T’Sou-ke First Nation is governed by the chief and two councillors under the Indian Act election system. Elections are held every two years. The last election was held in February 2016.
T’Sou-ke Chief & Council makes laws, approves revenue and spending measures and sets the direction for policies and initiatives in our community.
Chief Gord Planes has now been in the position for four terms since 2008. He is secretary of Naut’sa mawt Tribal Council and also serves as a director on the Lands Advisory Board which oversees First Nations land management across Canada.
Gordon Planes – gordonplanes@icloud.com
Rose Dumont – dubzdu@gmail.com
Bonnie Arden – bonniearden@tsoukenation.com
Message from the Chief
Many of you share my passion for our traditional culture and a desire to bring back the SENĆOŦEN language.
As an artist and carver, the T’Sou-ke traditions are dear to my heart. At the centre of it all is our language.
Language determines how we think and it changes the way we look at life. Governments know they can control us more if everyone spoke the same language.
At one time all our people spoke the language and it was not English. It was SENĆOŦEN, the language that we share with our neighbours at Scia’new and others around Victoria and Saanich.
But now we do not have any fluent speakers. We must bring back our language because ‘”Unless you use, you will lose it’. If only one person learns our language, that is not good enough. Our whole community has to buy in to language initiatives.
In the old days, children would learn the language by watching and listening to their parents and grandparents. They would go into the forest or go fishing and learn the language.
Things are a lot different today. We do not live the slow-paced lifestyle of our ancestors. But we do have new tools to use to help bring our language back home. Making use of virtual reality on our computers and phones means that we can make use of all the great on-line tools and methods for everyone to learn SENĆOŦEN.