Discover the secrets of economic success of the Osoyoos First Nation with Chief Clarence Louie and host Aaron Pete. Chief Louie delves into the history of Native people's work ethic, leadership, tradition, and modern entrepreneurship.
Chief Clarence Louie is the Chief of the Osoyoos First Nation in British Columbia, renowned for his transformative leadership in Indigenous economic development. A visionary leader, he has been instrumental in fostering entrepreneurship and self-reliance within his community, emphasizing the importance of hard work and cultural preservation.
Discover the secrets of economic success of the Osoyoos First Nation with Chief Clarence Louie and host Aaron Pete. Chief Louie delves into the history of Native people's work ethic, leadership, tradition, and modern entrepreneurship.
Chief Clarence Louie is the Chief of the Osoyoos First Nation in British Columbia, renowned for his transformative leadership in Indigenous economic development. A visionary leader, he has been instrumental in fostering entrepreneurship and self-reliance within his community, emphasizing the importance of hard work and cultural preservation.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron. Today I have the honor of speaking with the chief of a Soyuz First Nation. We discuss indigenous politics, economic development, work ethic and how to support First Nation communities in their economic success. My guest today is chief Clarence Louie. It is not every day that we get to sit down with a living legend, but it is the individual who inspires so many different First Nations communities. Chief Clarence Louie, would you mind briefly introducing yourself for people who might not be acquainted with your work? Hello, everyone.
Chief Clarence Louie:I'm chief Clarence Louie from the Soyuz Union Band and I've been chief of this community for 38 years. Everybody I know is getting old. I'm getting old, but I love what I do and I love creating jobs and making money for the Soyuz Union Band.
Aaron Pete:I love it. There's one area and I'm sure you've seen it go viral again and again. It kind of resurfaces. There's this Facebook post with words from you talking about the mindset you have, the philosophy you have, around Indian time, around hard work. Do you know about the post that I'm talking about and the impact that it's had?
Chief Clarence Louie:I don't know if it's the same one, but if it's the one titled Indian time, which was a Globe and Mail reporter, roy McGregor, who helped me with my book. I don't know if he still works for the Globe and Mail, but he was a writer for the Globe and Mail at the time and he just happened to be in the audience stuff in Fort McMurray area where I was speaking to an authorist to a group, and he wrote an article and he titled it Indian Time because I was making an issue about Indians showing up late, which they were doing at that gathering too. Yeah, so he titled it Indian Time and yet it's still making the rounds all these years later.
Aaron Pete:I found it really inspiring and really important, because we can so often get kind of siloed within our indigenous communities and there are business practices that are best practices that we should try and align ourselves with in order to compete on bids, in order to gain respect and confidence from other communities, whether it's other municipalities or the province, and so it just was really inspiring to see you voicing something that I don't feel like we hear very often from indigenous leaders.
Chief Clarence Louie:Well, everyone on I've been on over 300 Indian Reserves, indian Reservations both sides of the border, canada and the States, and wherever you go North, south, east and West Indian Country everybody on the Res complains about Indian Time. You know it's a sad joke and people still joke around about it even today on every Res I've ever been on. So within the Res community everybody knows of Indian Time or Navajo Time or Cree Time and yeah, and it's something that still sadly happens today, where you can't hold a job if you can't show up on time. I mean obviously when you're a student, when you're in grade school or high school. You're not going to be a good student if you don't show up on time. In fact, that's what grade school and preschool is supposed to teach you. You know the number one rule. You know show up on time.
Aaron Pete:I love that. Would you mind taking us back to your roots? Yeah, your youth in a Soyuz working in the vineyard coaching sports. Can you talk about your early life?
Chief Clarence Louie:Well, my early life on this Reserv was no different than most First Nation Reserves. We didn't have much. Everybody was pretty poor. Actually, the CC band we were lucky to probably I don't know have any other band that can say in 1968 that they had their own band business. We had a vineyard. It was a small vineyard at the time but now it's growing to be one of the biggest privately owned vineyards in the country at around 300 acres. But yeah, we had a band business.
Chief Clarence Louie:We're located right down by the US-Canada border so when there's no jobs on the Res, all of our grandparents, parents, they cross that border and go work in the States and follow the fruit. Some of our people would follow the fruit picking all the way down to Arizona, california and then make their way back home. So most of my people back in the 60s, 70s, 50s they all work in Washington, usually Washington State. Sometimes further south we have band members from Texas. In fact one of some of the state's band members were in my office yesterday and they sound like Texans because that's where they grew up, because somehow one of my people ended up following the food industry all the way down to Texas. Yeah, so back in my early days. I mean everyone worked, even though it was hard labor, mostly in the orchard industry, fruits, apple packing, houses or logging and forestry, and everybody on the Res.
