An interview with Deputy Grand Chief candidate Ashley Iserhoff

TN: How are you feeling about the July 15 election?

AI: It was very exciting. Elections are a very exciting time for everybody and people are very anxious. I guess I was more anxious than nervous to hear the results.

TN: You now down to one opponent, tell me why you are a better choice for the Deputy Grand Chief than Bella Petawabano is?

AI: I am not going to say that I am a better choice, I am going to say that for the past few weeks, in all of my work I have always used what my grandparents and what my parents have taught me: that you respect everyone’s views and respect everyone around you. The ideas that you share with people, that people take what you believe and take how you share your ideas and what your vision is for the future, people will jump on board and be there to support. The result that I saw this past election night was that there was a lot of support there for me to be back as the Deputy Grand Chief for another four years.

I think that when you are young you have a lot of energy to do the work, you have a lot of energy to share new ideas with people and I think a lot of people do want change in the way we govern ourselves. I went through that system where youth felt as if they had no voice but now they do have a leader that is there who is fairly young to ensure that the voice of the young people is heard. I think for the past four years I have worked pretty hard to ensure that all the people’s voices were heard. Whatever they shared with me, I echoed that at the Council Board and tried to make sure that what they wanted was being done.

There is still a lot of work to be done. There are a lot of things that the Cree Nation has accomplished in the past four years. I know we have a lot more to accomplish in the future. There are as well challenges in terms of bringing down all of the statistics in terms of what is going on with the social aspects and that is something where everybody needs to come on board. It’s not just going to be one individual, it has to be a collective effort, everyone has to come together and work together.

There is a saying that I live by: when we stand together and speak together as one voice we are strong. That is how I believe this campaign that we have been traveling around throughout the Cree Nation, we have been giving that message out, when we are together we are a lot stronger than being apart and than being divided on issues.

TN: You and your opponent have very different perspectives. Tell me how your vision and your campaign vary from hers?

AI: In the campaign that I have been working on, I have always believed that it is the people that are the ones that make the decisions that we make and we need their support. We need to ensure that we are communicating all of the stuff that people need to know about all of the agreements that we have and to ensure that what has been worked on for the past few years is going to happen. We have been at, since the signing of the New Relationship Agreement with Quebec in 2002, there was one part in there that we needed to implement. This was the policing, that was one part of that agreement. We just got confirmation this past week that Quebec and Canada have finally signed the agreement and we have finally settled the police file. It took seven years to do that and a lot of people were part of it.

It was the Cree Nation that supported the initiative for where we are today and my office and the people who I work with have never given up. I think we did this work collectively and when everybody works together, I don’t like to work on trying to divide people. I have said that during my work wherever I have worked whether it is as Deputy Grand Chief or in the past. I want to ensure that our people are being built up, it’s like a nation-building process.

At times I believe that the younger people’s voice is not adequately heard. About a year and a half ago when we were naming people to be on the Cree Nation Trust, I still believe today that we need to put people in there with a background in finance and economics. When people go down to get educated, they want to bring their education back to the communities, they want to use what they learned for the benefit of their people.

Sometimes people forget when they are put in positions of power as elected positions, they go into office but somehow they forget why they are there. I think this is something that because of my background with the support of my family and friends and all of the supporters I have had, I don’t just listen to what they say and drop their ideas or what they share with me. I try very hard to carry that message wherever I work and wherever I go.

There is a clear difference in the way I think, with agreements we have all the resources today and I think we need to ensure that the agreements we have in place are followed, respected and implemented. At times when people go into office or wherever they may be or what office that they have whether they be an administrator or they have their own ideas, sometimes people don’t work together. That is why during my campaign I said that we have to put our differences aside. We have to ensure to always remember why we are there and who we are representing and it is the people that put us there. That divisive kind of politics needs to go and we need to start working together by putting our differences aside.

TN: When last we spoke you talked a lot about economic development and helping out young entrepreneurs. There have been many attempts at doing this throughout the history of the Cree Nation, what would you do to ensure that these funds actually get to the people that need them?

