Peguis candidate running for chief pitches co-operative model

Says business dealings have hurt impoverished community 

By Austin Grabish, The Express Weekly News

Dawn Thomas has a vision for Peguis and it’s one that doesn’t include capital development.

Thomas is running to be the next chief of Peguis and is campaigning on a model that’s entirely different than one put forward by incumbent chief Glenn Hudson.

It’s Thomas’s second run at politics – she ran to be chief two years ago, but lost to Hudson who has been the leader of the First Nation for the last eight years.

“We need to shift our focus from the for-profit model that we’re following to the co-operative model for our business model that we’re doing,” said Thomas in a phone interview last week.

Thomas feels there is a divide on the Interlake First Nation that is directly related to the business dealings Peguis First Nation has gotten involved with in recent years.

“It is causing a lot of grief and division in the community,” Thomas said.

“A lot of people are feeling left out.”

If elected chief she is pledging to move the band’s focus to a co-operative model, which would align better with traditional aboriginal culture, she said.

She thinks if Peguis switched its financial model to a co-operative fighting on the reserve over money would stop, because everyone would have something coming to them at the end of the year.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Dawn Thomas is running for chief of Peguis First Nation.

Thomas, a resident of Peguis for the last eight years, said her community is riddled in pain and grief that has come from poverty, the biggest problem on the reserve, she said.

Thomas said there is a serious lack of housing and community services in Peguis.

“We’re like pretty much every other First Nation in Canada,” Thomas said.

“The community and nation itself really needs support.”

She said rather than focusing on citizens, the current council has been prioritizing business dealings off-reserve in Winnipeg.

Thomas thinks there is a lack of communication between Peguis council and its band members.

She said she’s seen it first-hand during meetings she’s attended on the reserve over the last eight years.

“What needs to change is (the) lack of communication,” Thomas said.

“We’re starting to see a great divide happening.”

Thomas believes Hudson has too high of a salary and is promising to let the community set her salary if elected chief.

“I do have a problem with the high amount of salary. It isn’t necessary, I don’t think,” Thomas said.

Band members go to the polls on March 24. 

-- First published in the Express Weekly News print edition March 19, 2015 p.14