Conservative making waves

Page 1

During the recent federal election campaign, Jeremy Harrison, the Conservative incumbent who had represented the sprawling northern riding of Desnethe-Missinipi-Churchill River, spoke about the good relationships he had fostered with the region's Aboriginal population since his election as Member of Parliament in the 2004 federal election.

"I've worked very, very hard in reaching out and building relationships with First Nations and Aboriginal leaders right across the province, right across the country for that matter," Harrison said during an interview in the days leading up to the Jan. 23 election. He had been the Conservative critic dealing with Metis and Non-status Indians and vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development,

That relationship seems to have suffered as of late, thanks to comments attributed to Harrison about the way the election was handled in some First Nations community. Allegations of ballot stuffing and voter intimidation were leveled by Harrison, but it was his comments that such irregularities could be expected in a banana republic, not in a mature democracy that seemed to raise the ire of First Nation leaders.

In a media release issued by Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations following the election, Vice-chief Delbert Wapass spoke favourably of the large number of First Nations people who cast their vote, highlighting the Desnethe-Missinipi-Churchill River riding in particular, where voter turnout, he said, was about 25 per cent higher than it had been in the previous election. Wapass went on to take issue with the comments attributed to Harrison.

"To compare First Nations communities to 'banana republics' demonstrates Mr. Harrison's true views of First Nations," Wapass said. "I urge Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper to publicly condemn Mr. Harrison's ill-informed and disrespectful views of our communities."

Results released by Elections Canada on election night gave the victory in the riding to Liberal candidate Gary Merasty, the former grand chief of the Prince Albert Grand Council who defeated Harrison by only 106 votes. When those results were validated by Elections Canada on Jan. 27, Merasty's margin of victory was reduced to 73 votes.

While the margin of victory for Merasty was small, it wasn't small enough to trigger an automatic judicial recount,but a recount can be requested by an elector or a candidate. Harrison issued such a request and on Feb. 6, a Court of Queen's Bench judge in Prince Albert accepted the application and scheduled a recount based on evidence that some ballots may have been incorrectly counted.

The judicial review got underway on Feb. 8 but had not yet been completed at press time.