SIX NATIONS – Councillor Roger Jonathan opened the Six Nations Council meeting in prayer on Tuesday evening before moving forward to discuss issues within the community.
Representatives from Rekindling Our Fire (ROF) group asked council on Dec. 8 if they could hold a Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve at the community centre.
“We’re trying to get the community involved,” said a ROF spokeswoman. “There’s a lot of people hurting this time of year and we’d like to see everyone come together for some encouragement.”
ROF is a grassroots movement against suicide in the community and has almost 900 followers on its Facebook page. In November they built a lodge that housed what they called a sacred flame, where those affected could gather and commemorate friends and family members they’ve lost to suicide.
Councillor Helen Miller commended the group for striving to brighten peoples’ spirits during the holidays, which she said can be tough for community members this time of year.
“I can’t say no to a group in our community doing good things just because it is a holiday,” said Miller.
Council agreed to let ROF put on the dinner and waived the fees involved, which total $537, including a $25 deposit to hold the time and space.
Council approved that the Ministry of Children and Youth Services could provide funding for a Child Welfare designation capacity building and Aboriginal Alternate Dispute Resolution, totalling nearly $2.5 million. A recommendation put forth by the The Human Service Committee (HSC).
The HSC also asked council to designate one of their own members from the Six Nations Elected Council to be a community champion representative for the 2015 to 2017 Active Grand Project, which would help improve access to recreation in Six Nations, Brantford and Brant County.
Council decided that more information was needed from the HSC before they could make a decision as to whether or not they are interested and will bring the issue up again at the next meeting.
Representatives from the Six Nations Natural Gas company were there to present some financial reports.
Councillor Miller said that the report looked fine, but she didn’t see any section addressing the company’s history of bad debts.
A representative from Six Nations Natural Gas said that he did not have the information with him to properly address any issues regarding debt within the company at that time.
