Glen McCallum will be the new president of the Metis Nation – Saskatchewan, if unofficial results from Saturday’s MN-S election stand.
McCallum, a Pinehouse resident and former Northern Region 3 area director, was one of nine candidates seeking the top job on the MN-S executive and received 1,015 votes. Runner-up Karen Anne LaRocque finished with 880 votes despite leading much of the night.
Incumbent Gerald Morin was re-elected as the organization’s vice-president by holding off challenges from five other candidates, including former MN-S treasurer Louis Gardiner, who finished 299 votes behind Morin. In fact, even though Gardiner led the voting through much of the evening, he ended up finishing third behind runner-up Darren Deschambeault, who was 277 votes shy of Morin.
Buffalo Narrows resident Ashley Norton defeated Lisa McCallum in a close race for secretary, finishing with 1,832 votes to McCallum’s 1,794.
Meanwhile, another newcomer to the executive, Mary Ann Morin, had no trouble winning the race for treasurer. Morin received 2,479 votes, more than a thousand votes better than incumbent May Henderson.
In all, the Provincial Metis Council will have 11 new members. The only holdovers among the area directors are Earl Cook in Northern Region 1, Billy Dean Kennedy in Western Region 1A and Derek Porky Langan in Eastern Region 2A.
Newly-elected area directors include Ryan Lee Carriere, Sherry Soll, Marg Friesen, Loretta King, Sherry Ann McLennan, Rebecca Major, Wendy Gervais, Leonard Montgrand and Tex Bouvier.
The vote that drew the most voter participation was the election for president with 5,055 votes counted province-wide. In the previous MN-S election, roughly 3,000 Metis citizens voted.
Meanwhile, the elections for regional representatives this time around drew slightly less participation than the contests for executive positions, with 4,896 votes counted.