The George Gordon First Nation is working hard to get its membership to participate in the next federal election.
Band member Marcel Isnana was selected as the Liberal candidate in the Regina-Qu’Appelle constituency last week with a significant number of George Gordon members taking part.
Band councillor Terry-Lynn McNab says local Conservative MP Andrew Scheer and his government have failed to engage First Nations people and this is why it is important that band members get involved in the 2015 election.
“We continue to have new legislation imposed upon us that we have no consultation in the development,” she says. “These impositions affect us greatly both on and off-reserve. It gets very difficult to be able to govern when there’s numerous impositions, aside from the Indian Act.”
McNab says First Nations people have typically not participated in federal elections but they plan to change that.
“A lot of our people are unaware of the impacts of the vote and what we were hoping to do is create that awareness and to ensure that by supporting a First Nations candidate that we have the opportunity to lead to influencing.”
She says as part of the drive to get out the vote, George Gordon is helping ensure band members have the proper documentation to register and providing information on how to get enumerated.
There are 12 bands located within the boundaries of the Regina-Qu’Appelle constituency and McNab estimates roughly 12,000 First Nations people in the riding will be eligible to vote in the next election.
The next federal election is scheduled for the fall of 2015.