MNS Accused Of “Hand-picking” MNLA Delegates
Friday, March 04, 2005 at 13:27
The Metis Nation of Saskatchewan is refuting accusations that the organization is choosing who it wants to take part in next week’s Metis Nation Legislative Assembly.
Delegates at the MNLA will be voting on whether to hold another Metis election this fall, something MNS president Dwayne Roth says he will propose at the meeting.
However, his rival, Robert Doucette, says seven Metis locals in the Saskatoon area have been dissolved without reason in recent months — a development Doucette feels undermines the MNLA’s legitimacy.
Doucette says it’s no secret that those locals are not big fans of the current MNS executive.
But MNS secretary Ralph Kennedy says decisions related to the status of locals are left up to regional offices — not the MNS executive or the Provincial Metis Council.
He also says the legitimacy of those locals has been disputed for the last three or four years over issues concerning elections and general meetings.
Kennedy says under the MNS Constitution, the regional offices have the authority to list locals as “inactive” if certain criteria are not being met.