One of the numerous security workers at the Sturgeon Lake advance poll on Wednesday. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski
The second election for chief and council in as many months, is taking place on Sturgeon Lake First Nation on Thursday.
The reserve, which is north of Prince Albert, has been divided over leadership for years.
Last month, the band council voted to remove their electoral officers. Those officers and their supporters proceeded to hold an election.
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada has acknowledged those results on its website, listing Henry Felix as Chief as well as six new councillors appointed on March 19, 2016 with an expiry period of March 30, 2019. None of these people had been councillors in the previous three-year period.
Those results are from an election that took place earlier in March, run by a separate group from those running Thursday’s election.
The second group recently selected Alfred Sanderson as their new chief electoral officer.
Sanderson said the previous results aren’t legitimate.
“That was a booboo on INAC’s side. They were telling us they weren’t going to get involved and then they went ahead and released the information without anyone’s approval,” he said.
He’s confident in this week’s election, and that there was already one big indicator that band members have chosen their side.
At advance polling in Prince Albert on Wednesday, Sanderson said they’d received more votes already than the other faction received in total.
Both groups say their results will be the legitimate ones.
Until this is sorted out, the band is withholding all funds for activities aside from their day-to-day programming – like health, education, and social services.
Sanderson says this is because they don’t want the leadership that was selected in last month’s election to have access to funds.
“This current so-called leadership is not being recognized and all financials are frozen on the reserve. They’re only taking care of the programs,” he said.
There are concerns on the reserve that the newly-elected chief from the separate election will try to block voters. Due to that, they’ve had some extra security on the reserve.
There’s been no word yet on whether that has happened.
It’s been alleged that previous councillors tried to take away ballot boxes in that earlier election.