EDITOR’S NOTE: The M’Chigeeng band election is slated for Saturday, September 9. Two of the 12 nominated candidates have consented to let their names stand: Adam Debassige and incumbent Linda Debassige. The platform positions of the two candidates follow this note.
There are 19 candidates standing for band council. They are: Kim Aelick, Albert Beaudin, Jesse Beaudin, Jeff Bebonang, Andrew M. Corbiere, Dennis Corbiere, Ray Corbiere, Grace Debassige, Howard Debassige, Kimberly Debassige, Leslie Debassige, Lewis Debassige, Sam Debassige, Forry Hare, Thomas Hare, Melissa Kasunich, Daughness Migwans, Henry Panamick Sr. and Hazel Recollet.
The chief electoral officer is Dan Simon who noted that mail out ballots were sent to all off-reserve members who have contact the electoral office. Two advance polls will be held on Sunday, September 3 and Monday September 4 at the M’Chigeeng complex from 2 to 5pm. The final poll will be held Saturday, September 9 from 10 am to 5 pm. The ballot count will take place immediately after the close of the final poll.
Home is where the heart is
After he retired, Adam Debassige resisted entering into the political arena, a role he was very familiar with having served on band council and as deputy chief for many years. “I’ve been nominated before but I didn’t let my name stand,” he said. With six children and 13 grandchildren he had plenty to keep him occupied.
But this time he changed his mind and decided to heed the call. “All of the kids have left the area,” he said. “It’s just me and the wife at home and the grandchildren are spread out all over the country, from Edmonton to Sudbury.”
Mr. Debassige notes that he speaks Anishinabemowin and his wife is a language teacher. “Now I am working on learning to read and write (the language),” he said. “It’s different because the language was never written and there seems to be a lot of different ways to spell things out—and they are very different than English.”
Mr. Debassige served for 16 years on the M’Chigeeng band council from 1977 to 1993 and was deputy chief three times.
His educational background includes business administration from Cambrian College in Sault Ste. Marie and he worked at Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for a year and a half before an opening with the M’Chigeeng band office came up in his home community. He went on to become the chair of Kina Gbezhgomi Child and Family Services, battling for years to build that organization into a successful agency watching out for the best interest of the community’s youth and their families.
He also went on to become president of the Ontario Aboriginal Lands Association where he played in instrumental role in establishing a three year credited course that prepared First Nations’ lands managers in dealing with lands and land claim issues.
Mr. Debassige has been very active in his community as a volunteer, working in the M’Chigeeng Minor Hockey Association for 16 years, taking on an Island-wide role as president of Manitoulin Minor Hockey where he established good working relationships with people from communities all across the Island. Connections with other communities are very important, he noted.
“I heard that a former chief had ripped the community eagle feather from the UCCMM staff,” he said. “We need to be working together with the tribal council. This is a time for unity and working together. We need to re-establish a working relationship with other First Nations. I want to get that eagle feather back in the staff.”
Mr. Debassige noted that since deciding to let his name stand for the position of chief he has visited nearly every household in the community. “What I am hearing is that there is a lack of information,” he said, citing what he characterized as a lack of transparency in such items such as education funding. “Who is getting what?” he asked.
Fundraising in the community is also an issue that he came across in his visits. “We used to raise a lot of money for hockey from bingos,” he said. “Now, we have to go begging to a committee to receive any funds.”
There is a lot of concern as to where funding is going and how the band’s resources are distributed. “There are a lot of kids off-reserve, a lot of kids with single parents who don’t know what is happening, there are a lot of people (band members) in Sudbury,” he said. “We should be updating the status of our land claims money, the windmill money, same thing. Where does everything go? Our casino dollars, M’Chigeeng gets its share, where does it go? Who receives it? What is the per capita breakdown?”
Mr. Debassige said that if he were to be elected to the position of chief he would deal with issues at a local level. “You can delegate a lot of these out of town meetings to other people and stay focussed on what is happening here on the ground at home,” he said.
