Hereditary band leadership challenged GlobeBC
Now that the band has responded, the group that submitted the petition plans to ask the federal government to monitor the process of developing a new governance code, said Robert Jago, a writer and Kwantlen First Nation member who is a spokesman for the group. The band operates under a hereditary chief and council. Kwantlen members have made several attempts over the past 40 years to replace those positions with elected officials, but those attempts have failed, Mr. Jago said.
The dispute highlights complexities and challenges of First Nation governance, including concerns about accountability. The group behind the petition says Kwantlen has no written governance rules and that the lack of such rules has resulted in power being held by only a few people, including Chief Marilyn Gabriel, who’s been in that position since 1993.
While most of those “custom bands” have developed procedures to handle elections, about 100 were brought under that process without having rules in place and 20 have no elected positions of any kind, Mr. Jago said. The last time that happened was in 2010, when Ottawa brought the Algonquins of Barriere Lake First Nation in Quebec under the Indian Act election system after a dispute over a custom code.
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