Nuanced. - 140. Chief Clarence Louie: Osoyoos Indian Band is Creating Jobs & Making Money

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

Discover the secrets of economic success of the Osoyoos First Nation with Chief Clarence Louie and host Aaron Pete. Chief Louie delves into the history of Native people's work ethic, leadership, tradition, and modern entrepreneurship.Chief Clarence Louie is the Chief of the Osoyoos First Nation in British Columbia, renowned for his transformative leadership in Indigenous economic development. A visionary leader, he has been instrumental in fostering entrepreneurship and self-reliance within his community, emphasizing the importance of hard work and cultural preservation.Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron. Today I have the honor of speaking with the Chief of a Soyuz First Nation. We discuss indigenous politics, economic development, work ethic, and how to support First Nation communities in their economic success. My guest today is Chief Clarence Louis. It is not every day that we get to sit down with a living legend, an individual who inspires so many different First Nations communities.

Chief Clarence Louis, would you mind briefly introducing yourself for people who might not be acquainted with your work? Hello, everyone. I'm Chief Clarence Louis from the Sioux singing band, and I've been chief of this community for 38 years. Everybody I know is getting old, I'm getting old, but I love what I do, and I love creating jobs and making money for the Sioux Sinian band. I love it. There's one area, and I'm sure you've seen it go viral again and again. It kind of resurfaces. There's this Facebook post with words from you talking about the mindset you have, the philosophy you have around Indian time, around hard work. Do you know about the post that I'm talking about and the impact that it's had? I don't know if it's the same one, but if it's the one titled Indian Time, which was a Globe and Mail reporter, Roy, Roy McGreg. who helped me with my book. He's, I don't know if he still works for the Globe and Mail,

but he was a writer for the Globe and Mail at the time. And he just happened to be in the audience up in Port McMurray area where I was speaking to a, off the res, to a group. And, yeah, and he wrote an article, and he titled at Indian Time because I was making an issue about Indians showing up late, which they were doing at that gathering, too. And, yeah, so he titled it Indian Time, and yeah, it's still making the rounds all these years later. I found it really inspiring and really important because we can so often get kind of siloed within our indigenous communities.

And there are business practices that are best practices that we should try and align ourselves with in order to compete on bids, in order to gain respect and confidence from other communities, whether it's other municipalities or the province. And so it just was really inspiring to see you voicing something that I don't feel like we hear very often from indigenous leaders. Well, everyone on, I've been on over 300 Indian reserves, Indian reservations, both sides of the border, Canada and the States. And wherever you go, north, southeast, and west Indian country, everybody on the rest complains about Indian time. You know, it's a sad joke, and, you know, people still joke around about it, even today. on every res I've ever been on. So within the res community, everybody knows of Indian time or Navajo time or creed time or, and yeah, and it's something that still sadly happens today where you can't hold a job if you can't show up on time.

I mean, obviously when you're a student, when you're in grade school or high school, you're not going to be a good student if you don't show up on time. up on time. In fact, that's what grade school and preschool is supposed to teach you. You know, the number one rule, you know, show up on time. I love that. Would you mind taking us back to your roots, your youth in a Soyuz, working in the vineyard, coaching sports? Can you talk about your early life? Well, my early life on this reserve was no different than most First Nation reserves. We didn't have much. Everybody was pretty poor. Actually, the Ceucine band, we were lucky to probably, I don't know of any other band that can say in 1968 that they had their own band business and we had a vineyard. It was a small vineyard at the time, but now it's growing to be one of the biggest probably owned vineyards in the country around 300 acres.

But, yeah, we had a band business. We're located right down by the U.S. Canada border. So when there's no jobs on the res, all of our grandparents, parents, they cross that border and go work in the states and follow the fruit. Some of our people would follow the fruit picking all the way down to Arizona, California, and then make their way back home. So most of my people back in the 60s, 70s, 50s, they all worked in Washington State, sometimes further. so we have band members uh from texas in fact one of some of the states band members were in my office yesterday and they sound like texans because that's where they grew up because somehow one of my people ended up following the the food industry all the way down to texas yeah so back in my

