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Governance Survey
Lake Babine Nation Governance Survey
Lake Babine is working to realize a governance system that reflects Lake Babine values, principles, and practices with, by and for all Lake Babine people at every step.
Much like the lives of Lake Babine people, the work of governance is a journey. In governance, we are not heading toward the end of the journey, nor are we just beginning. How Lake Babine people governed ourselves and our relationships to everything around us has changed over time according to the changes we have faced as a nation. The people we choose to make important decisions, and the people who administer important services, on behalf of the membership make up Lake Babine’s government. How laws, policies and decisions are made, and how programs and services are administered is called governance. As Lake Babine Nation people, we have always governed ourselves on this land. Whether it has to do with hunting territories, resolving disputes about fishing, or deciding who would be allowed to access different parts of our Territory, caring for our children, or dealing with community members who are harming others, all of this is governance that our people have performed in the past, continue to perform in the present, and will continue to perform into the future.
The work of governance is never finished as long as there are Lake Babine people and communities. The work being done now is to provide our youth and future generations with a model of governance that is based on Lake Babine knowledge and laws, and that will help our communities and members thrive for generations to come. This work is not about trying to fix immediate problems, rather it is to make possible a better future. Right now, many believe we only belong to the small reserves that were created by other governments. Amalgamation has divided our people and inaccurately fixes us to these small parcels of land. We would like to change this through a Lake Babine style of governance that would see us return to the freedom we once had to live across all of our lands according to our own laws. The clans of our nation do not divide us, but serve to provide ways for us to act together and govern ourselves according to our own rules about marriage, families, and lands. However, we must also be able to speak with one voice in dealing with the rest of the world. How we come together with one voice does not mean we all have to agree, but we have to have a way to agree enough to speak as one nation toward the world. This is what this governance work is meant to achieve.
We hope that you will share your voice in this work, so that every one of our members can help shape Lake Babine’s government according to our ways, our history, our language, our knowledge, and our laws for our people, by our people, as well as our needs and goals for the future.
Some important things to consider:
Government is a political body chosen by the people to represent the people.
Governance is what the people do through our government.
Our Inherent right of self-government arises from our Nation’s presence in our Territory before the arrival of European settlers.
The one starting point for this work, based on years of feedback from Lake Babine members, is that we need a Nation government as well as Community-level governments.
There is no “one size fit all” approach to governance and self-government. We can learn and get ideas from other peoples’ governance models, but at the end of the day we need to adopt a model that works best for our reality.
You’re being asked the following questions for one simple reason: we would like best understand your interests, your concerns, and the questions you have about Lake Babine governance, your input matters to us.
There are no right answers or wrong answers. Your name and your survey answers are completely confidential and