AI: I am a very strong advocate, because I read a lot and one of the things I learned from my reading is that the people who create jobs in small communities throughout Canada do so through small business.

I have been advocating… once we sign agreements at the regional level and the money is given to local communities, community councils are the ones that decide where the money goes. If they allowed a way to create a fund to support local entrepreneurs to start their businesses, jobs would be created that way. Sometimes in the communities people have great ideas for starting businesses in our communities and I think we are in a unique situation in the Cree Nation where you can start any business that you want in all of our communities. Because people will travel x amount of hours to go to a store down south there is a huge amount of leakage from our communities to the south. We are spending millions down south but if we started businesses in our communities with competitive prices, those small businesses would have a huge impact in the economy because it helps locally. You are creating jobs, you have the product there and people don’t have to travel as far to get the products that they want.

It’s important for all of our people to understand that jobs are not just going to come from the leadership signing agreements and at the same time jobs need to be created locally. People need to support our local economies too because people who work in offices and the people that work who already have employment now, they are the ones that are able to travel to the south. We need to try and make sure that we are buying locally first and those people that are employed there will be secured for many years. It helps families and it helps people to know that the business is there and that they have a permanent and very meaningful job to be of service to the communities. That is a good feeling, to know that we have a lot more businesses in our communities. We have a lot of people thriving and a lot more people being part of the community who would feel more as if they are part of the community when they have successful businesses.

I have been a strong advocate of trying to have special funds in all of the communities for those who do not have the collateral to start their businesses. How are you supposed to have your own collateral if you don’t even have a job or when you do have a job and are basically making minimum wage? These people have just got such great ideas, if you could just find a way to encourage them to try and find a way to let them know that they have this support, it all comes down to the way local community leadership supports the programs. We have to find ways to stir up our own local economy.

I think the past is the past but I think now with the new agreements, the Paix des Braves basically was to push for economic development not just for our regional entities but for our local entities. There are a lot of local people who wish to start businesses and I think we need to start spending a lot more funds to help people with these ideas so that people can have jobs in their communities.

A lot of the development that is happening around the territory, those are short-term things. We need to find more sustainable employment so that there are long term and meaningful jobs in the communities.

TN: Were you to get another term in office, what would be your goals of that term and what would be your mandate?

AI: There are so many things I can touch on but I think the main focus is to ensure… we have the responsibility today as a people to ensure that our language and our culture, our traditions and our way of life be respected at all levels whether it comes from the government of Canada or Quebec. We have to ensure that the future generations do have something to go back to, to be out there and be part of being on the land. We have to ensure that the environment that we have in our own backyard is there always. Our grandparents and our people from the past worked really hard at getting us where we are today as a Nation and we are really fortunate to be where we are as people but we also have to ensure that the land is there to provide, that the water is not destroyed by development on our territory. We have to make sure that is always there so that our language and our culture can survive.

It is our responsibility as people and that is what has been given to us, it is a God-given thing that was given to us and we are very fortunate that it is still there. Even when you look at education, we have to get involved in our children’s education. The school board needs to be open to hearing new ideas from the people. I know that there has bee a lot of studies that were done but I think we need to ensure that there is follow up to all of the consultations and the stuff that has been taking place with the reviews. We need to ensure that what people said there is followed through.

I have always maintained that my door in public office is open and that I am there to make a difference and to inspire and help people to thrive and be successful. I want to continue to do that to ensure that every woman, every man and every Elder, that for all of our children that we are doing things today so that our future generations can also thrive. It is to ensure that they have a bright future and anything we do today and any decisions that we make today have a huge impact on the future generations. I have tried to live my life as an example for others to see that no matter what you face in life you can overcome it and that you can be successful. We have to start thinking of ourselves as being victors rather than victims.

TN: What was your greatest achievement that benefited the Cree?

