Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq - Development History

During late 1985, while employed at the Department of Indian Affairs's Halifax District Office as District Superintendent of Lands, Revenues, and Trusts, I received several calls from my brother Chief Lawrence Paul, Millbrook Band, and my cousin Chief John Knockwood, Shubenacadie Band, requesting that I meet with them, and four other Chiefs, to discuss the possibility of me accepting a job as the founding executive director of a tribal council that they were considering forming. If I were to agree to participate, it would require me leaving the security of the Federal Public Service to create, implement, and manage the Tribal Council. The other four interested chiefs were: Chief Charlie Labrador - Acadia Band, Chief Peter Perro - Afton Band, Chief Rita Smith - Horton Band, and Chief Roddie Francis - Pictou Landing Band. It was a perfectly feasible idea because such entities, although a new proposition for Atlantic Canada, were well established in other parts of the country, and were financially supported by Indian Affairs through its Tribal Council funding program.

From the beginning, via my phone discussions with John and Lawrence, I was aware that the rational behind their desire to create a Tribal Council was founded on their desire to have access to an organization that would have the capacity to research and promote the settlement of their land claims and other legal issues, and have the capacity to provide administrative and financial advice, etc. to their Bands. These were services that they felt they were not getting from the existing provincial organization, UNSI, or Indian Affairs.

At first I declined to consider their request because I already had a good federal Civil Service job, with great pension benefits, which offered future security for me and my family. In contrast, they had absolutely nothing to offer, no funding, no security or pension. The only positive was an opportunity to establish something that I had been advocating for the establishment of for a decade or so; a first class First Nation governmental entity that would be accountable, operate with transparency, and use responsible and sound administrative and financial practices.

Further, in addition to lack of security for my family, there was the prospect of overcoming two formidable barriers that would impede the establishment of such an entity - outside parties acting to protect their self-interests from what they would view as a threat to their security, and opposition from some of the band councillors within the councils of the six bands involved. The reasons such opposition could be expected from these sources were: I would be establishing an entity that would be viewed as a threat to the status quo that other Nova Scotia chiefs and councils were quite content with, and many Department of Indian Affairs bureaucrats would view it as a threat to their future job security, and be uncooperative. The reason for bureaucratic opposition would stem from the fact that tribal councils were meant to take over and administer many of the programs administered by the Department, eliminating the need for their jobs. All in all, not something that a sensible person would consider undertaking.

However, in spite of the described negative prospect, I finally agreed to meet with them at the Nova Scotia District Office in Halifax on December 3, 2005, to discuss their desire to create an organization that would be called the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq. At the meeting, I agreed to give it serious consideration and get back to them. That evening, I discussed the proposal with my wife, explained the negatives, and asked for her opinion. Her response was positive, “If its something that you want to do then you should do it.” Based on her support, I decided to give it a try.

Besides my wife’s support, there were two other factors that played a big part in helping me come to a favourable decision. The first, of course, was the challenge that the opportunity to be the architect of the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq presented, the other was a project that I had been secretly working on for three years, which was in direct conflict with the best interests of my employer, the Department of Indian Affairs, Pictou Landing Band's Boat Harbour lawsuit. If it had become public knowledge that I was working on it with Tony Ross, the Band's legal counsel, god knows what the job consequences for me would have been, an uncertainty that had me nervously walking a tightrope since 1982. I don't know if DIAND would have fired me for it, it was the real possibility that they would, leaving my family without income, not a pleasant prospect. By accepting the offer, I would be in a position to work on it openly. Overview information about the case can be accessed at this URL: http://www.danielnpaul.com/ChiefRaymondFrancis-Pictou.html

The day after consulting with my wife, I contacted John and Lawrence and told them that I would do it. This led to us arranging a meeting at the Nova Scotia District Office for December 6, 2008, between Bill Cooke, Atlantic Regional Director of Indian Affairs, the Chiefs and myself. I must admit that during this period I was seriously doubting my sanity for involving myself in a proposal so fraught with danger for my family’s future financial security.

At the meeting, Mr. Cooke was very supportive, committing seed money, and he agreed to second me to the new organization until the end of March 1996, at which time I would have to decide whether to remain a member of the Federal Public Service, or resign to become a full time employee with CMM. With this commitment of support from the highest Departmental official in the region, I acquired office space at the Micmac Friendship Center on Gottingen Street in Halifax.

Thus, with a base to work from, I was set to begin the process of making CMM a fact of life. Fortunately, this was not my first experience with setting up an organization from scratch. During my employment with the Nova Scotia District Office of the Department of Indian Affairs, as Superintendent of Lands Revenues and Trusts, I was handed the chore of setting up the district office component for the Department's Reserves and Trusts Program. It included everything from setting up financial systems to writing job descriptions for five positions. This experience was to serve me well in overcoming the sometimes, seemingly, endless obstacles and roadblocks that were in store.

Note: At this time DIAND was closing it's district office, and I was scheduled to move to a managerial position, on April 1, 1986, with the Department then known as Manpower and Immigration. As CMM wasn't on stream as of that date, my new employer's regional director gave me a three month leave of absence without pay to decide if I wanted to move to the Department, or resign and continue as CMM's Executive Director. In May, I decided to close the door on my federal public service employment, I tendered my resignation.

