The newly elected Taykwa Tagamou Nation (TTN) chief and council share aligned visions for the community’s future, says Chief Bruce Archibald.
The Cree First Nation, whose reserve is located in the Cochrane area, recently elected a new chief and council.
Bruce Archibald was re-elected as the chief, while Derek Archibald was elected as the deputy chief.
The chief thanked the members for taking the time to vote, noting it’s important for as many people as possible to participate in choosing the leadership for TTN.
As of March 2021, the TTN population had 667 people, of which 123 people lived on reserve.
“With the people we’ve got, we have a really great team,” the chief said. “We’re all aligned in regards to moving our community forward, building our community to be a better community for the membership as a whole.”
Advance polls were held in Moosonee, Thunder Bay and Detour Lake Mine. There were 52 mail-in ballots and 636 ballots cast on election day. A total of 860 ballots were cast of the 1,276 eligible ballots.
Taykwa Tagamou’s new councillors are Melissa Archibald, William Archibald, George Ross, Stanley Sutherland, and Youth Coun. Jamal Gagnon.
The chief and council had an initial meeting Monday where they discussed their visions for the upcoming term, the chief said.
Moving forward, the chief and council want to engage in a nation-to-nation relationship with the federal or provincial governments, use the Elder’s council and continue generating revenue through economic development partnerships to keep enhancing programs in the community that protect traditional lands and sovereignty while improving the livelihood of all members.
When the chief and council started the last term, they wanted to restructure the community, Chief Archibald said.
“We created new policies for the First Nation, so we can have a structure that we follow to property govern our community,” he said.
In March, the Nation received a Financial Management System Certification from the First Nations Financial Management Board (FMB).
That was a big achievement because the Nation went through rigorous testing and passed on the first try, said Deputy Chief Archibald.
“Our finance administration government practices meet the FMB standards, which are based on the international, recognized standards of financial management,” he said. “We had to develop the law, improve our financial management system, improve our financial performance, financial reporting.”
The Nation is currently working on a family wellbeing law and will be working with the federal government on trying to have it finalized, the chief said.
“We’re working with community members, elders and youth on coming up with a draft to present to the government on what TTN wants to see on how we engage with government in regard to child welfare and wellbeing,” Chief Archibald said.