early days i mean everyone worked even though it was hard labor mostly in the you know in the orchard industry, fruits, apple packing houses or else in logging and forestry. And everybody on the res, when you were old enough to work, your first job usually as a teenager was working in the vineyard. Which when you got off school in the summertime, July and August was get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, be out in those fields by 5 a.m. and get off at 1 a.m. and all of us back. in my era and even before mine and even up until probably the early 80s when we started branching out into other businesses pretty much everybody had a taste of working in the vineyard which which i think is a it's hard work um most people don't like it i didn't like it but it teaches

you a lot you know everyone needs to go through some have a good tough work experience as a youth and that's why I'm a big believer in youth summer jobs they teach you a lot and they lifelong lessons you can carry into any other field of work that you happen to be into but doing hard labor is everyone as a youth should do some hard labor and it's too bad today that youth are getting

lazy in the sense that they don't want to do hard labor I mean, I look at some of the youth on this Res, and we have so many opportunities now in even the past few summers, part of our youth have a chance of their summer job is learning tech, learning technology, and sitting in front of a screen in one of our boardrooms downstairs

in front of a laptop, which they get to keep after the end of the summer, and they get to listen to people from Microsoft off from Blackberry and I always remind them. I said, you youth are so lucky nowadays. You don't even have to break a sweat. You're sitting in front of a screen. You're not in the, you know, in 40 degree heat. You're not in the wind and the rain in those vineyards with a shovel or a hole in your hand getting all dusty and dirty. And you're not having to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. You come here during the easy band office hours, 8.30 to 4.30 and you get paid. That's your summer job. oh wow man it's of my era would have would never have thought that uh because we we all just did labor work we all did hard labor and and even now um every vineyard has to import mexicans because uh canadians don't want to do labor work yeah so we're having to we have a mexican work program where we're important mexicans uh to work in the fields

So it kind of bothers me that today's youth don't get a taste of hard grunt labor work is a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, 14-year-old. They get to sit in air-conditioned offices looking at screens, getting paid way more than two bucks an hour. All I got paid was two bucks an hour to sweat it out in those fields. But at the same time, you know, it's evolution and it's kind of cool. that our people don't have to sweat in the fields anymore to have a summer job. You're a person who's very well known for your work ethic. And so I'm wondering, is this where you developed this work ethic from? Working in the vineyards, coaching sports, supporting your community? Of course. I mean, anytime you work in agriculture or forestry or logging,

you're getting up early. It's not the easy office hours, easy grade school hours, I call them. you're, you know, you're getting up at three or four in the morning and you're having to be out there on the work site and awesome training program as a young person. Even though I hated it, I'm glad I went through it. And sometimes in life, the stuff you didn't like probably taught you the most, you know, the rough, the rough goal that you had is a youth, you know. So my people, most of my people, not all, but most of my people have a good hard work ethic, you know, because that's how they grew up. But, you know, there used to be no welfare on Indian reserves. You know, you had work or you start. And I think is one of the old chiefs told me, one of the worst things they ever brought to Indian reserves was welfare.

It made some of our people lazy. It made some of our people not want to work, even though you don't get much on welfare, but still having too many safety nets in any society. It's not good. People should have to work for a living. In fact, all of our, I mean, if you go back to prior to the non-natives, being in our territory,

And we had to provide, we had to, whether it's hunting, fishing, food gathering, whatever, you had to provide for your three basic needs, food, clothing, and shelter. You didn't have, not break a sweat again, go down to Walmart, which we call the Indian store. You can just go down to the Indian store and buy whatever you wanted. You know, if you wanted meat, you had to get up and get up early and go on to it. And you had to skin that deer, pack that deer out, or moose or elk. traditional living isn't easy it's way harder than contemporary living way harder absolutely no one built your house you built it yourself you didn't just go down and

buy clothes that were already made you had to make your own clothes in fact some of the old people here still remember their grandmas and moms making moccasins making moccasins isn't easy and some of them remember that they that they had to wear moccasins as a child and you know it's so much easier wearing runners you know so no but that's why one of my quotes that's hanging in our boardroom

and just for our boardroom natives have always worked for a living you know our people didn't sit on their ass with their hand out there was no welfare no there was no safety now um you you worked in all of our old people used to have gardens you had to grow your own food um or or else you starved and uh yeah i mean the native work ethic uh used to be strong and it's weakened a bit because uh our people have gotten softer because of, again, the safety nets that are provided by vans today that our people never had.

