New West introduces its Indigenous relations advisor

It’s been seven months since Christina Coolidge was hired as the city’s Indigenous relations advisor, but there are still things she’s getting used to.

For instance, now working in a municipal government setting.

“I worked for [Simon Fraser University] when I was a student, but I worked on Indigenous files, and I worked with other Indigenous people,” Coolidge tells New West Anchor. “Up until that point, everyone I’d worked with was Indigenous.”

Properly settling into her role was part of the reason why Coolidge said she wanted to wait until September to announce she was in New West.

Coolidge has more than ten years of professional experience in Indgenous relations, while also bringing her personal perspectives to city hall: Coolidge is of Salish, Cree, and Métis ancestry. She’s from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation on her father’s side, and Cree and Scottish Métis from Treaty Six territory on her mom’s side. Her European ancestry is Danish and Jewish.

“This is the first time I’ve ever worked in a colonial government setting, and so you hear many different things as an Indigenous person that, it’s very challenging, and a lot of Indigenous people are really harmed by these positions,” explains Coolidge, noting her goal is to guide and help facilitate the steps needing to be taken in the city’s reconciliation efforts. The current city council had listed reconciliation, inclusion, and engagement as one of its priorities this term.

“I found that the more that I give, the more [my colleagues] return. It becomes this reciprocal thing where they’re letting their walls down a little bit, and bringing their mental, emotional, spiritual beings into the room with me, rather than just their professional hat.”

Coolidge has also been educating her colleagues in Indigenous history and culture. One of her goals is to put together long-term strategies for decolonizing the city’s practices and policies, with that work ongoing.

“We just started an elder-in-residence program…we have an elder coming into the city once a week on Wednesdays. From noon to 2p, we have soup and bannock available for all the staff to come and sit down and have it.” Coolidge says people can choose to have conversations with the elder over a meal, or they can request one-on-one time. The elder will also sit in on meetings and committees to help provide an Indigenous perspective.

Do other cities have a similar role?

New West Anchor reached out to Burnaby, Surrey and Vancouver to see if their cities also had Indigenous relations advisors. Vancouver did not respond to us by deadline. The City of Burnaby has a position called 'director, Indigenous relations and reconciliation.'

The City of Surrey told The Anchor it “uses an integrated and collaborative approach to ensure Indigenous leadership through the Surrey Indigenous Strategy.” This is a coalition of organizations that the city says plans and advocates for the community’s needs and priorities.

Coolidge says it’s great to bring in an Indigenous advisor at any time to work with a municipality, but underscored that the onus of doing the work is not on that person.

“If you’re bringing in an Indigenous advisor, or some kind of consultant, you can’t have the expectation that they’re going to build the relationships with the nations or that they’re the ones looking for elders,” says Coolidge. “I think that is an expectation from not just a lot of colonial governments, but western corporate entities of all kinds. If I’m doing your reconciliation work, then you’re not actually reconciling, right?”

For anyone looking at incorporating such a role into their organizations, Coolidge says some soul searching should be done.

“You have to make those expectations, otherwise you are potentially putting an Indigenous person in a position to be harmed,” notes Coolidge.

As for some of the upcoming challenges, she says she’s ready to tackle them head-on. “Everything we do as Indigenous people is political. My existence is political, and so that part for me, personally, is very challenging.” One of the challenges Coolidge says she enjoys in her employment is figuring out how to be creative while educating others on Indigenous issues.

“It’s going to be difficult. You can’t force someone to learn something they don’t want to learn. It’s like thinking outside of the box to educate people, so that they don’t even know they’re being educated.”

In the meantime, Coolidge says she’s looking forward to cultivating further connections with people at city hall; in the near future she'll be extend that to the general public.

She’s also hoping to bring a second person into her department.

“I just want to make sure I have a really good grasp of what I’m doing, and that I have a clear focus before I bring someone else into this.”