Governance and First Nations
what allocation of decision making says about UBC's approach
Governance at the board level is centred around the board’s fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of the University. How this duty is defined can be revealed in (1) the type of committees the board sets up, and (2) how decision making is allocated within the board.
UBC’s board has recently completed a winnowing down of committees and a shift of some decision making from the full board to the committees themselves.
The core standing committees at UBC are:
Audit
Finance
Property
Employee Relations
Governance
Learning & Research
Indigenous Engagement.
I didn’t list the executive committee above. It acts as a steering committee of the board and is comprised of the chairs of all the standing committees. One might say it has a meta-governance function.
The first four committees on the list focus on the key economic functions of the university: money, property, and labour. The fifth, governance, manages the board’s rules, terms of references, policies, and conduct issues. The last two committees primarily receive reports. The Indigenous Engagement Committee rarely receives agenda items and meets the least frequently of all the committees.
The committees give us a shorthand reading of the board’s hierarchy of concern.
How might things work differently?
Well.
Every formal public meeting of the board begins with a land acknowledgement. This would imply, at the least, a discursive nod towards First Nations rights and title.
How might this discursive nod look if put into action?
The Indigenous Engagement Committee might be structured differently. In addition to having two members from the titleholding nations UBC occupies (Musqueam and Sylix), the committee might well have representatives put forward by First Nations faculty, staff, and students. It could be productive to have two additional First Nations leaders from Nations where UBC conducts research and teaching, but outside of the loewrmainland and the Okanagan. The university president and chancellor would also be active members of the committee.
How might decisions work out differently if we moved discourse into action?
Take the UNA/UBC Neighbours Agreement ratified by the board on Dec. 5, 2024 by way of example.
As reported by Board Chair Miranda Lam (in response to a question from governor Dean Sandy Hilton) the Property Committee had previously considered the agreement in closed session. The deal was only now before the full board for a decision as result of the UNA Board having also ratified the agreement. As Chairwomen Lam explained decisions in closed sessions are not reported out in open sessions. The board then approved the agreement.
With a more robust community-based Indigenous Engagement Committee the UNA/UBC agreement could have been brought to the Indigenous Engagement Committee for review and consideration prior to the Property Committee considering it. Non-Indigenous folks are less attuned to the implications of their decisions and actions on First Nations matters then they may think they are. Running an agreement past a group of First Nations leaders would help UBC put it’s land acknowledgements into material form.
Once approved by a First Nations majority committee it could then be sent to the Property Committee for consideration and, if recommended for approval, on to the full board. A range of critical issues with implications for First Nations could be treated in similar fashion.
Many mainstream institutions fear they won’t be able to act as they always have if they make real their discursive performances. They are partially right, but that’s the cost of decolonization and meaningful reconciliation. For too long Canadian institutions have said the right things while acting against their promises and apologies. If Indigenous Strategic Plans and apologies for complicity in Indian Residential Schools mean anything they should mean real change in governance practices on the board of governors, not just at the teaching and research level.
Isn’t it time to walk the talk?
I don't expect they'll ever really act with sincerity on that. I'd be so happy to be wrong, but I think the liberalism on which colonial Canada is based (and much of the rest of the global holders of power) includes dishonesty as an implicit feature. People aren't equal in terms of how they matter. They'll make all sorts of weird definitions up about equality that don't involve that, to justify how it's right that some people get much more, many don't have enough, and very few matter when it comes to decision making. To be fully accountable is perilous to liberalism as it has manifested to this day.