Governance Advisory Services
Scope
The Centre’s Governance Advisory Services is designed to assist all First Nations, no matter where they sit on the spectrum of implementing their inherent right to self-government. Depending on the requests of the community, services focus on the following: developing constitutions (oral or written); building institutions of government;
enacting and enforcing First Nations laws and by-laws; conducting processes for nation rebuilding; and addressing governance matters such as citizenship, accountability, conflict of interest, leadership selection, and administration.
The Centre works with First Nations to ensure that the traditional dimensions of First Nations’ experience form the basis of principles and values to guide contemporary systems of governance.
The Centre supports First Nations in the design and creation of organizations that provide resources, services and information to help in the delivery of effective services that meet the needs of citizens, residents, entrepreneurs and other people in First Nations communities.
The Centre also helps to promote fiscal responsibility as well as the development of stable government-to-government relations.Activities
The Centre’s Governance Advisory Services comprises four principal activities. First, it responds to First Nations’ requests for assistance on a variety of governance issues. These activities typically consist of meetings with Chiefs, Councils or community organizations to provide information, precedents and/or models of how certain concerns can be addressed and propose processes to resolve them in a culturally appropriate fashion. It is also envisaged that officers from the Centre may facilitate Council or community meetings aimed at developing strategic or implementation plans, adopting constitutions or legislation or establishing community organizations.
Second, the Centre can design and conduct governance workshops for any First Nation group interested in building knowledge and capacity for exercising self-government authority. These workshops may focus on any aspect of governance but will necessarily include a session on the attributes of sound governance and its impact on Nation prosperity.
Third, in order to sustain these services, the Centre will compile compendiums of best practices and document traditional approaches of governance to form part of the knowledge base to be disseminated through its events, publications and website.
Finally, Governance Advisory Services develops model constitutions, laws, structures and processes upon which First Nations may draw in designing their own governance systems.