Indigenous Community-led Cultural Events Funding

A request that the Park Board approve $50,000 from the Corporate Sponsorship Fund for 2026 to continue supporting staff and services for Indigenous community-led cultural events and initiatives in parks. I think it's always good to have a touch base with our reconciliation mission, vision, and values. Tonight's report and proposal support our values of clarity, pragmatism, and learning.

So a little bit of background. In 2022, the Park Board approved $150,000 from the Corporate Sponsorship Fund to support emergent Indigenous community-led ceremony and events in parks. Between 2022 and 2025, we supported 18 cultural events in parks led by the local nations and urban Indigenous organizations. This one-time funding enables staff to bring operational, technical, and production support to the organization of cultural events, gatherings, and ceremonies. This work exemplifies interdepartmental staff collaboration. Park Board staff from Arts, Reconciliation and Culture, Recreation, Urban Forestry, Operations, Filming and Special Events, Park Planning and Development all work together to support a range of Indigenous cultural practices focused on healing, ceremony, celebration, community gathering and cultural sharing.

So a quick review of policy support and previous decisions includes the adoption in 2016 of the 11 reconciliation recommendations in response to the calls to action provided by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 2018, the Park Board received a staff report titled Truth Telling, Indigenous Perspectives on Working with Municipal Government. This report was the result of a series of consultations led by Park Board staff and Kamala Todd with First Nations and Métis cultural leaders, artists, and knowledge holders from across Canada, as well as within the Musqueam, Squamish, and TTsleil-Waututh Nations. Also in 2018, the board adopted the Reconciliation Mission, Vision, and Values as a foundation for reconciliation within our organization. The mission to decolonize the park board is an ambitious one that reframed much of our ongoing regular business in the park board, as well as internal staff cross-departmental relations. In 2020, the park board approved the van play framework. The Van Play playbook directs Park Board to focus reconciliation efforts on decolonizing the Park Board and relationship building with the Musqueam, Squamish, and TTsleil-Waututh nations. There are many references to reconciliation-related work in Van Play, so I want to highlight just a few that are germane this evening. to develop a robust culture of welcome, inclusion, anti-oppression and truth, and reconciliation within the park board, to provide clear decision-making guidance for cultural development, decolonization, expression in parks, prioritization of intangible cultural heritage.

and the promotion of cultural redress, and create funding mechanisms to support community arts and artisan residents that are focused on relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Finally, in July of 2022, the Park Board approved that contribution of $150,000 from the Corporate Sponsorship Fund to support the delivery of emergent cultural events led by Indigenous governments, organizations, and communities for three years.

So this is just a sample drawn from the 18 events that the Park Board supported between 2022 and 2025 to give you a sense of the range, the focus, the complexity. Ceremonial work at Shwe Shwe in Stanley Park, an Indigenous hip-hop festival at Sunset Beach, local nations' community days at Shwe Shwe and Sukla Hanum Sitsakwe Park, and the Squamish Nation's Return to Sanak event, part of the celebration of their 100th anniversary of amalgamation, just to name a few. So over three years, we tracked the distribution of the funds to be able to understand where resources are needed. As you can see, the largest area of support was for operating supplies and equipment, followed by staffing, policing and security, and hospitality-related expenses.

In addition, oh, sorry, this should have gone with the last slide. In addition, there was about $20,000 of in-kind staff support, so where the staff was incorporating the work into their existing jobs.

We provided financial and staff support when the requirements of our system exceeded the capacity of the event organizers, providing internal operation, technical work, and facilitation to support reducing barriers to cultural work on the land. This included help with permits, risk management, policing costs, traffic management, and event operation supplies and equipment. Every project was unique and the requirements were determined on a case-by-case basis. Staff focused on going the extra mile to enable safe, well-resourced Indigenous-led events to happen in parks without placing an additional burden of work on the local nations or on Indigenous community in order for them to host gatherings on land that is now stewarded by the Park Board. These factors were outlined in our pilot proposal in 2022, and they do remain consistent. Staff undertook substantial relational work as well, developing partnerships, facilitating relationship building between local nation staff teams, urban Indigenous community groups, and park board staff teams and members, as well as third-party contractors connected to the park board. The organizational capacity for the local nations and many urban Indigenous groups is stretched, so timelines for this work was often short. As discussed in the pilot proposal for this work in 2022, the staff are challenged to be flexible, human, collaborative in addressing the requirements and restrictions of working in our system without engaging in practices that cause harm in Indigenous community and organizations.

We engaged with the responsibility of a complex burden of work to support communities rather than placing that burden of work on community in order for them to work with us.

