A number of Metis people and local presidents joined Bryan Lee, Kelvin Roy, and Louis Gardiner at Prince Albert’s Court of Queen’s Bench. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski.
A Metis Nation meeting in Saskatoon will go ahead as planned this weekend, despite an injunction that was seeking to halt it.
The application to put the pin in the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly, which is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, was filed in late January by local Metis Representatives Bryan Lee of Fish Lake, Kelvin Roy from Green Lake, and Louis Gardiner. Gardiner was elected as the treasurer of the the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S) in 2012.
It’s expected the weekend meeting will include setting a province-wide MN-S election, to take play in May.
This week, Lee and Roy were at Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench to argue in support of the injunction against the MN-S Secretariat and Provincial Metis Council (which are one and the same), while the Council’s lawyer Jay Watson argued against it.
On Friday, the application injunction was struck down by Justice Labach.
The 12-page ruling weighs in on Lee’s arguments, which use the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan Constitution to say the 18-person Provincial Metis Council had no authority to call this weekend’s assembly because their four-year elected terms expired last fall.
Watson countered that argument, saying “if this was the proper interpretation of the constitution, then another election could never be held.”
Watson argued what he called a “practical common sense interpretation” of the Constitution, saying Council members hold decision-making authority until a new election can occur.
Labach’s ruling says it is evident the Council was attempting to set elections before the end of 2016, but “there is no evidence before me as to why it did not occur.”
He noted the Council held a number of meetings in 2016 after their terms expired, monitored by the MN-S’s federally-appointed expert advisor Ernst and Young.
Lee argued using the Non-Profit Corporations Act to say the Council lost their powers when Ernst and Young “was appointed the “receiver/manager of the Secretariat,” which would give them a decision-making capacity.
However, Labach’s ruling sides with Watson, saying it is clear they are acting only in an “independent oversight advisory role.”
Lee is upset with the ruling.
“There’s a lot wrong that we know as Metis people, and I thought I would make an attempt to do this because I thought it was the right thing to do,” he said.
“We know what’s right in Metis Nation-Saskatchewan, and we know what’s wrong. And the Court of Queen’s Bench as no comprehension as to what’s going on here, and they will not rule in favour of our constitution nor will they rule in favour of the law.”
He says the bottom line is that MNLA will not allow the Metis Nation to move beyond its current dysfunction.
“An MNLA does not give us a voice,” Lee said.