Mr. Debassige pointed to the current controversy around the membership code as an example of divisive issues that are distracting from the real concerns he has been meeting at the door.
“We need to stand together,” he said. “If we put our minds together we can find solutions at the local level to a lot of the challenges in the community. That will lead to the betterment of our children and our future.”
Continuity is the key to successfor the community
M’Chigeeng incumbent Linda Debassige looks back at the last two years she has served as ogimaa in her community with a mixture of amazement and wonder, and, although she says she is loath to go there, with a little bit of pride mixed in.
“It really isn’t me to boast about what I have done,” she said. “I have been so focussed on the challenges that lie before me that I don’t have that much time to dwell on what lies behind.”
One accomplishment does stand out, however. “All that lobbying, all those long tiring trips to Ottawa and Toronto, Sault Ste. Marie, they have paid off,” she said. “I was surprised when I saw the numbers myself. We have managed to secure an additional $6.8 million in funding, and that is not including the lagoon.”
The final stages of phase one of the lagoon project is near, she notes. “We have been fighting for that for 14 years. Now the first phase with a lift station and its associated infrastructure is very close.”
Ms. Debassige admits that there was a tremendous learning curve in those past two whirlwind years.
“When I first ran for chief I was certain that I wanted to stay close to home, besides I hate travelling,” she admitted. “That might have been possible years ago, but that is not the case now.”
The vast number of partnerships the band is involved in to build alternative sources of revenue dictate a very hands-on stance and without a band manager, Ms. Debassige has had to step up to fill that role. “We have been trying to source a candidate for that position,” she said, “but it is very difficult. There are so many aspects to the job that require detailed skills because you are dealing with so many different projects.”
The band finds itself challenged in meeting “a Cadillac skillset with a Reliant budget.” In the meantime, Ms. Debassige has been backfilling the role. “The person who would normally be stepping into the role as an acting manager didn’t want the job,” she admitted ruefully.
In addition to taking on the band manager role, Ms. Debassige has been acting as a band rep in the child welfare department.
“We have a role to play in child welfare, as does every band, but we have a very small team,” she said. “That role requires a lot of travelling as well, as the child might be in Toronto or Sudbury or somewhere else.” Maintaining jurisdiction over its children has always been a major concern for M’Chigeeng, she noted. “At the end of the day the idea is to have jurisdiction reside in our own community.”
Ms. Debassige went on to point out that “I have people coming to me on a daily basis, bringing me their stories and concerns, trusting me with their information.” Honouring that trust requires a delicate balance. “I take those concerns with me to the local, provincial and federal levels when I am dealing with those issues that impact people’s every day lives. My ideas are really the community’s ideas, they come from the grassroots. So when I am dealing on a regional or national basis, it is the local concerns that are driving the agenda while I am sitting at the table.”
All this takes a toll. “I am a 24/7 chief,” she admits. “I have worked 50 to 100 hours every week since I was elected and I haven’t taken a vacation. But when people ask me where I draw my strength from, it is the people in the community.” When she sees the impact that issues are having on people’s lives, her empathy fuels her resolve to find solutions. “I find creative ideas rooted in the ideas of the people,” she said.
Being creative is very challenging when dealing with a bureaucracy whose policy books don’t deal with modern realities. “They didn’t even have a line for dealing with aeration lagoons,” she said, her civil engineering background coming to the fore.
Ms. Debassige forecasts that the load will let up somewhat, however, once the band has a manager in place—something that she admits she is eagerly looking forward to.
In the meantime, shovels are already in the ground for the community’s long sought after grocery story and business centre, slated to open in May of 2018. There have been successful negotiations for employment opportunities for band members with Hydro One for brush cutting and the Ministry of Transportation in the coming Highway 540 reconstruction. Ms. Debassige can also point to advances in the construction of badly needed new housing in the community.
