Next N.B. city council could lack First Nations representation

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Fox said he put a lot of thought into the idea of a designated First Nation seat on council.

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However, he concluded it wasn’t a good idea because the city shouldn’t put someone on council because they must, they should be voted in like everyone else.

He said the Colten Boushie killing shed light on the lack of race relations in northern Saskatchewan and he can understand why the issue isn’t at the forefront of candidate platforms.

“Heaven help me for saying this, and I’m not saying it is happening, I’m saying it could happen, but there is a possibility it could cost you some votes,” Fox said. “A lot of hate was uncovered with the Colten Boushie murder. I can understand why political people might want to take a back seat to the issue during an election.

“Well think about it. If you have a bunch of non-Indigenous people spewing out this rhetoric and this hate and you’re coming down the middle of it and want to talk to the Indians about it, they’re going to say ‘go to hell, we don’t want to talk to anybody. We’re trying to shoot them here,’” he said.

Fox clarified he wasn’t saying candidates don’t care about First Nations people and they don’t want to do anything about it. He said he thinks they want to appear to be the one spearheading it at this stage.

Upcoming mayor Ryan Bater said he doesn’t see citizens based on race.

“I can’t speculate as to why people aren’t talking about race relations. Fact is we live in a multicultural city, in a multicultural province and country,” he said. “What’s important is that we don’t identify on race and religion but how the person lives there life and how they want to be part of society.”

Regarding First Nations representation on council, Bater said there’s a fallacy in voting someone in to represent a race since councillors are elected to represent everyone in the city.  

The Battleford Agency Tribal Chiefs and the Battlefords Indian Metis Friendship Centre declined comment, while the Battleford Tribal Council couldn’t be reached for comment.

Greg Higgins is battlefordsNOW’s city municipal affairs and health reporter. He can be reached at ghiggins@jpbg.ca or tweet him @realgreghiggins.