The chief of a tiny Fraser Valley First Nation refuses to give up the job her father appointed her to 30 years ago, saying the band’s oral laws mean she is their legitimate leader.
But a group of opponents within the Kwantlen First Nation are escalating their four-year struggle to oust Chief Marilyn Gabriel and install a newly elected government. They’ve held two votes in recent months to oust her and add three new council members.
And leaders of this breakaway movement are urging nearby communities and First Nations to cease contact with the chief until the dispute is resolved.
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There have been no elections within the band since Ms. Gabriel came to power in 1993, after the 25 years her father had spent as hereditary chief and after the three decades her grandfather led the Kwantlen before him.
On Thursday, the hereditary council — Ms. Gabriel and the two council members she appointed in 1994 — filed a petition in federal court for judicial review that would declare the breakaway council members incompetent and force their three members and two organizers to immediately cease acting as leaders of the Kwantlen First Nation.
The group’s leaders, who are pushing for an overhaul of the Kwantlen’s system of government, say they welcome any input from the federal court, having failed to receive meaningful intervention from Ottawa in resolving this dispute over this unelected representation, as has more than a dozen First Nations nearby do run.
Ms. Gabriel and council member Tumia Knott declined interview requests. Ms Knott sent two statements saying the two votes on her rule over the past four months were invalid and illegitimate because the Kwantlen have no traditional plebiscite practice. However, the statement said they support dialogue on reforms, but any change to their law would require a “broad consensus” among members, an approach taken in previous cases in federal courts.
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“Certainly they have every right to advocate for a new system of government and leadership,” the statement said. “But they have no right to unilaterally seek to take over Kwantlen’s government in order to force an outcome of their choice.”
The federal court filing, which Ms Knott shared with The Globe and Mail, notes that only 68 of the nation’s 375 members attended Tuesday’s gathering. About 100 people live on one of the Kwantlen First Nation’s seven reservations, their statement said.
When asked why her council has never held elections, Ms Knott, a practicing attorney, said the Kwantlen First Nation maintain their indigenous pre-contact traditions of hereditary leadership.
“These traditions cannot be reduced or equated to colonial models of government,” she said.
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The federal court’s request says the council hired a consulting firm to poll the nation in 2019, but participation was “relatively low and significantly less than the majority of adult Kwantlen members took part in the polls.” Therefore, no broad consensus was reached on whether they should reform their government.
Robert Jago, a member of the Kwantlen First Nation and spokesman for the dissenting group also subject to the motion, said it was ironic that the council was concerned about consensus given the historical lack of opportunities for members to express themselves at a ballot box.
“Every decision in our country is decided by a vote from our hereditary chief,” said Mr. Jago, who is a writer and journalist for online magazine Canadaland.
Mr Jago said there are only 214 adult members of the Kwantlen, with more than half of those people “entirely cut off” from life on the reservations, the largest of which is the 191-acre McMillan Island on the Fraser River.
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In the most recent vote, 32 percent of eligible voters turned out, which he admits “sounds low” but is still well within the usual rule of thumb of 12 percent of all adults using local First Nations to reach the quorum.
Under the Indian Act, First Nations may opt out of regulations to follow a custom or hereditary leadership selection system.
While most of these “custom groups” have developed procedures for conducting elections, about 100 have been subjected to this procedure with no rules in place and 19 still have no elected positions, according to Mr. Jago. Without written guidelines, it is difficult to challenge alleged abuses in court, he added.
Under federal law, the Minister of Indigenous Services can order a First Nation operating under a custom system to hold an election. In 2010, Ottawa brought the Algonquins of Quebec’s Barriere Lake First Nation under the Indian Act electoral system after a dispute over a customs code.
It is unclear if another such order has been issued more recently. Indigenous Services Canada said Thursday it could take days to respond to a request for comment on the Kwantlen matter.
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After the November General Assembly voted to abolish the Kwantlen hereditary government, Mr Jago wrote to Minister for Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu to recognize her efforts towards democratic reform. In a Dec. 28 reply letter he sent to The Globe, Allyson Rowe, a regional director-general at the department, said the federal government would not intervene in the dispute and would recognize the current chief and two council members until an internal resolution was reached or one court decides.
Meanwhile, Mr Jago said the “hugely successful nations” nearby continue to offer a stark contrast to the Kwantlen, citing the Musqueam Indian Band sitting on more than $200 million in cash reserves.
“We’re comparing it to ours, where the big controversy last year was what to do with our failed coffee shop,” Mr Jago said of his nation, which he says has a $10 million annual budget. “We went backwards.”
With research by Rick Cash in Toronto
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