Chief Clarence Louie:When you were old enough to work, your first job, usually as a teenager, was working in the vineyard, which, when you got off school, in the summertime, july and August, was get up at four o'clock in the morning, be out in those fields by five am and get off at one am. And all of us back in my era and even before mine and even up until probably the early 80s when we started branching out into other businesses pretty much everybody had a taste of working in the vineyard, which I think is a it's hard work. Most people don't like it I didn't like it but it teaches you a lot. Everyone needs to go through. Some have a good tough work experience as a youth. That's why I'm a big believer in youth summer jobs. They teach you a lot and they lifelong lessons you can carry into any other field of work that you happen to be into.
Chief Clarence Louie:But doing hard labor is. Everyone, as a youth, should do some hard labor, and it's too bad today that youth are getting lazy in the sense that they don't want to do hard labor. I mean, I look at some of the youth on this resin. We have so many opportunities now and even the past few summers. Part of our youth have a chance of their summer job is learning tech. Learning technology and sitting in front of a screen in one of our boardrooms downstairs in front of a laptop which they get to keep after the end of the summer, and they get to listen to people from Microsoft, from Blackberry, and I always remind them I said you youth are so lucky nowadays you don't even have to break a sweat.
Chief Clarence Louie:You're sitting in front of a screen, you're not in 40 degrees heat, you're not in the wind, in the rain, in those vineyards with a shovel or a hole in your hand. You're getting all dusty and dirty and you're not having to get up at four o'clock in the morning. You come here during the easy band office hours 8.30 to 4.30, and you get paid. That's your summer job. Oh, wow, man, it's a.
Chief Clarence Louie:My era would have would never have thought that, because we all just did labor work, we all did hard labor. And even now every vineyard has to import Mexicans because Canadians don't want to do labor work, so we're having to before we have a Mexican work program. We're important Mexicans to work in the fields, so it kind of bothers me that today's youth don't get a taste of hard grunt labor. Work is a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, 14-year-old. They get to sit in air conditioned offices looking at screens, getting paid way more than two bucks an hour. Well, I got paid it was two bucks an hour to sweat it out in those fields. But at the same time it's evolution and it's kind of cool that our people don't have to sweat in the fields anymore to have a summer job.
Aaron Pete:You're a person who's very well known for your work ethic, and so I'm wondering is this where you developed this work ethic? From working in the vineyards, coaching sports, supporting your community?
Chief Clarence Louie:Of course. Of course I mean anytime you work in agriculture or forestry or logging, you're getting up early. It's not the easy office hours, easy grade school hours, I call them. You're getting up at three or four in the morning and you're having to be out there on the work site. Awesome training program as a young person. Even though I hated it, I'm glad I went through it and sometimes in life the stuff you didn't like probably taught you the most the rough goal that you had as a youth. So my people, most of my people not all, but most of my people have a good hard work ethic Because that's how they grew up.
Chief Clarence Louie:There used to be no welfare on Indian reserves. You had work or you start. And I think is one of the old chiefs told me, one of the worst things they ever brought to Indian reserves was welfare. It made some of our people lazy. It made some of our people not want to work, even though you don't get much on welfare. But still having too many safety nets in any society, it's not good. People should have to work for a living In fact all of our.
Chief Clarence Louie:I mean, if you go back to prior to the non-natives being in our territory, we had to provide. We had to. Whether it's hunting, fishing, food gathering, whatever you had to provide for your three basic needs food, clothing and shelter. You didn't have not break a sweat again. Go down to Walmart, which we call the Indian store. You can just go down to the Indian store and buy whatever you wanted. You know, if you wanted meat you had to get up and get up early and go on. Then you had to skin that deer, pack that deer out, or moose or elk.
Chief Clarence Louie:And traditional living isn't easy. It's way harder than contemporary living, way harder, absolutely. No one built your house. You built it yourself. You didn't just go down and buy clothes that were already made. You had to make your own clothes. In fact, some of the old people here still remember their grandmas and moms making moccasins. Making moccasins isn't easy and some of them remember that they had to wear moccasins as a child. And you know it's so much easier wearing runners, you know. That's why one of my quotes that's hanging in our boardroom and just for our boardroom natives have always worked for 11. You know our people didn't sit on their ass with their hand out. There was no welfare, there was no safety. You worked. You know, all of our old people used to have gardens. You had to grow your own food or else you starved. And yeah, I mean the native work ethic used to be strong and it's weakened a bit because our people have gotten softer, because of, again, the safety nets that are provided by vans today that our people never had.