With office space secured, a telephone installed, and a small budget at my disposal, my next chore was to acquire furniture and office equipment to work with. The Department of Indian Affairs donated some of its used furniture inventory and equipment, and I purchased other used essentials at bargain basement rates from private entities. All in all, the collection wasn’t very impressive, however, I was satisfied that it was sufficient to allow me to get the development of CMM into full swing. I soon found out, it was to be a daunting task. I had to be jack of all trades, working on a multitude of urgent diverse tasks at the same time. To enable the reader to appreciate the complexities involved in engineering such an organization from scratch, I'll list them, and provide an overview of problems encountered.

Sitting up a bank account for the organization was high priority. An easy task? Not by a long shot. During this period, banks were having a great deal of problems with the bank accounts of Band Councils and Indian organizations, which made them very reluctant to take on any more accounts from that source. After many tries, with discouraging results, I managed to persuade the Agricola Street branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, the one I did, and still do my personal business with, to open an account for the organization. The relationship worked fine. However, even with a good record during our stint in Halifax with the branch, when we moved to Millbrook later in the year, the Royal Bank in Truro would not open an account for us, nor would the Bank of Montreal, our last option was the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Drawing on the reputation I had for professional financial responsibility, which I had established in previous dealings with them, I was successful in persuading CIBC to take us on. From the beginning, it was a mutually beneficial relationship, which is attested to by a copy of a letter of recommendation from it at the bottom of this page.

The next high priority startup item was to staff a key position, clerk/typist. I was well aware of a fact of life that many managers, to their sorrow, have not appreciated: to operate an organization professionally, a manager must have a fully qualified person filling the position.

However, this important chore, because of the urgent need to have a person on staff as possible, was attended to in a rush manner - I hired an applicant without competition, or checking her qualifications. This misstep had its funny moment. The 1980s, being the time when computers and word processors were coming on stream fast, it never occurred to me that a person who applied for the job wouldn’t know how to use a typewriter. Luck being what it is, I had hired such a person. This became abundantly clear to me after I had passed her some typing, not hearing the typewrite in action, I looked out of my office and observed her staring at the typewriter as if it were a foreign object. I asked what was wrong, she responded that she did not know how to use what was in front of her, not even how to turn it on, she hadn’t used one before. We had a good laugh about it and she resigned, and I got by on temps for awhile. When we moved to Millbrook, I was very fortunate to acquire the services of Barb Dorey, who proved to be invaluable in the process of setting up CMM.

With secretarial help available, I began writing a Constitution and by-laws for the organization. From the outset I intended to produce a document that would mandate that the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq utilize modern, responsible, and transparent administrative and financial practices in it's day to day operations. Such a professional operational foundation for the organization was a must if it was to be managed responsibly, and productively, for the benefit of the member bands. Having the documents available was also an urgent need for another reason - DIAND tribal council funding regulations required that a tribal council, with a constitution and by-laws, be registered as a non-profit organization under the Societies Act of the province where it was located. Not having any funds to acquire legal assistance to help with this chore, I had to do it myself. Which, in retrospect, I must have done a decent job - standing the test of time, CMM’s constitution is still essentially the same in 2008, as it was then.

Therefore, as soon as the Constitution and by-laws project was completed, I tackled the task of getting the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq registered as a non-profit organization. This deed was not as easy as it may sound because the consensus among the Chiefs and myself, related to the special status of Indians and lands reserved for Indians, was that it should be registered with the federal government. I couldn't persuade the feds to do so in a timely manner, thus, as Indian Affairs was threatening to withhold funds if we didn't meet the funding requirement to register our organization as a non-profit entity, I reluctantly registered it with the Nova Scotia Registry of Deeds and Documents. The organization was officially registered December 5, 1986, coincidently, the day I was born in 1938.

Concurently with these organizational activities, we had to deal with the reluctance to join the organization by some of the band councillors from the Band’s of the Chiefs that wanted to create the Council, which, to say the least, was a difficult chore. However, within a few months, we had four on board, Horton, Millbrook, Pictou Landing, and Shubenacadie, but, because Tribal Council Funding Regulations required that a Council have a minimum of five, we needed one more. Finally, after much coaxing, Afton joined; we were off to the races.

In addition, while the before-mentioned was being attended too, I was engaged in moving CMM’s home office from Halifax to new accommodations in Millbrook, writing job descriptions for all the new (approximately 25 positions) administrative and operational positions that needed to be created and filled to operate the organization, research director, education director, engineering, support staff, etc., and acquiring more office furniture and equipment to accommodate new employees as they came on stream. Recruiting and interviewing applicants was going on almost as fast I was writing job descriptions.

Also, in the midst of this dizzying activity, the most important and urgent task of all, one that was essential if we were to succeed, the acquisition of secure operating funding had to be attended too. Securing funds from some funding entities, such as land claim research funding was fairly easy, others, related to the bureaucratic obstruction I had anticipated in the beginning, was difficult. The following quote from We Were Not the Savages lays bare how some DIAND managers would nitpick to delay program turnover:

‘The threat the Confederacy posed to the comfortable situation of the bureaucrats caused them to raise obstructionist obstacles when the organization wanted to assume administrative control of programs. In early 1987, I was instructed by the Chiefs to begin consultations with the Department with the goal of CMM assuming management of the Department's post-secondary education program. The following is an excerpt from the condescending, paternalistic and racist reply of the Department's Regional Director of Education dated January 14, 1987, to our request:

Subsequent to our discussion in my office on January 13th, I contacted my program people in Ottawa. They advised me that there are no administration dollars from the education program and that all your administration would have to be borne from the funds which you receive through formula funding.