Regional district adds WFN flag to boardroom
The flag of the Westbank First Nation now adorns the boardroom of the Regional District of Central Okanagan.
Featuring a coyote, a bear’s paw and Ogopogo, the flag was formally added to the Woodhaven Room at the regional district’s offices on KLO Road at the start of Monday’s meeting.
It was the idea of regional district chief administrator Brian Reardon to ask the WFN council if it would like its band flag to be added to the boardroom. The band agreed.
“This is just a delightful occasion,” said Tom Konek, a WFN band councillor who sits as a non-voting member of the regional board.
“Along this journey of mine, I get to see the calibre of leadership here,” Konek said. “It’s one of those moments I won’t forget.”
Regional board chairman Gail Given, also a City of Kelowna councillor, said the board agreed unanimously earlier this year to add the WFN flag to the Canadian flag, B.C. flag and regional district flag already installed in the meeting room.
“A flag is a sacred symbol, a source of pride, and holds great value and significance for those to whom it belongs,” Given said. “It displays to all a respect for ideas, ambitions and values of the organization or the people.”
Displaying the WFN flag in the boardroom, Given said, was an opportunity to further enhance what she said was the “long, special relationship and friendship” that exists between the regional district and the band.
Given tried to use the Aboriginal term for Ogopogo, N’ha-aitk, but acknowledged she stumbled over the pronunciation, adding with a laugh: “I’ve been practising for four years. You think I’d get that right.”
Last September, board members voted to begin all their meetings with an acknowledgement they were gathering on the traditional territory of the Syilx nation.
Twelve politicians from Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Peachland and rural areas sit on the regional board.
The regional district provides services such as dog control, 911 and regional parks, as well as some planning services for rural areas outside Central Okanagan municipalities. It does not have any jurisdiction over the Westbank First Nation, which has its own system of self-government.
Neither the Canadian flag nor the B.C. flag flies outside the WFN administration offices.