Aaron Pete:You went to Saskatchewan Indian College and this is where you fell in love with First Nations history and the culture and the traditions. It seems like at times our interest in economic development is faced almost juxtaposed to our ability to practice our culture, and you hear that a lot within communities, that these are somehow at odds with each other, and I don't agree with that. But I'm curious as to what your takeaways were from going to the college and how we find this balance.
Chief Clarence Louie:I don't agree with it or at odds either. Traditionally our people had an economy. We had a system of trade. I mean trade is still used as a word today, back then. I mean, the oldest ancestral grave found in our territory, not far from Osuys, proved to be over 1,500 years old. And in that ancestral grave, no different than ancestral graves throughout North America, what was found in that grave didn't come from the Okanagan Nation territory. What was found in that grave didn't come from Washington State, it came from further south. So obviously that proves archaeological evidence proves over and over again that our tribes, our nations, had a system of trade.
Chief Clarence Louie:Trade is just another word for business. Our people traded with each other. We had a system of trade routes, trade routes. We did trade with other tribes, other nations. We have a word for buffalo in our language but there's no buffalo in the Okanagan. But we have a word for buffalo in our language because we traded with the plainspeaker. We went over those Rockies.
Chief Clarence Louie:So really we were the first entrepreneurs of this land, not the French or the English, we were the first business people we had. In fact, one of the Mohawks told me, one of the Mohawks chiefs told me many years ago that they even had a system of taxation. They didn't use that word taxation, that's an English word. They had a system of taxation for the French and English, the missionaries. When they came through their territory, they taxed them. They didn't speak English, they only spoke Mohawk, but they had a system of tax. Again, that's economics. So every tribal territory had business people, we had specialists, we had a system of trade and in the modern way, in the modern resway to me it's just.
Chief Clarence Louie:One of the national chiefs once said it's the economic horse that pulls the social cart. Well, yes, it is, but most of our people don't realize that they're trying to put the cart before the horse. They all talk about all these social programs, social elders programs, youth programs, education. Everything costs money. Health costs money. I've never met a teacher that works for free. Nurses and doctors don't work for free. Everybody wants a paycheck and there's nothing wrong with that. That's just normal and natural. Everybody wants a paycheck, even when I see healers, these native healers that go around, we have to pay them. Nobody, unless you're going to live off of welfare. The majority of our people want a decent paycheck and they have to realize that those paychecks have come from. And even if you work in social services or our schools or in education, that paycheck comes from somewhere.
Chief Clarence Louie:I mean the money, the funded money that goes into health and education, comes from economic development, comes from corporate taxes, comes from personal taxes, natural resource taxes, everything. If you connect the dots, it all goes back to economic development. Because unless you're a third world country depending on foreign aid which I know Canada and America and most G8 countries they end up giving money. They end up giving some of their economic development money to these needy countries because they depend on foreign aid. But every government I don't care if it's the federal government, provincial government, municipal governments, first nation governments every government needs money to operate.
Chief Clarence Louie:And if you connect the dots, where does that money come from? It doesn't just fall out of the sky. It just bugs me that natives can't connect the dots. They can't connect the dots of where does this money come from to pay my teachers or to pay our social service staff? Or where's the money come from for youth programs, elders programs, when we bury people? Where does that money come from? It comes from economic development, it comes from business development. That's where all the money comes from to run the federal, provincial, municipal, first nation governments. Money just doesn't fall out of the sky. It comes from economic development.
Aaron Pete:This was actually one of the lessons that I took away. I was a native court worker for about five years and trying to help people through the legal system, help them with their court matters whether it was a domestic violence charge or whether it was a theft undercharge and I was trying to help them and it just always felt like, well, we need more housing, we need more social programs, we need more of this. It just felt like I was in a never-ending rat race of trying to help people get out from that system and get into a social program and it seemed like there must be a solution to this problem beyond just doing the same kind of approach every day. Then I had the opportunity to go to law school in Vancouver and study this and economic development, to your point, was exactly the solution for indigenous communities.
Aaron Pete:It is the engine, and in so many communities, including my own community, we treat it like it's another portfolio, like housing, like social programs, like healthcare. But it's not. It's very much the program that allows everything else to be paid for. It allows communities to get out from under waiting for checks to come in from the federal government or the provincial government. It allows that economic freedom to go. Where do we want our community to be in 10 years and then to start to make a budget on how we want to get there over the next 10 years, and that's freeing. But when we treat it like it's just another portfolio, it keeps us small-minded and kind of gets us to check boxes and not have a good strategy around it. Moving into your Poor people aren't free.