This complex work is not currently funded through any park board service group. While the size and number of events... fluctuated annually, analysis of the event cycle over three years predicts that an investment of approximately $50,000 annually would support an event cycle similar to what we experienced in 2022 to 2025. For 2026, a withdrawal of $50,000 from the corporate sponsorship fund would ensure service continuity until the 2026 operating budget is determined.

A quick review of the Corporate Sponsorship Fund. The Park Board's policy for use of the Corporate Sponsorship Fund was developed in 1998. It includes the following criteria. To fund one-time expenditures to a limit of $50,000 that would support revenue-generating activities and the money repaid into the Corporate Sponsorship Fund with the increased revenues within a three-year period. to fund initiatives with one-time expenditures to a limit of $50,000 with the result of improved efficiencies, and finally, to fund one-time expenditures over and above the existing funding level of the operating budget, which are beneficial to the overall parks and recreation system. All contributions from the Corporate Sponsorship Fund require board approval. This work has been funded once through the Corporate Sponsorship Fund, but given its importance, we are asking for support for a second funding request for the following reasons. This request aligns with approved fund use of criteria C. The importance of the ongoing work to our mission, vision, and values continues to build positive relationships of trust with the local nations and with the urban indigenous community. And finally, the Corporate Sponsorship Fund has a healthy balance and could be used to support this important work.

The Park Board has the increasing opportunities to support Indigenous community-led projects, events, and ceremonies in parks. And this work is important both to relationship building that is foundational to our reconciliation mission, vision, and mandate, and our commitments to reconciliation that are articulated in van play. I also want to say that this work is an incredible gift to staff. It provides us with invaluable opportunities for education and increased understanding of Indigenous cultural practice and work to support reconciliation in our system, in community, and on the land. And we are grateful to the local nations and to Indigenous artists, cultural practitioners, organizers, and communities for their patience and generosity. as we learn how to best support their work. Three years of facilitation and documentation has taught us that Indigenous community organizations are very ready to bring ceremony events and projects to parks and often a small amount of funding and staff support can be the deciding factor enabling the work to go forward.

Relationships of trust have been growing over the past three years through this work and there are risks of harm to community, relationships and reputation should the work not continue. Finally, this small investment of funds can be transformative to this area of increasing vibrancy in our parks.

In closing, the staff recommendation is that the Park Board receive the report of the three-year corporate sponsorship fund support for Indigenous community-led cultural events, and that the Park Board approve a withdrawal of $50,000 from the corporate sponsorship fund for 2026 to support staff and services for Indigenous community-led cultural initiatives and events in parks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do any commissioners have questions?

I have a question. This might be a question for finance. But what's the current balance of the corporate sponsorship fund?

Hi. I don't have the number in front of me, but from what I checked a month ago, there was enough to be able to support this, but I can do a follow-back. Okay, are you able to do that quickly now? I'm literally looking for it right now. I just don't know where I saved it. I'll bring it back. I just wanted to ask, this is sort of the second year of the corporate sponsorship fund. Clearly there's a need for this funding. Is this sustainable for us to keep drawing from this, or can we in the future seek funding from the operating budget for these kinds of projects? Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, it is something that we're pursuing as part of our 2027 operating budget is to ensure that there's sufficient funding to be able to carry this work forward. So this is essentially an interim measure to be able to carry us to this next operating budget cycle. Great. Do you have any idea of sort of what the ongoing annual ask would be from the operating budget? We're anticipating something similar to what we're currently asking for at approximately $50,000 a year. Okay, thanks. Do any other commissioners have questions?

Commissioner Digby looks pensive. Yeah, okay, Commissioner Digby.

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner. They do indeed. So from 40 or 50 people, so hosting an Elders Day in Stanley Park at Shwe Shwe to thousands of people at the Squamish Amalgamation event, which was a full day event in Sanak or Vanier Park. So it's a really big range, and we assess them uniquely as they come to us.

Any update on the corporate sponsorship fund number?

Any further questions from other commissioners? We speak really slowly. Okay. Maybe just give me a wave when you're ready, but we'll maybe move on. Thank you very much for your presentation. I have a mover of Commissioner Denson. Can I have a seconder, please? Commissioner Verity, thank you very much. We'll now discuss the recommendation. Any commissioners have comments?

I'll make comments. Well, we'll get the update on the number after the vote.

I'll call a vote by a show of hands. All in favor?

That is Commissioner Verity, Commissioner Basavansky, Commissioner Christensen, Commissioner Digby, Commissioner Jensen, and Commissioner Hare. All opposed? Abstentions? And Commissioner Howard, we mark absent for the vote. Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, Commissioners. As there's no further business, the meeting is now adjourned. We're going to take a 15-minute recess before the board meeting, so we'll return 8.05. Thank you.