BEST NATIVE LEADER
CANADA NEVER HAD
Written
by Roy MacGregor from OSOYOOS, British Columbia
and
published in The Globe and Mail August 15, 2014
...the
following are excerpts from his article:
The
sun beats down on Canada's only desert ~ sagebrush on the far hills,
rattlesnake warnings along the paths ~ and the luxury resort,
surrounded by ripening vineyards, is packed with summer visitors. A
young blonde woman wearing a small dress and large rings, moves
across the street toward a brand new Range Rover (from $119,990 at
your local dealership) but halts suddenly startled by the thunder of
a Harley-Davidson rumbling down the paved approach to the resort.
She steps back and stares, slightly aghast. The motorcycle driver is
dark and solid and wears a helmet featuring the face of Sitting
Bull (the Lakota chief and holy man whose visions led to the Battle
of Little Big Horn in 1876...and who was later shot and killed by
U.S. Indian agents). The
driver calls the motorcycle Crazy
Horse,
after the Sioux
leader
who brought down Custer.
The
man on the Harley is Clarence Louie, chief of the
Osoyoos Band
and owns the Spirit
Ridge Resort, the surrounding vineyards, the winery next door and the
championship golf course in the distance. He
is, in no small part the creator of the Osoyoos
Miracle in the Desert.
“Let
us put our minds together and see what we can make for our children,”
Chief
Louie's great hero, Sitting Bull once said.
Clarence
Louie's other great hero is Billie
Diamond, the
Canadian First Nations leader who forged the James Bay Agreement in
the mid-1970's and brought prosperity and an airline to the Crees
of
Northern Quebec. Like Mr
Diamond,
who died at age 61 five years ago, Clarence
Louie may
be the best national native leader the country never had ~ an
intriguing thought during a summer in which First Nation's leadership
has rarely seemed on more uncertain grounds; Mr. Louie has no
national ambition at age 54.
“I
don't really think about Canada,” he says. “I've got my hands
full with my own issues. A lot of chiefs like travelling. Business
travel got boring to me pretty damn quick. I like staying on the
'rez' here. I just like creating jobs and making money.”
When
first elected chief in 1984, he was paid $250 a month. Today, as
chief, he is paid $18,000 a year. His additional compensation comes
from operating as administer of the successful band and as CEO of the
Osoyoos Indian
Band Development Corp. He
says, “First
Nations are being treated like 'wards of the state' whereby the old
'Indian Agent' mentality still exists. The federal government still
feels the need to control and pry into everything (including our
privately owned business and privately generated income) and at the
same time announces year after year in the 'Speech from the Throne'
that First Nations must take their rightful place in Canada's rich
economy, competing in the business world.”
Mr
Louie first rose to national attention a decade ago in which he
brusquely told an Alberta conference on aboriginal economic
development: “My
first rule for success is...Show up on time. My No. 2 rule for
success...is Follow Rule no. 1.” His
blunt message reverberated throughout First Nations and beyond. “Our
ancestors worked for a living,” he
told the conference, “so
should you.”
Clarence
Louie's own work ethic came from his mother, Lucy, a single mom who
raised a half dozen of her own children and others' children. He
believes there is a fair, if surprising, comparison to be made
between isolated Canadian reserves and inner-city America. “Black
people are like natives,”
he says. “They're
mostly raised by single moms and most of the people who get in
trouble are young men.”
While
the chief went to university for native studies and is respective of
native culture, there is nothing he believes in as much as
discipline. Lucy Louie, still alive and thriving, kept her children
in line at home and they learned to work in the vineyards, which
supplied grapes to various wineries. “Summertime
wasn't playtime,” he
says. “We
started working at 11 or 12 years of age...and at four or five in the
morning because there's no shade in the Okanagan. It was good
training grounds.”
Clarence Louie returned to university to become chief of the band
while in his early 20's. Unprepared, he lost an election, then
returned with a resolve that transformed the desert around Osoyoos
Lake. The band went from poverty, soaring unemployment and
bankruptcy...to a shining success story...even hiring natives from 36
other bands across the Prairies, British Columbia and the
Territories.
Mr. Louie is quick to note the band's advantage took far more than
luck, climate and proximity to Vancouver...to transform Osoyoos. Jake
MacDonald, writing in ROB Magazine in May, noted that the band had
$26-million in revenue a year ago and posted a net-profit of
$2.5-million. The band has used available federal and provincial
programs...astute hirings from outside...and partnerships to
transform its 32,000 acres into a thriving modern community.
He
has captured the attention of so many other First Nations that he
could easily spend half the year on the road giving speeches and
business workshops. “I
keep telling the government to concentrate on economic development
and then we wouldn't be in this mess. The original treaty
relationship was a business
relationship. It wasn't a 'dependency'
relationship. Even at the national level, I never hear the national
chiefs talk about that...they always talk about poverty. You'll
never get rid of poverty without jobs. Talk about Jobs. Quit talking
about poverty.”
Mr
Louie also stands strongly behind the need for a better education
system for First Nations, but with a caveat: “Once
you get beyond the fluff about what education is supposed to do for
you ~ make you a better person, more rounded, all that stuff ~ it's
really about making yourself employable. The more education you
get...the better job you're going to get.
When Mr. Louie speaks of his dreams for Osoyoos, he is always months,
sometimes years down the line. A $200-million provincial prison will
be going up near the band's headquarters at Oliver. His experience
while serving on a federal panel reviewing the operations of
Correctional Services, convinced him things could be done
differently...so the band bid on and won the project, though it will
not run it. Still, the prison will mean more jobs ~ and he hopes,
lead toward new approaches.
Then there is the hobby race track...a new idea that is itself racing
along...as the Osoyoos band is convinced it can attract a rich
clientele that prefers Lamborghinis to Land Rovers and might like to
live out their Formula One Fantasies.
The day done, Mr. Louie straps his Sitting Bull motorcycle helmet
tight...fires up the Harley and heads down the resort road toward the
band office. There he will collect his truck, parked beneath the
band sign that contains the same inspirational quote that runs along
his truck's bumper:
Native
People Have Always Worked for a Living.
Merle Baird-Kerr...penned March 6, 2015
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