The W̱SÁNEĆ Leadership Council is pleased to welcome Dave Paul Jr. to the team.

Interviewer:

Okay, so very first question. Can you please tell us, your name and a bit about your background?

Dave:

My name is Dave Paul, Jr. I’m from Tsartlip first nation. I’ve been a community member for the majority of my life. The only time actually lived away from here with when I went to a University, I went to Simon Fraser University in the eighties, and then when my house was being built for about a year and a half, two years, otherwise I’ve lived in our community for almost all of my life. I attended university at Simon Fraser and obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Arts with a criminology major and I worked in corrections for 30 years.

Interviewer:

Okay, thanks Dave. So what’s your role and title at the WLC and what are you going to be doing?

Dave:

I’m going to be the, CRD liaison. So I will be working with, the leadership council, the council members, the community members, and also the capital regional district, which encompasses 11 municipalities. So my capacity, which I guess will be further developed over the next while is to help bridge the gap between our nations and the municipalities up the CRD.

Interviewer:

Okay, great. Can you tell us anything at all about what kind of projects you’re going to be working on specifically?

Dave:

Not really. I haven’t really met with, my supervisor yet, but he’s explained that we’re going to be trying to do some economic development. We recently signed an agreement to develop a trucking company that we’re going to help, move biosolid waste from the Hartland landfill over to the mainland.

I think also what we’re going to be doing is taking the interest that the three bands that are members, what we would like to see going forward within our traditional territories.

Interviewer:

Gotcha. Okay. So in terms of the ideal outcome of the work that you’re going to be doing, would you describe to us what you’d like to focus on and what you would like to see happen as a result of your work?

Dave:

Boy, that’s a tough question. I would imagine what we’d like to see going forward. We’d like to see not only more economic opportunity but more balance for our people that we’d be able to operate,  harvest medicines, food without a lot of animosity and anger directed toward us. A lot of people don’t really know about us, W̱SÁNEĆ people. They know that where the reserves are if you live out in the Saanich peninsula, but they don’t know that we all have different lense on the Gulf Islands and Goldstream. When people don’t know about, or don’t have knowledge about us, there’s a certain amount of fear that’s prevalent. I think if we want to succeed or we want better opportunities for our people, we need to lessen that fear or allay those fears, fears about us. We just want to exist in this country and this land with the rest of society.

Interviewer:

Gotcha. Thanks Dave. So when you’re not at work, what do you do in spare time or for fun?

Dave:

Well we just finished the spawning. We went fishing up at Goldstream. We go there every year. I’ve taught my kids since they were little kids,  to get fish. So I don’t know if that’s spare time. That’s just something we build into our lives. Every fall we go there, we get fish, we smoke in the summertime. We buy fish from either the Sto:lo people or from Nuu chah nulth and we can fish for the year. So we all know how to do that here. We also like I’m teaching my son how to hunt as well. I go with family members up to the mountains. I am also an avid reader, I am about to start my 39th book this year,

Interviewer:

Great. Thank you so much for your time, Dave. Really appreciate it.

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