Chief Clarence Louie:Dependent people are not free. So, obviously, do you want to be an independent First Nation or a dependent First Nation? Do you want to be dependent on government grants and programs and services which have never worked for our people? There's not one program that the federal government go back 100 years, even this year. There's not one program that the federal government properly funds. They never have and they never will, because there's just not enough money to go around. So First Nations got to start making their own money. You got to start making your own money and getting back on your economic course. It is the economic course that pulls the social cart, always has been and always will be. And, as I mentioned that ancestor Grave I was talking about, those things in there were based on economics and trade. We got to get back on our economic course. I mean, it's pretty simple.
Chief Clarence Louie:The dependency model, the dependency trap, was created by how you colonize a people. I don't care if it's Africans, asians, north American Indians, south American Indians or there's the British, french, the Spaniards or whoever. If you want to colonize a people, the first thing you have to do is take away their economic ability to support themselves. You take away their economics. That's how you make people dependent and you turn them into what's often referred to as hang around the Fort Indians. Indians were turned into hang around the Fort Indians. Hang around the Department of Indian Affairs. Hang around these forts for rations, for trinkets for that's how you turn native people into beggars in your own land is you take away their economics? That's the colonial recipe. It's been done over and over again all over the world.
Aaron Pete:Would you mind telling us about your first run for chief, what your mindset was, what your philosophy was? You're nearly 40 years in. I'm just wondering about those early days of considering putting your name forward.
Chief Clarence Louie:Boy, that was so long ago. I really don't. I don't remember. I just knew that I had a good work ethic. My mom had the old tough res rule that we've gotten away from you either go to school, get a job or you get out. And I know for one of our members that has now become the world's first nation winemaker, his dad did the same thing to him. He was being a lazy youth and his dad kicked him out. I mean, tough love often works. And in all of our first nation stories and I've heard it so many times about the Willow Stick, about grandparents making their grandchildren, you know, stand on their own two feet, you know, it's the same thing.
Chief Clarence Louie:If you look at the animals, eagles teach their young how to fly, not so they can hang around them, so they can be out on their own. They push them out of the nest. Eventually. They push them out and that youngster has to fly on its own. And that's the traditional teachings where our people I don't care what tribe you talk about, our people were not lazy People, weren't lazy people. We weren't hanging around the Ford Indians.
Chief Clarence Louie:The federal and provincial governments forced us to be hanging around the Ford Indians, but now we should be out of that era and getting back on our economic course and looking at every business opportunity that we can get into. And even here at Osuyu's we still have that mindset of not being able to connect the dots, many of our people and not thinking that business is easy and making money is easy. And so many bans have gotten land claims and lots of money and then in a matter of years, just like some bans in Alberta have told me, they went from poverty, extreme poverty, to extreme wealth in terms of money, oil, money. But all they did was give it out in per capita and to me, if you give out too much per capita, that's just a bigger form of a welfare check. That's not teaching your people how to be independent. You become independent on per capita.
Chief Clarence Louie:So they gave out these huge per capita kids returning 18 years old, 19 and getting six figure checks. What happens with most teenagers and you got to remember 18 or 19, all is still a teenager. What happens to most teenagers when you give them 100, 200, $200,000 check? Is that good or bad? You know there's a lot of people don't have to work for their money. They're not going to learn how to manage money. They're not going to have a work ethic.
Aaron Pete:I couldn't agree more. One of the areas that I find really important to understand, that I'd like your take on, is the process of elections within Indigenous communities. I find within my own community and within many others, there's a couple of families with big last names that are well recognized and then the community votes for them based on their last name, but not based on their ideas that they're bringing forward. And from my understanding, you ran on two platforms one to create jobs and two to make the community money, and I tried to bring a similar mindset when running for council was I'm going to do all candidates meetings. People can ask me why I'm running, what I'm hoping to contribute, the work that I plan to do if I'm elected, how I'm going to make a difference. Don't vote for me for my last name. Vote for me based on my ideas. How do we think about this? Well, in my book, Res Rules.
Chief Clarence Louie:I believe in rules. Every successful person has rules. Every good house has house rules. You can't play sports without rules. So I believe in rules. That's why my book is called Res Rules.
