafters are in place and now the final roof is being installed. Windows are near completion and walls are being erected to finish the various rooms inside."
    

Chief Brown, says, "No federal money is being used to build these structures. We are trying to get away from the dependency on INAC for our own community development." The chief wants to break the cycle of easy-come-easy-go federal transfer payments, a dependency cycle that grew in part from the wreckage left by Residential School system.
    

The chief says, "We are looking at what delivers results to our members, and we continue to promote the process of healing within our community," regarding these issues and the Chief who grew up in the nearby Comox Valley because Klahoose people stood in exile for many years in their history, exile by poverty that is.
    

The Nations being cut-off from their territory and left with a patchwork of the Indian Reserve properties, most of which became deserted by the people, for a complexity of reasons most of which are really bad news for Indian people, including that system that ran stolen children through a tortuous gauntlet that destroyed national aspirations and personal well-being in countless numbers of lives.
    

Construction of an 8-plex housing project starts now. This will create community restoration. The 11 or so Klahoose Indian Reserves may be largely deserted, but a couple hundred people with growing families can look to the future of a place in the Cortes Island community that survived the onsluaht and now begins to thrive again.
    

It is job-one with the chief to make skill development a priority that neatly follows healing. The chief envisions the future where his able people return and reconstitute their former ways of industrious activity. It stems from healing, indeed, and the chief says, "We believe in the whole idea of Residential School healing. Workshops must continue to promote well-being and encourage our people to reach higher to a better future for themselves and the generations to come."
    

He also needs healthy and well adjusted people to steer the course, "We have a lot of balls in the air, juggling a host of opportunities to set an independent course for our community." A solid start is the Klahoose First Nation involvement with run-of-river hydro developments underway with Plutonic Power. The power projects are important, a steady stream of economic output flowing through Klahoose First Nation entities.
    

Forestry in the Toba Valley is a further keystone in their planning. "That is one source of investment and management and employment opportunities we are putting together for the members of Klahoose. We are changing the approach we take to the future as a community," says Brown.
   

 The Klahoose economic development activities include growing mussels, a mariculture industry in their native waters. It is the modern reality of First Nation communities, says Brown, "that the welfare culture has to be broken and thrown on the scrap heap. It has thrown all First Nation communities for a loop." 
     

Klahoose is a village of 80 people on Cortes Island. There does exist no less than another 200-plus members elsewhere and they would like to return to their traditional territory, still in their possession and tribal members. The community making opportunity possible by drawing people into Klahoose reserve on Cortes, beginning with new housing in the form of a six-plex housing development.
    

This will be followed by a series of building schedules on new housing. The other reserves may remain deserted for awhile, but new things are going under construction this spring and summer of 2010, and lasting into the autumn. In fact this month saw Slegg Lumber's Richard Maris delivering loads of lumber to get the process of construction started this month.
     

Brown says, "With our economic base we are bringing the blood back into the village. Klahoose has a number of uninhabited Reserve properties but the Cortes property has always contained the village." The economic foundations are laid so now there is a demand of labour and an opportunity for skill development, but it doesn't stop there. "We have big forestry development opportunities as well, including forestry that will ensue from the power developments in Toba Inlet," says the chief.
     

Klahoose are Coast Salish with close ties to Sliammon First Nation in the vicinity of Powell River. A lot of work gets done in Powell River on the forestry side in Klahoose. Late Autumn of 2009, "Chief Ken Brown signed the documents to complete the conversion of Tree Farm License 10 to Community Forest Agreement (CFA) K4C. The official licensee remains Klahoose Forestry Limited Partnership, which is operating for the sole benefit of Klahoose First Nation," says a leading forestry article on the Klahoose website (see 'Klahoose Converts Tree Farm License').
     

Editor James Delorme continues, "This was a key piece of the Incremental Treaty Agreement signed in March and a big step forward for us ensuring sustainable management of the valley and economic success for this business venture. This conversion is a first in the province and Klahoose now owns one of the largest CFAs in the province. In terms of re-branding, we may want to start referring to ourselves as Klahoose Community Forest (in Toba River valley)."
     

Chris Roddan of Qathen Xwegus Management Corporation, and a partner in Theechim Forest Management  says, "In our approved CFA Management Plan, we have committed to undertaking a timber supply review process and new AAC calculation before September 2011." The community forest planners engaged by Klahoose First Nation are proceeding after the First Nation obtained Forest Investment Account funding to begin the planning process.
     

"Along with long term timber supply planning, we have to develop strategic plans for conservation of old growth and wildlife habitat," says F. Oathen Xwegus and Theechim Management Group are the forestry management and engineering companies owned by Klahoose First Nation. A & A Trading of Vancouver is moving a lot of the timber into market for Klahoose.