Roy Henry Vickers

Artist

Roy Henry Vickers doesn't mince words when it comes to his views on the work that is needed in First Nations communities. In his opinion, the money would be best spent on healing.

An artist of european, Heiltsuk and Tsimshian ancestry, Roy rose to the forefront of the arts community with his progressive form that has become known as the "Vickers style." In the 1970s he settled in Tofino as a commercial fisherman, and when fishing started to crash he took a big risk; he built a longhouse-styled art gallery in the middle of a small resource-industry town with little tourism infrastructure. "I built the gallery, and people realized some years later that it was really setting the tone for the whole community" says Roy. Since the gallery opened in the early '80s, it has become the flagship attraction in Tofino and continues to be at the forefront of the the community's transformation into a tourism hotspot. Roy muses "I guess you could say that I've been in the culture tourism business for going on 30 years now."

When it comes to the Trust, Roy is straight forward with his view on how the money should be spent. "Spend it on healing" he says. "All of our leaders somewhere in their politic-ing say verbally 'we need healing as a nation of people.' All of our leaders somewhere see the need for healing, and yet very little money gets spent on healing. We are reluctant to deal with healing because it means opening the closets." Roy recently moved back to his childhood home of Hazelton, to be closer to the land and people that inspired him as a child. "My knowledge of the people here was hard-working people who lived off the land and who still had a connection to the land" says Roy "Coming back here it is a shock to see people not connected to the land. Young people in villages around me have a sense of hopelessness when they see leaders who are lost. And so we have a suicide rate that are alarming and appalling, [and] very high school drop out rates."

Roy is of the opinion that leaders themselves need to go through healing and true transformation to effectively lead. "We need to come to this place of healing, and we need leaders who are not afraid to deal with it, and to put the money where it is needed - in healing. When that happens, you will see changes, and until it happens, you will see no change. You will just  see money poured down the drain, doing nothing, and people still lost." He passionately outlines some of the problems he sees with leadership, both First Nations and non: "We've become wards of the government to a much deeper extent than we care to admit. Many chiefs and leaders are simply wards of the government... What we have are political leaders who are just like the government that spawned reserves and indian affairs. We act in the same way. It is maddening and infuriating to see this." Roy continues by saying that leaders "need to be the ones who start speaking up for what we believe in, that we need to get to a place of healing. Not a place of getting money or jobs, but a place of getting in touch with who we are, a place of healing... It is needed now more than ever."

Roy's final words on being a leader are: "Stand up for the truth. That is what a leader is supposed to do...stand for what is respectful, honoring of the individual, the land, a way of life, ourselves."

Roy believes that the foundation of the New Relationship Trust needs to be answering the question of how we create positive change, not how do we manage the money. "Anyone can make up a good business plan to suck money out of the Trust. We could leave half of it in trust... in trust for what?" He goes on to clarify to say that business and private life are inseparable; therefore, if someone has a miserable private life they will no be able to run a business or be a solid employee over the long term. Roy reasons that with healing and recovery First Nations people will be immeasurably stronger in every way.

When asked about the matter of investing vs spending the funds, Roy suggests taking a different approach altogether.  "Why are you not thinking how can we help change people the way they think and live everyday? Not how can you spend 100 million dollars. Anybody can do that. Anyone can spend the money. How do you change people? How do you bring people into peace and happiness? How do you inspire people to move forward in their lives and to be proud of who they are? Spend it, and figure out how you do [this], and you will make a big difference."