Lheidli T’enneh First Nation elected its biggest-ever council on Wednesday, April 9, growing from five councillors to eight.
Chief Dolleen Logan prevailed over challenger Regina Toth by a margin of 247 to 153 votes.
Just two incumbent councillors were re-elected, Crystal Gibbs and Kyle McIntosh. Joining them for this term are former chiefs Clayton Pountney and Dominick Frederick as well as Tasheena Seymour, Jamie Bird, Miranda Seymour and Doug Olsen.
Sitting down with The Citizen for a post-election interview at Lheidli T’enneh’s downtown Prince George offices at 150 Brunswick St., Logan and Gibbs said council’s expansion is due to Indigenous Services Canada rules which require one councillor for each 100 members of a First Nation.
“I think (the community) will be governed way better with the eight that were elected,” Logan said.
“I think it’ll be less strain on the council because it’s a lot. When you’re elected, it’s not from 8:30 to 4:30, you’re a council member 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You get tired because you get pulled in different directions. It’s be easier when I hand out portfolios because instead of one taking on four portfolios, it’ll be one taking on two.”
Something else determined by ISC rules are the two-year terms for chief and council. That can be changed, but Logan said her nation would need to develop a custom election process, which is something she and Gibbs are going to work on during this term.
They’d also like to change the membership cut-off date.
“I can use myself as an example,” Logan said. “My daughter, who was born in 1984, has two children and she can pass her status down to them. My son who was born in 1987 has three children and he’s not allowed to pass his status down to them.”
This hasn’t been a problem as of yet, but Logan said it could be a challenge to maintain number of official Lheidli T'enneh members in the future.
A long-time goal of Lheidli T’enneh has been the construction of a bridge joining reserve communities separated by the Fraser River to the northeast of Prince George.
Whichever party forms the next federal government after the ongoing election, Logan and Gibbs said, all of council will work together to ask for support in getting the bridge built.
When Premier David Eby visited Prince George to speak to the 2025 Council of Forest Industries conference at the Civic Centre on April 4, he said he took the opportunity to meet with both Logan and Prince George city council.
The chief said much of their conversation focused on forestry and the need for a new mental health facility.
“I did talk to Eby about how when they closed all the mental facilities, what did they do with those patients?” Logan said. “They threw them out on the street. This is where we’re getting a whole pile of homeless people.”
She said many of these former patients are addicted to drugs and the dynamics of local homelessness would be different if those facilities were still open.
When the chief spoke to The Citizen late last year, she said Lheidli T’enneh was looking for forestry permitting times to speed up.
Now, she said, they’re moving faster, but the nation’s logging company is having challenges dealing with escalating duties on softwood lumber imposed by the United States.
This is part of the reason Lheidli T’enneh has been investigating partnerships with foreign companies like Australian firm Arbios, which is looking into a local biomass fuel facility, and Ecoener, a Spanish firm working with the First Nation to build a wind power project near Hixon.
They’re expecting ground to be broken on the wind project later this year and for construction to be finished by 2030. Gibbs and Logan said they had the chance to visit Ecoener’s operations in Spain after the partnership was announced.
Lheidli T’enneh’s electricity aspirations don’t stop there, though. Logan said the north side of the nation’s reserve has problems with intermittent power, which is a difficult situation for elders needing to operate dialysis or breathing machines.
She said the province recently put out another call for power projects and Lheidli T’enneh is interested in pursuing a hydroelectric or solar project to help address that issue.
They said the new daycare operated by the First Nation at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park is getting ready for its grand opening later this month, praising Coun. Kyle McIntosh for his work in turning a conceptual drawing into a reality.
“My grandson was put on the waiting list for Head Start when he was born, and he just made it in,” Gibbs said. “The wait lists are insane, over four years.”
Head Start is a preschool program for Indigenous children funded through the federal government. Gibbs and Logan said they were hopeful the new daycare would help improve the waitlist for programs like it.
Last August, the federal government announced it would partner with Lheidli T’enneh to build a new hatchery for Chinook and sockeye salmon on the north bank of the Nechako River, near the confluence with the Fraser River.
Gibbs said the nation’s logging company is doing a lot of the clearing at the site while Logan said fisheries workers are being trained in the Okanagan.
Earlier this year, Prince George city council voted to spend $3 million from an endowment fund to replace a playground at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park, with the First Nation endorsing the move.
The park is the site of the original village of Lheidli before settlers burnt it down in 1913 and sold it to facilitate development.
The area still contains burial and historic sites, which is why a geophysical survey was conducted after the old playground was removed.
“Why we approved it is because they’re not disturbing anything,” Logan said. “There’s already the holes that are already there for anchoring these things. They’re just using the exact same holes and they’re updating the playground. Who doesn’t want to update the playground?”
Gibbs joked that both she and her children likely have scars from the old fire truck that made up part of the playground.
The chief praised the City of Prince George for its partnership in putting both the Brunswick Street offices and Una dune Baiyoh (House of Ancestors) at 355 Vancouver St. through the addition to reserve process.
That means both properties will be added to Lheidli T’enneh’s reserve lands. Logan said the process is nearing completion, but the nation and the city are working to finalize a service agreement.
She said the properties represented land being returned to its rightful owners.
“I think the number one thing for our elders and our community members is pride,” Logan said. “But for elders, the pride is because they remember what this looked like before the city came. They have the stories of what it looked like.”
For both Prince George and the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George, Logan said she’s told people they have been engaging with Lheidli T’enneh in truth and reconciliation since before that became a common term.