Chief Clarence Louie:But I have a chapter there about Res Elections and it bothers me that our elections are getting as much as we complain about white people. Man, we sure model them when we sure and our elections are getting just as stupid as the non-native elections. There was this you know, of course on the internet you can always get sent stuff. But I got sent this one cartoon about a Res election. It was a button. There was a red button and a white button, something like that, and the caption was it's election time on the Res Vote for your cousin. It was a white button, red button was vote for somebody who knows what they're doing.
Chief Clarence Louie:But yeah, you're right. I mean in Res Elections people make and promises. I mean in the old, native way. When you watch people you know there are leaders who are picked at an early age and they were trained properly and all that sort of stuff. But our leaders had to have qualities. One is a work ethic. If you don't have a work ethic, forget it. You shouldn't vote for somebody. Never vote for somebody who doesn't have a good. They can't hold a job. They doesn't have a job and you can't vote for people that give what I call the I care speech.
Chief Clarence Louie:I get native newspapers. I get newspapers here from the Navajo Nation, the biggest res on the world in the world. They get that newspaper twice a month and I subscribe to other native papers. So I've collected campaign speeches. I see campaign speeches.
Chief Clarence Louie:I have never written a campaign speech and I've never written a letter for voting. My slogan is, or my campaign speech is really one sentence I'll create more jobs and make more money for the Seuss and Yuban than anybody else. That's my campaign speech, that's my campaign letter, which I've never written one, and I'm not against those things. But I've noticed that all campaign speeches say basically the same thing I care about the elders, I care about our language, I care about our land, I care about youth programs, I care, I care, I care. And yet no one says how in their campaign letters, how the heck are you going to pay for all that stuff? Because everything costs money. I don't care if it's elders programs, youth programs, education, even funerals cost money. Everything from A to Z, from cradle to gray on a res cost money, so unless you vote.
Chief Clarence Louie:Oh, and I was in the Navajo Nation once and in my book that's one of the pictures I put in my book. I saw this sign because, of course, the Navajo Nation 300,000 members, biggest res in the world I saw this sign and I go down there on a motorcycle ride most every year. They were going through an election. I saw this sign that said vote for jobs, not talk. I thought that's me, that's my campaign speech. Vote for jobs, not talk. That's the way every res should be. Vote for people that are going to create jobs, not just talk.
Aaron Pete:And you've been in your role for almost 40 years come 2024. How does that feel to have known that that's had the impact and that you've been able to create so many different organizational structures and opportunities for your members?
Chief Clarence Louie:Well also, you've seen, your band isn't perfect and this band office I'm sitting in, and even these companies still don't run the way I like them to run. Because as a chief, you're not a dictator. Sometimes I wish I could be a dictator. Things would get done a lot better, faster and be in any case, a chief is not a dictator. A chief is not a king or a queen. We have a five member council.
Chief Clarence Louie:I always remind people council rules, council At election time. Just don't worry about who the chief is. I get one voter on that table. In some cases chiefs aren't even allowed to vote. They chair the meeting and only voted in a case of a tie. So during election time I'm actually campaigning more for who gets on council than who's the chief.
Chief Clarence Louie:I have to remind people you got to think this. You got to think the chief does not run council, council runs council. The majority rules are on that council table. So you have to be worried about who the council members are, not just who the chief is. I know in many bands here in the Okanagan the chief only votes in case of a tie. I don't run council. So at election time I'm just as concerned about if there's a six member council. I want at least four hardworking, good council members in there.
Chief Clarence Louie:So you have to be and even if it's somebody that's running on their own, like me, when I run for chief, as I mentioned, I spend most of my time when I'm out talking to people at election time. I'm talking about the council positions more than the chief position, because council runs council and you have to have hardworking, fair minded and I like it when I hear back East in the Mohawk country that they have a word for their leaders. I want to say the word chief and council, which are English words, but what that word means is those who are of the nice, sorry mind people. You got to vote for nice people, not the assholes that run for council, not the bullies, not the ones that shout the most and can stand up and ban meetings and all around the most. You vote for people that have a genuine nicest to them, not just. I mean we're kind of lucky in the sense that we're small res and we're not 300,000 people like the Navajo Nation. Pretty much everybody knows each other and always remind them. You don't even need to read somebody's campaign speech If you've been around the res enough.
Chief Clarence Louie:Watch what they do not during an election. Watch what they do and how they are throughout the year. That's their real self. Because our people are getting too phony. At election time they're acting like phony politicians. All of a sudden, near election time, they start attending community events. Before an election, you never see them, they never show up, but at election time, a month before election, all of a sudden they're at community events. I call that being a phony ass. You never see them at youth events, but near an election, all of a sudden they're at youth events. They can look at phony ass. Or when there's cultural ceremonies, you never see them. But a month before the election, all of a sudden, they're there, acting like they really care.
