The Treaty 6 flag is going to be permanently mounted at City Hall.
North Battleford city council unanimously passed a resolution in favour of a permanent placement of the Treaty 6 flag at their Monday meeting.
City Hall currently has three flagpoles that fly the city flag, provincial flag and Canadian flag on a permanent basis.
A fourth flagpole is used for the celebration of various different events of significance in the city.
That flagpole has been used to fly the Treaty 6 flag in the past at City Hall, in connection to events such as National Aboriginal Day and Urban Treaty Day both of which took place over the past month.
This year the flag was raised in a special ceremony on the morning of National Aboriginal Day on June 21, and it was still on the flagpole outside City Hall as of Monday’s council meeting.
Now the plan is to mount a fourth permanent flagpole for the Treaty 6 flag. Details on how to achieve that will be presented at the next council meeting.
“This is an important nation-to-nation recognition,” said Mayor Ryan Bater. “The Battlefords are right in the heart of traditional territory for Treaty 6, recognizing we are on lands that people were governing here and living here far before any settlement from Europe or otherwise, and I think it’s really important that be recognized.”
Bater also had carried the Treaty 6 flag during Urban Treaty Day ceremonies at the Dekker Centre on June 28 during the Grand Entry. Early in the meeting he explained that he carried the flag because “every Canadian in this country is a treaty Canadian.”
The resolution was greeted with enthusiasm by council as well. Councillor Kent Lindgren called it “an important step forward for us as a city” and said he was “quite excited to vote for this resolution.”
Earlier in the meeting, council heard from Brandie Carignan, a community member who presented her proposal for a permanent mounting of the Treaty 6 flag as it relates to “revivification of our downtown core.”
She pointed to permanent treaty flags in Calgary, Edmonton, Lloydminster, Saskatoon and Regina, and said this was in keeping with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call to action, which dictates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples be recognized.
Carignan said permanent placing of the Treaty 6 flag downtown would “represent our shared history, and bolsters education and dialogue within the community.”
She said as a mother of two small children it was also an opportunity to “engage in education and civic responsibility” by teaching them about their shared history on Treaty 6 territory.
Carignan and a couple of other supporters stayed to the end of the meeting for the vote on the resolution.
After the vote carried, they applauded, causing Mayor Bater to remark, “I don’t think we’ve had applause in this chamber since this council was elected.”