You went to Saskatchewan Indian College, and this is where you fell in love with First Nations history and the culture and the traditions. It seems like at times our interest in economic development is faced almost juxtaposed to our ability to practice our culture. And you hear that a lot within communities, that these are somehow at all. with each other and I don't agree with that but I'm curious as to what your takeaways were from going to the college and how we find this balance I don't agree with it are at odds either um traditionally our people had had an economy we had a system of trade I mean trade is still used as a word today back then i mean the the oldest ancestral grave found in our territory not far from osiris proved to be over

1500 years old and in that ancestral grave no different in ancestral graves throughout north america what was found in that grave didn't come from the okanagan nation territory what was found in that grave didn't come from washington state it came from further south So obviously that proves Archaeological evidence proves over and over again that our tribes, our nations, had a system of trade. Trade is just another word for business. Our people traded with each other.

We had a system of trade routes, trade routes. We did trade with other tribes, other nations. We have a word for Buffalo in our language, but there's no Buffalo in the Okinawagan. But we have a word for Buffalo in our language because we traded with the plains people. We went over those Rockies. So really, we were the first entrepreneurs of this land, not the French or the English. We were the first business people. We had a, in fact, one of the Mohawks told me, when the Mohawks chiefs told me many years ago,

that they even had a system of taxation. They didn't use that word taxation. That's an English word. If they had a system of taxation for the French and English, the missionaries, when they came through their territory, they taxed them. They didn't speak English. You only spoke Mohawk, but they had a system of tax.

Again, that's, that's, that's, that's economics. So every tribal territory had a, had business people. We had specialists. We had a system of trade. And in the modern way, in the modern res way, to me it's just, is one of the national chiefs once said, it's the economic horse that pulls the social cart. Well, yes, it is, but most of our people don't realize that. They're trying to put the cart before the horse. You know, they all talk about all these social programs, social elders programs, youth programs, education. Everything costs money. Health costs money. I've never met a teacher that works for free. Nurses and

doctors don't work for free. Everybody wants a paycheck. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just normal and natural. Everybody wants a paycheck. Even when I see healers, these native of healers that go around, we have to pay them. Nobody, unless you're going to live off of welfare, the majority of our people want a decent paycheck. And they have to realize that those paychecks have to come. And even if you work in social services or schools or in education, that paycheck comes from somewhere. I mean, the money, the funded money that

goes into health and education comes from economic development, comes from corporate taxes, comes from personal taxes, natural resource taxes. If you connect the dots, it all goes back to economic development. Because unless you're a third world country dependent on foreign aid, which I know Canada and America, most GA countries, they end up giving money, they ended up giving some of their economic development money to these needy countries because they depend on foreign aid. But every government, I don't care if it's a federal government, provincial government, municipal governments, First Nation governments, every government needs money to operate.

And if you connect the dots, where does that money come from? It doesn't just fall out of the sky. People, you know, it just bugs me that natives can't connect the dots. They can't connect the dots of where does this money come from to pay my teachers or to pay our social service staff or where's the money come for youth programs, elders programs on it. When we vary people, where's that money come from? It comes from economic development.

It comes from business development. That's where all the money comes from to run the federal. provincial municipal first nation governments. Money just doesn't fall out of the sky. It comes from economic development. This was actually one of the lessons that I took away. I was a native court worker for about five years and trying to help people through the legal system, help them with their court matters, whether it wasn't domestic violence charge, or whether it was a theft under charge, and I was trying to help them. And it just always felt like, well, we need more housing. We need

more social programs. We need more this. And it just felt like I was in a never-ending rat race of trying to help people get out from that system and get into a social program. And it seemed like there must be a solution to this problem beyond just doing the same kind of approach every day. And then I had the opportunity to go to law school in Vancouver and study this. And economic development, to your point, was exactly the solution for indigenous communities. It is the engine. And in so many communities, including my own community, we treat it like it's another portfolio, like housing, like social programs like health care, but it's not. It's very much the program that allows everything else

to be paid for. It allows communities to get out from under waiting for checks to come in from the federal government to the provincial government. It allows that economic freedom to go, where do we want our community to be in 10 years? And then to start to make a budget on how we want to get there over the next 10 years. And that's freeing. But when we treat it like it's just another portfolio, it keeps us small-minded and kind of gets us to check boxes and not have a good strategy around it moving into your poor people aren't free you know dependent people are not free so obviously do you want to be an independent first nation or a dependent first nation do you want to be dependent on government grants in programs and services which have never