Chief Clarence Louie:You've got to have eyes wide open at election time and watch people throughout the year and throughout their 20s. Is there teenagers? Is there in their 20s and their 30s? Watch them. That's how our old people used to. That's how you traditionally pick leaders. Was you watch them? Is there growing up and don't vote for the assholes. Every race has idiots and assholes and what they call them haters. I even hear that in some of the native songs and the rap music haters Every race has haters.
Aaron Pete:You have this amazing campaign slogan, this mindset around deleting and making jobs and creating economic opportunities, and you've delivered. You have the most band owned businesses per capita in all of Canada. Would you mind talking about some of those band owned businesses and the work that went into creating them?
Chief Clarence Louie:No, we have, of course. Our vineyard is still operating. It's growing a lot since 1968. We have a joint venture, weimere, with Canada's biggest wine producer, artara Wine's Bincourt Jackson Treaves. We have a golf course. We have two gas stations and stores, one on North and the reserve, one on the South End, north and South. We have a forestry operation. We have a cement company. We have I'm trying to think of with the managers around our managers tables here. We have a campground in recreational vehicle park. We have a cultural center and we have a number of other joint ventures around forestry and mining. I think that covers all of them.
Chief Clarence Louie:We're always looking for new lease opportunities. We lease a lot of land. We're lucky here in the Okanagan. The biggest reserves in DC are all in the Okanagan. Some of our land leases. We lease out a thousand acres just in vineyards, two different vineyards. We have an industrial park.
Chief Clarence Louie:Well, it has a provincial prison on it. People often think that's the Ceciene Bands prison. It's not our prison. We're the first band to ever allow a prison on an Indian reserve on both sides of the border. That turned out to be our biggest land lease we've ever done the reason. I pushed for that prison, even though the connotation of natives in prison was because of 250 union-paid jobs. Any time there's hundreds of jobs being offered on the res, we should jump all over that Res humor is the best. Young res boys were teasing each other. Who's the first Ceciene Bay member that's going to wind up in that jail?
Chief Clarence Louie:On the Ceciene reserve we have an industrial park which we're looking to lease more land out. We have residential developments, commercial developments, industrial developments. We also buy land. Our res is 4,000-acre short, like on most reserves on both sides of the border. After the reserves were established and our ancestors someone had to say in the reserves, the government, as more settlers would come in, took away reserve land. We had 4,000 acres of our best reserve land taken away. One of our goals here, one of my goals, is to eventually get up to a 40,000-acre res. We're at 36,000. It's not going to happen during my lifetime but I learned that from the tribes in the States, the rich casino tribes. They've taken that money from casino gaming and buying land and add it to their reserve size.
Chief Clarence Louie:Land is always more important than money. Land is always more important than money. Some people give us shit for having to buy our land back. I think you think white people are going to give the land back. Yeah, give you a head of shade. You think some white person that's watched dances with wolves eight times is going to come into your band ops and say, oh, my conscience got to me. I'm going to give my house and my land back to the band. That ain't going to happen To me. It's only money. That's what I love making money.
Chief Clarence Louie:Whatever people need to talk about money at every opportunity, it's not having a level of money. The equation stamped in my mind is money equals opportunity. Those dollar signs equal opportunity. So I don't have a level of money. I have a level of opportunity for the CCB. But in order to have opportunity you got to have money. No, if you don't have money, you have no opportunity. You can't pay that.
Chief Clarence Louie:I just left a meeting and one of our students wants to get her masters. Well, that masters is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. And where the hell is that money going to come from? Looney auctions. You need to go do looney auctions to pay for your education and we buried one of our people not long ago with that funeral. The band pays for everything. When your people die, you're going to do looney auctions.
Chief Clarence Louie:Leaders have to put money as making money as a priority. Any which way you can make money, but you have to be able to manage money and not do the dumb thing that things that many bands have done, because that goes from whether it's a land claim or having lots of money. Our people are, because we were kicked off our economic course for 100 years. We have to get back and to learn how to make, how to manage money. In fact, I'm amazed, you know, even though see my Washington Redskins. Yeah, I'm a proud Washington Redskins, I'm a proud Redskins and I hope to get that name To me. That's a proud looking Indian. Agreed, I love that logo.
