Broadcasting meetings for transparency in KI

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s (KI) chief and council meetings have been televised over the community’s cable network since last November’s band election.
“All our council meetings are televised Mondays and Thursdays,” said KI Chief Donny Morris. “That is how we try and promote our transparency and accountability to the membership.”
Morris said the televised meetings provide community members with an opportunity to provide input on various issues.
“From a community perspective, some do comment,” Morris said. “While we’re having meetings some of them would call in and have messages passed to us to comment or make a note of something.”
The televised meetings were part of Morris’ election platform for more transparency during the Nov. 30 band election.
Morris said the televised meetings work better than the old meetings.
“We try to keep it to what the agenda item is about,” Morris said.
Luke Sainnawap, previously a cable technician with Telecom, the community’s cable station, developed the televised meeting system after Morris won the election.
“I had to wire up the whole building from the cable station up to the band office,” Sainnawap said. “I did the pole work and everything in the middle of the cold winter.”
Sainnawap said the televised meetings have run for the whole day, depending on the agenda.
“If there are no really big agendas, we can run for an hour or two,” Sainnawap said. “But if there’s a heavy topic, we can run until the end of the day.”
Sainnawap said the televised meetings keep community members connected to the issues in their community.
“It makes them understand a bit about how the band office works based on what they hear and see,” Sainnawap said. “Follow up is done pretty good too — whatever is discussed is followed up. They have to be accountable for what they say.”
Sainnawap also produces weekly updates and video blogs about urgent community matters for broadcast over the cable network for a couple of days.
“We use Youtube a lot too, but not with internal matters,” Sainnawap said.
Sainnawap is available to train technicians from other communities on how to set up similar systems in their communities.