worked for our people yeah there's not one program that the federal government go back a hundred years, even this year. There's not one program that the federal government properly funds. They never have, and they never will. Because there's just not enough money to go around. So First Nations got to start making their own money. You've got to start making your own money and getting back on your economic course. It is the economic horse that pulls the social cart, always has been and always will be. And as I mentioned, that ancestor is grave I was talking about those things in there were based on economics and trade yeah we got to get back on our economic course i mean it's pretty simple the uh the the dependency model the dependency trap

was created by how you colonize a people i don't care if it's africans asians North American Indians, South American Indians, whether it's the British, French, the Spaniards, or whoever, if you want to colonize the people, the first thing you have to do is take away their economic ability to support themselves. You take away their economics. That's how you make people dependent.

And you turn them into what's often referred to as hanging around the Ford Indians. Indians were turned into Hang around the Fort Indians Hang around Department of Indian Affairs Hang around these forts for for rations for for trinkets For, you know

That's how you turn native people Into beggars in their own land Is you take away their economics That's the colonial recipe It's been done over and over again All over the world Would you mind telling us about your first run for Chief, what your mindset was, what your philosophy was? You're nearly 40 years in.

I'm just wondering about those early days of considering putting your name forward. Boy, that was so long ago. I really don't remember. I just knew that I had a good work ethic. My mom had the old tough res rule that we've gotten away from. Either go to school, get a job, or you get out. And I know for one of our members that has now become the world's first First Nation winemaker, his dad did the same thing to him. He was being a lazy youth, and his dad kicked him out.

I mean, tough love often works. And in all of our First Nation stories, And I've heard it so many times about the willow stick, about grandparents making their grandchildren, you know, stand on their own two feet. You know, it's the same thing. If you look at the animals, eagles teach their young how to fly, not so they can hang around them. so they can be out on their own. They pushed them out of the nest, eventually. They push them out.

And that youngster has to fly on its own. And that's the, then that's, that's traditional teachings where our people, I don't care what good tribe you talk about. Our people were not lazy, people weren't lazy, People weren't lazy people. We weren't hanging around the Ford Indians. The federal and provincial governments forced us to be hanging around the Fort Indians.

But now we should be out of that era and getting back on our economic force and looking at every business opportunity that we can get into. And even here at Osayus, we still have that mindset of not being able to connect the dots, many of our people. and not in thinking that you know business is easy and making money is easy and you know I mean so many bands have gotten land claims and lots of money and then in a matter of years just like some bands in Alberta have told me they went from poverty extreme poverty to extreme wealth in terms of money oil money but all they did was was give it out in per capita's yeah and to me a per capita if you give out too much per capita's that's just a bigger form of a welfare check. That's not teaching your people how to be independent. You become independent on per capita's. So they gave out these huge per capitaes. Kids returning 18 years old, 19 and getting six figure checks. What happens with most teenagers, and you've got to remember, an 18 or 19 year old is still a teenager. What happens to most teenagers when you give

them 100, 200, 200,000, $200,000 check? Is that good or bad? you know there's a lot of it if people don't have to work for their money they're they're not going to learn how to manage money they're not going to have a work ethic i couldn't agree more one of the areas that i find really important to understand and i'd like your take on is the process of elections within indigenous communities i find within my own community and within many others There's a couple of families with big last names that are well recognized, and then the community votes for them based on their last name, but not based on their ideas that they're bringing forward. And from my understanding, you ran on two platforms, one, to create jobs, and two, to make the community money. And I tried to bring a similar mindset when running for council, was I'm going to do all candidates meetings.

People can ask me why I'm running, what I'm hoping to contribute, the work that I plan to do, if I'm elected, how I'm going to make a difference. don't vote for me for my last name vote for me based on my ideas how do we think about this well in my book res rules i believe in rules you know every successful person has rules every every good house has house rules you can't play sports without rules you know so so i so i believe in rules that's my book's called res rules but i have a chapter there about resolutions and it bothers me that our elections are getting as much as we complain about white people man we sure we sure model them and we sure and in our elections are getting just as stupid as it is a non-native elections there was this

you know of course on the internet you can you always get sent stuff but I got sent this one this one cartoon about a res election It was a button. There was a red button and a white button, something like that. And the caption was, it's election time on the res. Vote for your cousin. It was a white button. Red button was vote for somebody who knows what they're doing.