Aaron Pete:Can I actually ask about that really briefly? You're a person, I feel, who genuinely speaks their minds, not in a flippant way but in a very thoughtful way. You just say the truth as you know it to be, and we're in a time where political correctness is a very big thing, and I just find it admirable that you talk about Indian issues. You talk about it openly and honestly, you don't hold back. Where did that kind of philosophy come from for you and why do you think that's important?
Chief Clarence Louie:Because I'm not a phony politician. There's a big difference between being a leader and a politician. I actually don't like that word politician. I'm not a politician. Somebody who's a politician I'll watch what they say, they'll gauge, they'll go into a room and, oh, what can I say? I first have to look around before I can tell the truth. Really, you got to look around and be able to tell what you really really feel. What's that Johnny Cash quote? If you can't see what you truly think and feel, then shut the hell up. So leaders will say what have to be said. Even at election time, politicians will change their stripes. They'll change their views, even change their core values, if it'll get them votes.
Chief Clarence Louie:I don't change my core values to get votes. I don't suck up to people, and there's people on this res that have never voted for me, which is fine. That's democracy. I don't look to get everybody's vote. In fact, at a recent election one of the people that never vote for me she says to me well, you come to my house and tell me why I should vote for you, and I thought, why should I waste my time going to talk to somebody who I know is never going to vote for me and it's just trying to play some political games, being a phony ass. I don't like phony people. I can't stand them, so I'm not going to be phony with anybody. The way I talk right now is the way I talk at band meetings. The way I talk right now is the way I talk at council meetings.
Chief Clarence Louie:Some people say well, clarence, do all your elders support you? I say, of course not, and I really don't give a shit if they don't all support me. I'm not looking for everybody's support because I'm not going to be a phony ass. I'm not going to change my core values for a vote and people, you get what you get when you vote for me. I'm not a phony person. I hate phony people and I don't dislike anybody.
Chief Clarence Louie:And even after the election, once the election is over and some people tell me well, how can you help in that person? They didn't vote for you? I said I really don't care if they didn't vote for me. What they're saying or what they're bringing up is rational and reasonable to me and I'm going to go along with what. I'm going to try and help them and go along with what they want. Not because they vote, politicians will look at oh, did that person vote for me? I'm not a politician, I'm a leader and is one of the wisest business leaders of all time.
Chief Clarence Louie:Walt Disney once said the road to failure is for you. The road to failure is to try and please everybody. In fact, only phony people try and please everybody. So I don't try and please everybody. And even when we have votes on land designation votes, sometimes my mom is against the project, which is fine. I don't hate my mom because she voted no, but I'm going to stand up and tell everybody to vote yes. And after the votes over, we still treat each other the same way. I love that, because that's what leaders do. There's a big difference between being a leader and being a politician.
Aaron Pete:I've taken up far too much of your time already, but one really last question is just around what advice do you have if you were an indigenous community? Somebody comes in to your office and they go nothing's working for me, I don't have a job, I don't know where to go. What advice would you have for people tuning in and they just they don't feel like the world's giving them all the opportunities they want.
Chief Clarence Louie:Well, the first thing they have to do is start with themselves. I mean, what sort of job do you want we employ? Last call we did 30, someone first nations here. We had a first nation person from another res here. Always ask them how did you end up here? It'll see us. Well, where I come from there. All they do is arguing and fight there and only jobs are the band office jobs or the health jobs, are the jobs at the school.
Chief Clarence Louie:We have no economic development and I didn't want to stand in a welfare line. So that's the type of person that I'm looking for. They'll always be the lazy asses. Even this res we have lazy, which my mom calls them lazy asses. You could pay them $100 nowadays They'll get their ass fired. But 80 to 90% of my people, I'm sure most reserves to their hardworking. They want to be hardworking, self-supporting people, law-abiding people, and that's the type of people I love hanging around and I love that's. That's why I keep on doing.
Chief Clarence Louie:You know there is no finish line in business. There is no finish line in personal growth. You know I'm getting through more books listening to books than I am reading. I got one of the biggest personal libraries around. I love books and what I've learned successful people become successful in two major ways the books they read and the people they meet. That's how you become successful. You got to say you got to start hanging around the right people in networking is so important. I mean, that's some of the projects I voted for on this res like that racetrack.
Chief Clarence Louie:I'm not into Ferraris and Lamborghinis and those type of cars, but when I see somebody that owns a car that's worth $500,000, two or three res houses, I'm going. I'm not interested in that car, I'm interested in the person that owns that car, because they're obviously a successful business person, unless they're a drug dealer. How did you, how did you get the owner car like that? I'm interested in the person that owns that car. So I'm interested in hanging around business people. I don't go to Union, to BC chiefs meetings, summit meetings, the AFN meetings. I'm not saying those meetings aren't important. First they are. I send a council member, I send my proxy. You can't do economic development off the side of your desk. You got to be immersed in it, you got to be, you got to live and breathe it, and so I, I I stay away from from Political meetings. They're important, but I spend my time on the business side of the scale and I love hanging around business people. I love hanging around successful people.