AI: I believe all the achievements are the Cree Nations’. We always receive the direction, guidance, support of the people, from our women, our men, our youth, the Chiefs, members of the Council/Board. We think of our children’s future so they can continually live with hope and look forward to a brighter future. Throughout the past we all secured many agreements to benefit our people for today and the future generations.

From policing to justice to the federal deal, the recognition of the community of Ouje-Bougoumou, these were some that the Cree Nation worked hard to have fulfilled or secured. There are many individuals who helped us to secure the agreements. It’s a collective effort and it just proves when we work together as a Nation, we are strong. We have seen this in the past and we will continue to be there to work together as a Nation so that we can secure permanent and meaningful jobs, we can continue to work to deal with the housing situation.

I look forward to achieving more, collectively with the Cree Nation.

TN: What would you do over if you had the chance and how would you change the outcome. In other words have you learned from past situations?

AI: I don’t think there’s anything I would try to do over. I’ve tried to do my best to ensure that the rights and interests of the Cree Nation are respected by everyone, including governments. As well as addressing the need to end all forms of violence in our communities, the social issues can no longer be put aside. We all need to be actively involved in making a difference.

However, when we sign agreements, we expect them to be respected. At times it’s frustrating to deal with the implementation parts of the agreements, at times people within civil positions try to stop the Cree Nation moving forward. My hope is that we don’t see this continue in the future, this is one part I would like to change.

I do know we all learn from past situations and to ensure we don’t repeat them again. I’ve witnessed people try to do things to others because of a passed problem they had with that individual. It’s unacceptable to bring people down and I continually to stress that we must put our past behind and our differences aside. Bitterness is a very dangerous thing when you hold any office, in our capacity we are serving the people.

You don’t represent people’s interest, because you have this dark cloud over your head and you want to find ways to pull them down. There are people doing this and I don’t want our future generations to go through the things I’ve personally went through in the past. I’ve learned a lot from my family, to let go of what people try to do and simply move on, we all have a significant purpose in life. We cannot repeat the hurts, we must find ways to build each other up because our children and youth see our actions and hear our words. I believe our people are over-comers and we are better when we treat everyone with respect and honour.

We must put our differences aside and start working for the people and not ourselves. There will be change in our communities, our young people will feel the hope. We will see more people succeed when we put all our efforts together.

We can change the way we do things today, so that history will show we worked together.

TN: What aspects of governance do you think the Crees need to work on?

AI: First, I have to say that I believe governance begins at home, every mother and father have the responsibility to teach their children the various tasks at home, to respect themselves, to love, to care, to be taught compassion, to understand that life may not come as easy in life as sometimes they may appear to be. They must learn to never give up on their dreams. We have that responsibility as adults to help them achieve their dreams.

I remember the stories of our Elders, our hunters who lived off the land many years ago. At that time, we didn’t require things to be written on what each individual had to do. At a young age, they were all taught to get involved. Just like in the bush camps, children wanted to help around the camp, they wanted to learn new things every day.

They were taught different tasks, so that they would eventually apply it in their daily lives when they were older. Everyone knew they had an important role to play. It was passed down from generation to generation.

When residential schools came along, things changed. Many families were separated for months, if not years. The children, the parents and the grandparents were hurting. Our villages once had children running around being children, and then they were forcibly sent to schools outside our communities. Today, we still continue to face many hurts because of what happened, but our people survived, our language is still strong, our culture still survives, our way of life is still living.

I think one major part we need to bring back in the Nation is the way we respected everyone’s role, to embrace the important teachings and roles of the women, men and our Elders, to continue to help and inspire our young people to succeed. I believe we will have a lot of achievers when we embrace our ideas and encourage each other. This will lead to having a stronger people, a stronger way of governing ourselves.

We perhaps need to revisit at the different policies within organizations so that our people can succeed. Perhaps some policies are there for our people to fail, we seriously need to look at what our Elders taught us, they never gave up until the child or youth understood why they were taught certain things. We need to have this teaching actively used; our people need to be educated so that we have the teachings within our organizations.