But yeah, you're right. And in Res elections get, you know, people making problems. You know, people making promises. I mean, in the old native way, when you watch people, our leaders were picked at an early age and they were trained properly and all that sort of stuff. But our leaders had to have qualities. One is a work ethic. If you don't have a work ethic, forget it.

You shouldn't vote for somebody. Never vote for somebody who doesn't have a good one that can't hold it. job that doesn't have a job and um and you can't vote for people that give what i call the i care speech i i get native newspapers i get newspapers here from the navajo nation that the biggest res in the world in the world they get that newspaper twice a month and i subscribe to other native papers so so i i've collected campaign speeches i see campaign speeches i i have never written a campaign speech my uh and i've never written a letter for for voting my my slogan is or my campaign speech is really one sentence i'll create more jobs and make more money for this use and you abandon anybody

else that's that's that's my campaign speech that's my uh campaign letter which which i've never written one and I'm not against those things but but but I've noticed that all campaign speeches say basically the same thing I care about the elders I care about our language I care about our land I care about you know youth programs I care I care I care and yet no one says how in their campaign letters how the heck are you going to pay for all that stuff because everything costs money i don't care if it's elders programs youth programs education even funerals cost money everything from a to z from cradle to grade on a res cost money so unless you vote and oh and i was i was in the navajo nation once

and in my book that's one of the pictures i put in my book i saw this sign because of course the navajo nation 300 000 members the biggest res in the world I saw this sign, and I go down there on a motorcycle ride most every year, they were going through an election. I saw the sign that said, vote for jobs, not talk. I thought, that's me. That's my campaign speech. Vote for jobs, not talk. That's the way every rest should be.

Vote for people that are going to create jobs, not just talk. and you've been in your role for almost 40 years come 2024 how does that feel to have known that that's had the impact and that you've been able to create so many different organizational structures and opportunities for your members well so you're senior band isn't perfect and you know this band office I'm sitting in and even these companies still don't run the way I like them to run right because as a chief you're you're not a dictator sometimes I'm I wish I could be a dictator. Things would get done a lot better, faster, and be in any case. A chief is not a dictator. A chief is not a king or a queen. We have a five-member council. I always remind people, council rules council.

At election time, just don't worry about who the chief is. I get one voter on that table. In some cases, chiefs aren't even allowed to vote. They chair the meeting and only vote in a break in case of a tie. So during election time, I'm actually campaigning more for who gets on council than who's the chief. I have to remind people, you've got to think this. You've got to think. The chief does not run council. Council runs council. A majority rules are on that council table. So you got to get, you have to be worried about who the council members are, not just who the chief is.

I know in many bands here in the Okinawagon, the chief only. votes in case of a time and yeah so I don't run council so at election time I'm just as concerned about if there's a six member of council I want for at least four hard-working good council members in there yeah and that so you have to be in even is somebody that's running on their own like me when I run for chief As I mentioned, I spend most of my time when I'm out talking to people at election time, I'm talking about the council positions more than the chief position because council runs council. And you have to have, you know, hardworking, fair-minded.

And I like it when I hear back east in the Mohawk country that they have a word for their leaders. I want to say the word chief in council, which are English words. But what that word means is those who are of the nice. So remind people, you've got to vote for nice people. Not the assholes that run for council, not the bullies. Yeah. You know, not the ones that shout the most and can stand up in band meetings and holler around the most. you vote for people that have a genuine nicest to them not just i mean we're kind of lucky

in a sense that we're a small res and we're not 300 000 people like like the navajo nation pretty much everybody knows each other and i always remind them you don't even need to read somebody's campaign speech if you've been around the res enough watch what they do, not during an election. Watch what they do and how they are throughout the year. That's their real self. Because our people are getting too phony at election time. They're acting like phony politicians.

