Saskatchwan Metis election process in question

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While serious doubts have been raised about the validity of the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan election results, the Saskatchewan government says it is not assuming the lead in alleviating grassroots concerns about alleged election irregularities.

Concerns about irregularities have led, however, to a review of Metis Nation of Saskatchewan election procedures in which the province and the federal government play a part.

The $35,000 review is being undertaken by Marilyn Poitras, a Saskatchewan-born Metis lawyer, who was approved for the job by the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan and both levels of government.

Saskatchewan's minister of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs Pat Lorje stressed that her government does not want to intervene in Metis Nation politics and that it is up to the Metis Nation to take whatever action it deems necessary when it has all the facts. At the same time, she acknowledged that they have a memorandum of understanding that commits the province to work with the Metis on various issues.

"We had numerous people phoning and complaining," said Lorjie about why there will be a review, "meeting me on the street and so forth. There are a lot of concerns about the election."

She said the previous Aboriginal Affairs minister wrote a letter that suggested "we would want to be satisfied that the elections had been full, fair, open and accountable."

Poitras is studying Metis elections in the province back to 1995, the final report due Nov. 15.

"It's emotionally charged like crazy," Poitras said on Sept. 24. "I'm still in the process of gathering everybody's stories about what happened.

"The mandate is quite narrow. This is not about looking at all the problems with the election and getting rid of the current leadership. This is just about problems that happened generally over the last three elections and coming up with some recommendations to make sure the election process is fair and incorporating some democratic principles into this, so the elections run a little more smoothly."

It is unclear, though, even if there were widespread irregularities this year, whether any of the current MNS officials can be removed from office.

Some Metis, such as Ed Harper, president of Saskatoon local 126 for five years and a member of a group he calls Citizens for Democracy in Metis Government, are concerned that despite the review some executive members who may be in office inappropriately will be deciding on their own right to remain there.

"It looks like the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan has initiated an exercise to investigate themselves, so to speak," Harper said.

"What happened is, after the election, the MNS was in negotiations with the provincial government and the federal government in order to sign an extension to their tripartite agreement." One of the conditions the Saskatchewan government imposed upon the MNS before it would sign was that the MNS would have to "reinvestigate the past election," said Harper.

"We've just finished introducing and passing, but not proclaiming, a Metis Act. . . . and I will not be recommending to cabinet that it be proclaimed until at least after the fall MNS legislative assembly," said Lorjie, "because there have been concerns expressed. There's a high level of caution, and there seems to be a lack of trust occurring amongst Metis people in Saskatchewan."

The minister said, "I'm not the best person to be asking about this, because I'm trying to maintain a formal relationship. But there are several people who weren't, for instance, elected in the last go-around who are charging that the MNS is dictatorial and nepotistic and closed.

"What we're trying to do is we're trying to find some way forward to resolve some of these things, because these issues keep coming up over and over and over again."

Harper said they hired Marilyn Poitras out of their tripartitie budget to conduct a series of meetings throughout the province so she can get a scope as to the level of dicontent about the past election.

"Now, that's fine in itself, but . . . there is no part of the agreement which binds the MNS to act on the report."

That means "things could remain as the status quo for the next three years."

Lorna Docken, MNS vice president, set out to set the record straight on Sept. 20 about "a couple of false statements in the Star Phoenix [newspaper].

It reported, she said, "the provincial government had hired a consultant to investigate the MNS election. That's absolutely untrue. We hired her. The Metis Nation hired her through our tripartite process.

"So they're making it look like the province had to step in because we're such bad children, and the truth is that we realized that there were challenges that we were facing with the election. And the biggest challenge that we faced with the election was the voters' list."

Harper said he doesn't think the senate or the Metis elections commission had the right to "overturn the decision of the people."

He said the commission "acted out of their mandate, and they threw out a lot of ballot boxes, etcetera, which affected the outcome of the election . . . on mere minor technicalities.

"Certainly those reasons given by the Metis elections commission were not enough to throw out and disqualify ballot boxes throughout the province. . . . There is nothing in the Metis elections act . . . that gives the Metis elections commission that authority."

Docken said, however, that "People had been given a couple of years to get their voters' lists up-to-date, when our citizenship act was brought in in 1999. So I guess over a year had transpired between when the act had come in and when the election took place.

"And so what happened was, people were missed off the list. And there was no such thing as declarations. So if you weren't on the list, you didn't get to vote.. . .

"I think that we all have to take a little bit of responsibility. Me, for not checking to make sure (my children's names) were on tere. (Two had been included and two had not). And then the local presidents for not making sure that their lists were up-to-date. Because the elections office was just swamped. Everybody sent their names in at the last minute, and they had to compile a voters' list out of this. That was the biggest problem.

"And because of that, their ballot boxes were thrown out. Like, we have an elections act that stated that the voters' list could not be changed after a certain date, and on election day some locals actually added people onto the list."

Docken said that was understandable because "everybody should have the right to vote. But rules are rules, and our rules stated that you couldn't do that."

She said one serious example of a violation was in La Loche.

"The ballot box, when it was opened at the official count-they had actually written extra names on a different sheet, and added it to the voters' list. Nobody was trying to be sneaky; it just happened. So that box was thrown out."

Harper said he hopes Poitras recommends they have another MNS election, "run by an unbiased third party." Alternatively he wants to see reinstated the people who were elected.

He said he was "very surprised with the leadership of the MNS," that it did not refuse to "validate" the decision of the commission.

As a result of his stance on these issues, Harper said MNS officials are saying he is no longer president, but he plans "to hang in there."