The United Church of Canada’s General Council Executive has voted to uphold General Secretary Rev. Michael Blair’s decision to dissolve the National Indigenous Council (NIC) and convene the National Indigenous Spiritual Gathering (NISG) to set a future course — leaving some NIC members angry and hurt.
“That is not spiritual. That’s not right. Why? Why are you doing this?” Elder Evelyn Day told Broadview. She would like to tell the church, “Why do you want to hold on to us when you don’t even respect us?”
Day and other NIC members are particularly upset that the General Council Executive (GCE) described the NIC as dysfunctional. Day and others have said the leadership of the NIC was dysfunctional, and members had asked to have leaders removed.
At the NIC’s April meeting, the council voted to remove the existing chair, due to perceived incompetence, and elect new co-chairs. The chair objected and filed a complaint with Blair, who upheld the NIC’s decision, as did the church’s judicial committee.
Members of the NIC told Broadview they had been planning to hold a healing circle to contend with the problems in the NIC, then move forward.
But instead, the general secretary dissolved the committee on Aug. 13 and pledged to reconvene the National Indigenous Spiritual Gathering (NISG) and start afresh with a new NIC. The NISG is a meeting of all Indigenous communities of faith that usually happens every three years and is the Indigenous church’s top authority. The NIC is an elected body in the Indigenous church that meets regularly between NISGs to make decisions. The next NISG will be held in Winnipeg from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3.
Rev. Alan Hall, the United Church’s executive officer of shared services, said the church disagrees with the members of the last NIC that a properly attended healing circle was possible.
“There certainly have been efforts to find spaces for healing to take place. Even those efforts were challenged by the multiplicity of differences of opinion and perspective within the Indigenous church. And that had been demonstrated over the last year within the National Indigenous Council,” he said.
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“So, it did appear, in what the executive heard when it met on [Nov.] 8th, it was not just a single event or occasion or issue. But there had been a year-long succession of demonstration that the council had been unable to fulfil its responsibilities.”
At its special meeting Nov. 8, the GCE addressed a proposal that had been submitted to an Oct. 19 annual recall meeting of the General Council by six Indigenous commissioners — Day, Elder Eileen Antone, Rev. Teresa Burnett-Cole, Russel Burns, Elder Donna Kennedy and Elder Janet Root. It called for the reversal of Blair’s decision and the reinstatement of the NIC, not making any decisions affecting the NIC without collaborating with the NIC and forming a committee to review the church’s actions and report back on the United Church’s commitment to reconciliation.
The General Council commissioners present on Oct. 19 voted to refer the proposal to GCE for discussion.
But the Elders were not invited to the Nov. 8 GCE meeting for discussion about their proposal, Day said. The GCE passed a motion declaring “that the National Indigenous Council was experiencing dysfunction and therefore was unable to meet its responsibilities and could not continue.” The motion affirmed recalling the NISG “to determine the future.”
Cheryl-Ann Stadelbauer-Sampa, senior governance support lead at the General Council office, said “the GCE stripped down who attended that day to allow them to have a full and frank discussion. And so there were very, very few of the customary guests of the GCE who [usually attend],” including executive ministers, regional council executive ministers and other select General Council office staff.
“Evelyn (Day) spoke quite extensively at the General Council meeting, and the executive members were present, heard that and were deeply moved by her perspectives and the hurt that that she was able to articulate,” said Hall, who served as the acting general secretary during the Nov. 8 GCE meeting as Blair had recused himself to avoid a perceived conflict of interest. “So, it’s not that her perspective wasn’t present in the considerations on the 8th.”
A second motion directs the general secretary’s supervision committee to consult with the judicial committee to determine if Blair was within his authority to dissolve the NIC. No action was taken on the part of the proposal to form a committee to conduct a review of the church administration’s commitment to reconciliation.
Stadelbauer-Sampa said the GCE did not act on the request for that review because it is premature for it to assume a committee was the way forward.
It “would feel as if we were imposing what would be the right path … certainly, there’s great openness to a conversation with the National Indigenous Spiritual Gathering as to what would be the most helpful way to proceed.”
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The United Church of Canada Manual says General Council may assume control of a regional council if in “extraordinary circumstances” it is unable to meet its responsibilities. Hall said that includes the National Indigenous Council, which “until further defined is equated with regional council.”
But Rev. Alison Miculan, the organizing chair of Unifaith and a minister who has been supporting NIC members, questioned whether the national church would exercise that right in other circumstances. “…would General Council dissolve Shining Waters Regional Council or Pacific Mountain Regional Council whether the regions themselves believed they were functional or not?”
Keetah Levac is a member of the last NIC who was also nominated to be on the next council. The new nominees will meet at the NISG and choose the new chair or co-chairs and decide how to proceed.
“I am Alberta Billy’s granddaughter,” she said. “She raised me to use my voice for our Indigenous people because it matters.” Alberta Billy was the We Wai Kai Elder who demanded the United Church apologize for its role in colonization and the loss of Indigenous languages, culture and spirituality. The church apologized in 1986.
“I feel like they’re never going to listen to us,” Levac said. “They’re never going to move forward in my traditions and ceremony … My spirit isn’t broken. But it’s disappointed. It’s truly disappointed.”
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Julie Carl is a Toronto freelance journalist.
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