Group A: Questions and Answers

These questions were sent from an OIB group and provided with the following answers

Questions:
1. Please email or fax your resume to this address or at 250-498-0419.
2. Please state where you completed your education and please send copies of certificates and inform us of your actual education.
3. Are you a full time student or employed?
4. Please inform us of your present employment, describe if it is full time or part time, etc. and previous employment.
5. What languages do you speak and write fluently?
6. What are your short term and long term economic plans for the Osoyoos Indian Band?
7. What are you going to do about the Housing problems, deficits, people not paying their rent, repairs to houses done because of irresponsible tenants?

Answers:

1. Here is an attached copy of my resume and CV.

2. Education Background:
UBC Vancouver 95-98 - Arts, Major (Double) Economics and Political Science
Langara College 99-00 - Arts, Major Aboriginal Studies
Concoria University College 00-01 - Business, Business Management
Institute of Indigenous Governance 01-02 - Arts, Indigenous Governance
Thompson River's University 02-05 - Business Admin, Major Finance
BBA Degree attained in 2005
UBC Okanagan 2006-07 - Masters of Arts, Traditional Syilx Governance
UBC Okanagan 2007-08 - Doctorate, Economics from a Syilx perspective

I received my BBA from TRU in 2005, do not have a copy with me and believe it is at my dad's in a drawer somewhere (anyone is welcome to view it). I never got to complete my Master's degree, finished all the requirements, courses and thesis on traditional governance but was unable to defend, decided to move right into my Doctorate last Sept. You can have a copy of that if you'd like.

3. I am a full-time Doctorate student, but will have my courses completed this term (this month of Dec). Then I move into the research component of my degree and writing of my dissertation. I am also employed part-time and hold two (three) positions. Both are at OC and the other (third) position I am a consultant for the ONA, and that position is on an as-needs basis, whenever there are contracts that I have time to help in. The last contract I did was on sustainable development and am currently working on a project based on the socio-economic, cultural impacts of the Mountain Pine Beetle.

4. My employment is outlined in my resume, if you need any further clarification feel free to ask.

5. I am a novice writer and speaker of Okanagan, I am an intermediate listener, as I can hear/ follow conversations but can't respond or converse myself.

6. I believe that in the short-term we really need some direction from our people, to ensure we are heading on the right path, we need to address our Band's very large debt and we need to allow for transparency and accountability. In the long-term, we have to ensure that developments benefit the whole community, that the whole community has input into what developments should and shouldn't occur, at the earliest stage possible, we are at a level of unemployment that will not lower and we need to know why, membership employment targets for businesses would help as some are poorly lacking. Development benefits should trickle down to everyone, there are still people who are "poor" and we should look into why.

7. I believe that the housing issue is one that is systematic and goes deeper than the problems that we are seeing today. Over the years, the selection of who gets houses has not been fair, and there are those that were politically motivated. We need to develop policies that are fair, equitable and known and agreed to by everyone, a system that is objective, ie based on a point system. The decision of who gets a house should be known beforehand, everyone should know the criteria, and then know where they sit on the list based on that criteria, there should be no surprises. Also, there should be a public summary of the justifications of who got a house and why. Last, there should always be an appeal process; a process that itself is objective and public.