Thank you. Before you today on the crucial topic of first nation law enforcement, I bring greetings and appreciation from our hegus, our chief, John Hackett, and the Tla'amin legislature. “Hegus” is spelt h-e-g-u-s.
My name is Derek Yang, and I am the director of community services for Tla'amin Nation.
Tla'amin Nation is a self-governing treaty nation with over 4,000 years of culture, heritage and knowledge here in the upper Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. I'm honoured to be representing the Tla'amin Nation today, along with my colleague.
The short story that we want to present is that self-determination is virtually meaningless without the authority and capacity to pass and enforce laws. Many federal and provincial laws, negotiating mandates, funding decisions and approaches to enforcement undermine or weaken first nation law enforcement rather than supporting and strengthening it.
My colleague and I will be responding to questions in our areas of knowledge. I will be speaking to operational issues regarding law enforcement activities in the Tla'amin's territory, while Mr. Browne will be speaking to legal, treaty and land code issues.
With that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, who will continue our opening statement.