All of a sudden, near election time, they start attending community events. Before an election, you never see them. They never show up. But at election time, a month before election, before election all of a sudden they're at community events I call that being a phony ass are you never see them at youth events but near an election all sudden they're at youth events thinking what a phony ass or are when there's

cultural ceremonies you never see them but a month before the election all a sudden they're there acting like they really care you know you you you you got to have eyes light open that election time and watch people throughout the year and throughout their 20, you know, is there teenagers? Is there in their 20s and their 30s? Watch them. That's how our old people used to, that's how you, how you traditionally pick leaders was you watch them. Is they're growing up? And don't vote for the assholes. You know, every res has idiots and assholes and When they call them haters, I even hear that in some of the native songs and the rap music. We've got haters.

Every Riz has haters. You have this amazing campaign slogan, this mindset around leading and making jobs and creating economic opportunities. And you've delivered. You have the most band-owned businesses per capita in all of Canada. Would you mind talking about some of those band-owned businesses and the work that went into creating them? Now we have, of course our vineyard is still operating. It's growing a lot since 1968. We have a joint venture winery with Canada's biggest wine producer.

Artero Wines, Vincourt Jackson Triggs. We have a golf course. We have two gas stations and stores, one on the north end of the reserve, one on the south end. North and south, we have a forestry operation. We have a cement company. We have, I'm trying to think of with the managers around our managers tables here. We have a campground and recreational vehicle park. We have a cultural center.

And we have a number of other joint ventures around forestry and mining. I think that covers all of them. And we're always looking for a new lease opportunities. We lease a lot of land. We're lucky here in the Okinawagon. The biggest reserves in B.C. are all in the Okinawagan. So some of our land lease is we lease out 1,000 acres just in vineyards. Two different vineyards.

We have an industrial park. Well, it has a provincial prison on it. People often think that's the Cuciney Bans prison. It's not our prison. or the first ban to ever allow a prison on an Indian reserve on both sides of the border. That turned out to be our biggest land lease we've ever done. And the reason I pushed for that prison, even though the connotation of natives in prison was because of 250 union-paid jobs.

You know, any time there's hundreds of jobs being offered on the res, we should jump all over that. And, you know, Rez humor is the best, and the young res boys were teasing each other. Who's the first association band member is going to wind up in that jail on the Seussian Reserve? And, yeah, so we have an industrial park, which we're looking to at least more land out. We have residential developments, commercial developments, industrial developments. And we also buy land. Our res is 4,000 acres short, like on most reserves on both sides of the border.

After the reserves were established and our ancestors, someone had to say in the reserves, the government, as more settlers would come in, took away reserve land. We had 4,000 acres of our best reserve land taken away. So one of our goals here, one of my goals, is to eventually get up to a 40,000 acre of res. We're at 36,000 at some. It's not going to happen during my lifetime,

but I learned that from the tribes in the States, the rich casino tribes, have taken that money from casino gaming and buying land and add into their reserve size. Because land is always more important than money. Land is always more important than money. And some people give us shit for having to buy our land back. And I think you think white people are going to give the land back?

Yeah. Give you your head of shit. you think you think some white person that's watched dances with wolves eight times is going to come into your band office and say oh my conscience my conscience got to me i'm going to give my house and my land back back to the band that ain't going to happen and to me it's only money that's what i love making money and and our people need to talk about money at every opportunity it's not having a love of money the equation stamped in my mind is is money equals opportunity. Those dollar signs equal opportunity. So I don't have a love of money. I have a love of opportunity for the city bed. But in order to have opportunity,

you gotta have money. If you don't have money, you have no opportunity. You can't pay that. I just left a meeting and one of our students wants to get her master's. Well, that master's is gonna cost tens of thousands of dollars. And where the hell is that money going to come from? Looney auctions?

You need to go do loony auctions to pay for your education. And we buried one of our people not long ago. That funeral, the ban pays for everything. When your people die, you're going to do loony auctions. Leaders have to have to put money making money as a priority, any which way you can. Make money, but you have to be able to manage. money and not do the dumb thing to things that many bands have done because they go from whether it's a land claim or having lots of money our people aren't because we were

kicked off our economic horse for a hundred years we have to get back and to learn how to make how to manage money in fact i'm amazed you know even though see my washington redskins yeah i'm a proud washington redskin i'm a proud redskin and i hope to get that name. To me, that's a proud-looking Indian. Agreed. I love that logo. Can I actually ask about that really briefly? You're a person, I feel, who genuinely speaks their minds, not in a flippant way, but in a

very thoughtful way. You just say the truth, as you know it to be. And we're in a time where political correctness is a very big thing. And I just find it admirable that you talk about Indian issues, you talk about it openly and honestly, you don't hold back. where did that kind of philosophy come from for you? And why do you think that's important? Because I'm not a phony politician. There's a big difference between being a leader and a politician. I actually don't like that word politician.

