Metis Leader Defends Chartier’s Removal
Tuesday, August 07, 2007 at 13:44
The president of the Metis Nation of Alberta sees nothing wrong with a decision to replace national Metis leader Clem Chartier.
Audrey Poitras says Chartier’s term at the Metis National Council expired last fall — even though a motion was passed at that time to extend it another year.
Poitras notes neither she nor the president of the Metis Nation of British Columbia participated in that vote, in protest of disputed Metis Nation of Saskatchewan leaders taking part in MNC affairs.
Poitras says once the MNS question was resolved earlier this summer, Metis leaders from B-C and Alberta felt comfortable re-joining the decision-making process — and they began last week by addressing Chartier’s term in office.
She says, unlike the motion voted on last week, the decision to extend Chartier’s term was never approved by a majority of MNC governors.
Chartier says the controversy surrounding the MNS is the reason the MNC couldn’t hold an election last year as scheduled.
He plans to challenge his removal from office.
Meanwhile, Poitras disputes Chartier’s claim that the way they worded the motion to remove him effectively erases everything the MNC has done in the last 10 months.
She says a controversial MOU signed with a private health provider in Alberta is the only MNC initiative that has been scrapped.
An election for MNC president is set to take place in October.
MNBC president Bruce Dumont has been chosen to fill the position on an interim basis.