The Swan River First Nation held its election for chief last Wednesday, amid charges of corruption and illegitimacy of the process.
To vote, band members had to walk past a dozen or so people wearing signs protesting the election. Among the charges: that some eligible voters weren’t on the list, that some of questionable eligibility were, that the last election for council was illegitimate, that the election appeal process wasn’t properly followed, and ultimately that the whole band election code is fatally flawed and must be changed.
“It’s the system,” says band elder Gordon Courtorielle. “It’s not the people, it’s the system. Families are fighting because of this.”
Families are fighting, it appears, because of the 1993 ‘Custom Election Regulations’, a made-at-home strategy designed to keep control of band membership within the band instead of in hands of the federal government or supreme court.
According to Swan River member Dwain Davis, the regulations require band council to be made up of a headman from each of the six main families of the community. Only family members get to vote for their own headman, and only families decide who are and are not members of their families.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, says Davis.
It may have served its apparent purpose, but it has also had the effect of exacerbating rivalry and ill-feeling between families, as they jockey for power on council. Under the regulations, the chief can only come from among the six family headmen. All eligible band members can vote for chief, which they did last Wednesday. They elected councillor Leon Chalifoux to the post, while outside, the demonstrators protested the very legitimacy of the process.
According to Davis, there are numerous reasons why the election is illegitimate. One is the irregularity in the voting list. People who have come of age since the last election for council in March of 2002 have not been added to the list. People like 67-year-old band member Lawrence Dumont aren’t on the list either, for reasons he can’t understand and doesn’t accept.
Furthermore, says Davis, the whole structure of the band executive of the past year-and-a-half has been illegitimate, because there has been no chief. The last chief, Richard Davis, refused to run in the last election because, he says, the system is flawed and he gave up trying to change it from within. Council got by since March of last year by appointing one councillor or another as ‘acting chief.’
“But you can’t have an acting chief without a chief,” Dwain Davis points out.
Why didn’t they have a chief? Because the election for council was tied up in lawsuits and appeals for months on end, over questions about how one councillor managed to get himself elected headman of one of the families. According to Davis, he did it by signing up eight members of another family, giving him just enough family votes to get on council.
The rest of council disapproved and kicked him off council. He took council to court and received a favourable result from a judge who ruled he had been the victim of bias. Back on council again, he was among four candidates for chief in last week’s election.
“He shouldn’t be allowed to run for chief,” says Davis. “He shouldn’t even be a councillor!”
A further flaw in the system, Davis says, is that Council itself is the election appeal board. Since Council has a vested interest in keeping itself in power, it is not the impartial body that is needed for such appeals, he reasons.
Beyond the immediate questions of the legitimacy of an election, former chief Richard Davis says the Custom Election Regulations as they stand have meant nothing but bad news for the Swan River First Nation. Nobody anticipated the problems, he says, but the result is a sort of standoff in Council that results in an inability to do good work and an unwillingness to make necessary changes. As an example, he points to the band’s debt, which in the past decade or so go so far out of control that Indian Affairs had to step in to a role of co-manager. Prior to the adoption of the 1993 Custom Elections code, finances were in better shape, Davis says.
The family standoff in council isn’t reflected in popular opinion, at least according to the former chief. He says about 70 per cent of the membership are in favour of scrapping the current system and going to one where all members vote for all councillors as well as chief. They hope under such a system, councillors would feel accountable to all members instead of just members of their own family. But Council seems immune to popular opinion, Davis says, and the membership has no avenue to instigate change except through Council.
“It would take a court case (to change things), and we don’t money for it. We’re just looking for some help from somewhere.”
Courtorielle agrees something must be done, to change the system. He worries about what the older generation of members are leaving for their grandchildren to inherit.
“We’re like prisoners here,” he says. “People are not happy.”
The Leader called new chief Leon Chalifoux for a comment on the allegations of the protesters, but Chalifoux had not returned the call by press time.

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