Chief Clarence Louie:I mean, I just got Schwarzschneger's other book is the only guy in the world I know that Made it to the top and three totally different fields. He was a sports bodybuilding. He became the highest paid actor during his height. He spoke broken English and he still became the highest paid actor male actor at one time. And then in politics he ran as far as he could. He's a foreigner. He became the governor of the. What did he say? That sixth biggest economy in the world. California, california, california, the state of California, the sixth biggest economy in the world. I mean, who does that? And he just put out a new book called seven ways to become successful or something like that. So I got it and I just finished listening to it.
Aaron Pete:Brilliant.
Chief Clarence Louie:And that's what I love. I love listening and learning about successful people and how they became successful and hanging around successful people. And that's what I want First Nations to do is to get involved in the business world, because that's where the action is, that's where independence is hanging around and, you know, clicking on. I mean we've got a king now, but Clitching on to the Queen's skirt and thinking the Queen's going to solve all this is going to get your people out of poverty, I mean I still hear some old-timers saying oh, we got to go to we it, it, it, it it. Our treaties are with the Queen, our King, and that's that's. That's not going to work.
Chief Clarence Louie:All successful bands I've studied in tribes I've studied have a strong economic arm. Sure, you got to have a social arm, but your strongest arm should be your business arm. That's how you get away from being a hang around the Ford Union and find the job you love, if you. You know, the one sentence I love hearing from my people and I've heard it over and over again is when somebody can honestly say I love my job. Those four words you're going to be a success, you're going to have a good life, you're going to be a damn good worker. You're going to be very good at what you do. It doesn't matter what you do. I have a bus driver that says I love my job. He's never missed a day's work in 20 years and he has a very important job bringing our future managers and workers to that preschool I'm looking at across my office here, into that, into that grade school. Every job is important. On a risk, every job is. And if somebody can say that they, that they love their job, they're going to have a good life and they're going to be a, they're going to contribute to raising the state, to raise the standard of Living on your first nation, and then that's, and that's what I hope for all of my young people is to find a job that they love. You know, go, go, go, go, go find a job that you have a passion for. And I read this quote. I, I love quotes. There was this quote in the newspaper and all along go. That said the dancer is great Not because of her technique, the dancer is great because of her passion, you know. So you have a passion for your work and I have a passion for my work. I love creating jobs and I love it when I see one of my young people pick a career and say that's what I'm going to do for most of my life and then I change their career later on.
Chief Clarence Louie:But so many of my people of, whether it's golf, we sent that during COVID. We sent one of our young guys do this very expensive golf Pro management course, southern California. He came to the council table cry, said if he doesn't do it now, he won't. He doesn't know when he'll do it. Can events send them to this very expensive golf golf management program? And we did. He was successful. Now he's working in our golf course. He said that's what he wants to do for the rest of his life is be a golf pro and eventually manage a golf course.
Chief Clarence Louie:So I love it when I see native people whether it's my own people or I don't care if they're who they are. When a native person finds a job they love Wow. You know, two thumbs up to that and that's that's what every native person needs to do. And hundreds of years ago, before the white people came, we looked after ourselves, we got up early, went to bed early, got up early and we we worked. Every day was a work day Because you had to make your own clothes, to get your own food and have your own shelter. So you know First Nations people come from, but I call it working culture. We come from a working culture. That's. That's what we got to get back to.
Aaron Pete:I love it. I cannot thank you enough. Your quote is saying a healthy person is a working person and I think that philosophy is so important and there's so much to take away from your journey and the work you're doing to support your members and reaching their full potential, which I think is so important. I highly recommend people go check out your book Res Rules. I think it's really important and really helps connect people with that entrepreneurial mindset and how we can support communities in thriving and growing and impacting our economies and contributing in a good way. So thank you again. I've kept you far too long, but I really appreciate you.
Chief Clarence Louie:So, aaron, you saw like you, I like your, I like your tone, I like your enthusiasm and I want to see my great grandfather's reservation Res one of these days. It would be an honor to host you. We're in the federal. I have to get to your Res next year in 2024. I will my auntie with me as well.
Aaron Pete:I'll send out that invitation and we will make sure it's a warm welcome. It's such an honor to spend this time with you, take care.