I'm not a politician. Somebody who's a politician, I'll watch what they say. They'll gauge. You'll go into a room and, oh, what can I say? First, I have to look around before I can. tell the truth? Really? You got to look around and be able to tell what you really

feel. What's that Johnny Cash quote? If you can't say what you truly think, you know, think and feel, then shut the hell up. You know, so leaders will say what have to be said.

Even at election time, politicians will change their stripes. They'll change their, they'll change their views. They'll even change their core values if it'll get them votes. I don't change my core values to get votes.

I don't suck up to people. And there's people on this res that have never voted for me, which is fine. That's democracy. I don't look to get everybody's vote. In fact, at a recent election, one of the people,

people that never vote for me, she says to me, well, you come to my house and tell me why I should vote for you. And I thought, why should I waste my time going to talk to somebody who I know is never going to vote for me? And it's just trying to play some political games, being a phony ass. I don't like, I don't like phony people. I can't stand them. So I'm not going to be phony with anybody. the way I talk right now is the way I talk at band meetings the way I talk right now is the way I talk at council meetings

some people say well Clarence do all your elders support you I said of course not and I really don't give a shit if they don't all support me I'm not looking for everybody's support because I'm not going to be a phony ass I'm not going to change my core values for a vote and people you know you you get what you get when you vote for me or when you you I I'm not a phony person I hate phony people and I don't dislike anybody and even after the election once the election's over and some people tell me well how come how come you're helping that person they didn't vote for you

I said I really don't care if they didn't vote for me what they're saying or what they're bringing up is rational and reasonable to me and I'm going to go along with what what I'm going to try and help them and go along with what they want not because they vote. Politicians, I'll look at, oh, did that person vote for me? I'm not a politician. I'm a leader. And he's one of the wisest business leaders of all time.

Walt Disney once said, the road to failure is to try and please everybody. In fact, only phony people try and please everybody. So I don't try and please everybody. And even when we have votes on land designation votes, sometimes my mom is against the project which is fine I don't hate my mom because she voted no but I'm going to stand up and tell everybody to vote yes yeah and after the vote's over we still treat each other the same way I love that because that what that's what leaders do there there there's a big difference between being a leader and being a politician

time already but one relief last question is just around what advice do you have if you were in an indigenous community somebody comes in to your office and they go nothing's working for me I don't have a job I don't know where to go what advice would you have for people tuning in and they just they don't feel like the world's giving them all the opportunities they want well the first thing they have to do is start with themselves I mean what sort of job do you want we employed last count we did 30 somewhat first nations here when i see a a first nation person from another res here i always ask them how did you end up here at

those studios well where i come from there all they do is argue and fight there and only jobs are the band office jobs or the health jobs or the jobs at the school we have no economic development and i didn't want to stand in a welfare line so that's the type of person that uh that i'm looking for. They'll always be the lazy asses. Even this reds, we, we have lazy, which my mom calls them, lazy asses. You could pay them $100 now, or they still get their ass fired. But 80 to 90% of my people, I'm sure on most reserves, too, they're hardworking. They want to be hardworking, self-supporting people, law-abiding people. And that's the type of people I love hanging around and I love, that's why I keep on doing, you know, and there is no finish line in. business. There is no finish line and personal growth. You know, I'm getting through more books listening to books than I am reading. I got one of the biggest person libraries around. I love books. And what I've learned, successful people become successful in two major ways. The books they read and the people they meet, that's how you become

successful. You've got to start hanging around the right people. And networking is so important. I mean, that's some of the projects I voted for on this res, like that racetrack. I'm not into Ferraris and Lamborghinis and those type of cars, but when I see somebody that owns a car that's worth $500,000, two or three res houses, I'm going, I'm not interested in that car. I'm interested in the person and owns that car because they're obviously a successful business person unless they're a drug dealer how did you how did you get to own a car like that i'm interested in the person that owns that car so i'm interested in hanging around business people um i don't go to union of bc chiefs meetings summit meetings at afn meetings i'm not

