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A new urban reserve could be coming to Regina’s northwest.
The Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City of Regina on Thursday morning.
The MOU is the first step towards developing 300 acres of vacant land near Armour Road east of Courtney Street that is owned by the First Nation.
However, nothing is concrete just yet.
At the signing ceremony, Chief Brady O’Watch explained what the agreement means.
“It’s a collaborative move to help our nation move forward. It’s just building those bridges, bridges that should have been there. It’s just recognizing and moving forward with those relationships,” he said.
The First Nation’s members still need to vote to approve the development, as well as what they would like to build on the land.
City officials and Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation membership sign a Memorandum of Understanding on Feb. 11, 2021. (Dominick Lucyk/980 CJME)
Still, O’Watch thinks this is a significant step.
“It was such an unbelievable feeling …,” he said. “Just to see something unfold like this was overwhelming.
“As a chief, you speak on behalf of your 3,000 members. You speak on behalf of the ones who put you here and have brought the journey this far. So to see it being signed, it was overwhelming.
“It’s not something that I took as a personal gain. I looked at the interests of the children (and) the interests of the old ones.”
Mayor Sandra Masters also sees the ceremony as an important first step for both the city and Carry the Kettle.
“The spirit and intent is to remove barriers for their own economic prosperity and growth. They own this land. Our job is to build that partnership and travel the journey with them in order to promote what it is they intend to do,” she said after the signing.
In a media release, Masters said the MOU “provides a framework of mutual respect” between the city and the First Nation.
“I’m looking forward to working with Chief O’Watch in coming years, and to making progress on our shared interest in both social and economic development,” Masters said in the release.