Indigenous Cultural Centre Studies

For many years, the idea of creating an Indigenous Cultural Centre in Lethbridge has been raised by community partners. In 2017, Lethbridge City Council provided funding through the 2018 - 2027 Capital Improvement Program to conduct a Feasibility Study. The focus of the Feasibility Study was to create shared understanding within the community about the focus, users, governance and operations of a possible future Indigenous Cultural Centre in Lethbridge.

A central component to the Feasibility Study was a community visioning conference hosted over two days in 2019. The conference presentations can be accessed here. The results of the Feasibility Study were presented to City Council in 2020 and can be found in the document library of this page.

A subsequent report was also prepared that describes central aspects of governance for an Indigenous Cultural Centre. The Governance Guide presents a model based upon the Niitsitapi values as described by Red Crow Community College Elders. Those values include:

• Aatsimmoiyihkanni – Spirituality
• Kimmapiiypitsinni - Kindness to others
• Niitisitapiiysinni- To be Blackfoot
• Ihpipototsp - Purpose for being there
• Aksistoiypaittapiisinni - Being able to take on tasks independently
• Isspomaanitapiiysinni - Being helpful to others
• Aoahkannaistokawa - Everything comes in pairs (balance)
• Pommotsiiyysinni - To transfer something to others (knowledge, etc.)
• Ihkanaitapstiwa - Everything that is given to a person to do
• Innakotsiiysinni - Respect for others
• Kakyosin - Be aware of your environment, be observant

In 2021, Lethbridge City Council provided funding through the 2022 - 2031 Capital Improvement Program to carry out additional governance and site planning work to continue to advance this project. Also in 2021, the City received funding from the Government of Canada's Canada Cultural Spaces Fund.

The current phase of work on the ICC project is called GOVERNANCE AND OPERATIONS PLANNING. The focus of this phase is to operationalize aspects of the governance model, identify interim and ultimate operating models, identify potential funding sources for capital and operating costs, and to make recommendations for interim and ultimate sites for the ICC.

Indigenous Community and partner engagement in this phase is ongoing, and final recommendations will be presented for Council's consideration by the end of March 2022.

Subsequent phases of this project are more site specific, and will commence once a location(s) has been determined.