saying those meetings aren't important first they are i send the council member i send my proxy you can't do economic development off the side of your desk you've got to be immersed in it you got to live and breathe it and so I stay away from political meetings

they're important but I spend my time on the business side of the scale and I love hanging around business people I love hanging around successful people I mean I just got Schwarzenegger's other book he's the only guy in the world I know

that the top in three totally different fields. Sports, bodybuilding. He became the highest paid actor during his height. He spoke broken English and he still became the highest paid actor, male actor at one time. And then in politics he ran as far as he could. He's a foreigner. He became the governor of the, what did he say, the six biggest economy in the world. California, the state of California, the sixth biggest economy in the world.

I mean, who does that? And he just put out a new book called Seven Ways to Become Successful or something like that. So I got it and I just finished listening to him. Brilliant. And that's what I love. I love listening and learning about successful people and how they became successful

and hanging around successful people. and that's what I want First Nations to do is to get involved in the business world because that's where the action is, that's where independence is, hanging around and, you know, clitching on, I mean, we've got a king now, but clitching on to the queen's skirt and thinking the queen's going to solve all, is going to get your people out of poverty. I mean, I still hear some old-timers saying, oh, we've got to go to, Our treaties are with the queen, are you keen. And that's not going to work.

All successful bands I've studied in tribes I've studied have a strong economic arm. Sure, you've got to have a social arm, but your strongest arm should be your business arm. That's how you get away from being a hangar around the for Indian. And find a job you love. If you, you know, the one sentence I love hearing from my people, and I've heard it over and over again, is when somebody can honestly say, I love my job. Those four words, you're going to be a success.

You're going to have a good life. You're going to be a damn good worker. You're going to be very good at what you do. It doesn't matter what you do. I have a bus driver that says, I love my job. He's never missed a day's work in 20 years. And he has a very important job bringing our future managers and workers to that preschool I'm looking at across my office here into that grade school. Every job is important on the rest.

Every job is. And if somebody can say that they love their job, they're going to have a good life. And they're going to contribute to raise the standard of living on your own. first nation and then that's and that's what i hope for all of my young people is to find a job that they love you know go go go go go find a job that you have a passion for and and i read this quote i i love quotes there was this quote in the newspaper not long ago that said the dancer is great not because of her technique the dancer is great because of her passion you know so you have a passion for your work and i have a passion for my work i love creating jobs

and i love it when i see one of my young people um pick a career and say that's what i'm going to do for most of my life and they might change their career later on but so many of my people have um whether it's in golf we sent uh during covid we sent one of our young guys to this very expensive golf pro management course, Southern California, he came to the council table, cried, said if he doesn't do it now, he won't, he doesn't know when he'll do it, can the band send him to this very expensive golf management program? And we did, he was successful now he's working in our golf course. He said, that's what he wants to do for the rest of his life is be a golf pro and eventually manage a golf person.

So I love it when I see native people, whether it's my own people or I don't care if they're who they are. When a native person finds a job they love, wow, you know, two thumbs up to that. And that's what every native person needs to do. And hundreds of years ago, before the white people came, we looked after ourselves. We got up early, went to bed early, got up early, and we worked. Every day was the work day. Because you had to make your own clothes and get your own food and have your own shelter.

So, you know, First Nations people come from a, but I call a working culture. We come from a working culture. That's what we've got to get back to. I love it. I cannot thank you enough. Your quote is saying, a healthy person is a working person and I think that philosophy is so important and there's so much to take away from your journey and the work you're doing to support your members and reaching their full potential which I think is so important I highly recommend people go check out your book res rules I think it's really important and really helps connect people with that entrepreneurial

mindset and how we can support communities in thriving and growing and and impacting our economies and contributing in a good way so thank you again I've kept you far too long but I really appreciate your I like your I like your tone I like your enthusiasm and I want to see my great-grandfather's reservation res one of these days that it would be an honor to host you I have to get to your res next year in 2024 I will my auntie with me as well I'll send out that invitation and we will make sure it's a warm welcome it's such an honor to spend this time with you take care Thank you.