Clément Chartier has announced his candidacy in the upcoming Métis Nation–Saskatchewan election. (submitted/Métis Nationalist Voices)

By Glenn Hicks

elections

Chartier to run for Métis Nation Saskatchewan leadership

Mar 15, 2021 | 5:00 PM

The President of the Métis Nation Council (MNC), Clément Chartier, has announced he’s running for president of the Métis Nation Saskatchewan (MN-S) in the forthcoming May 29 election.

Chartier’s announcement came just days after he announced his legal bid to try to stop recent amendments by the MN-S that allow only registered Métis Nation citizens to vote in elections.

Chartier believes the current MN-S leadership is taking things in the wrong direction and he wants to push for strong urban Métis governments.

“I believe [the MN-S leaderships] are going away from the people and centralizing,” he told paNOW. “I want to be elected so I can bring it back to the people.”

Chartier, who is from the Métis village of Buffalo Narrows and attended Île-à-la-Crosse residential school for ten years, said he wants to build up local and regional communities and institutions. He said he’d also continue his decades of legal and political struggle to secure hunting and fishing rights and for compensation associated with the discredited Scrip land system adopted by the Canadian government in 1870.

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“In the North, people will want compensation [from the federal government] for everything they’ve lost and that will go towards economic development, education, and health,” he explained. “In urban centres, we want to set up real functioning urban governments. I don’t want to build a centralized government and disband the locals…because our strength is in our people.”

Chartier, a lawyer and Queen’s Counsel, was involved in the formation of the Métis Nation Council in 1983, which is comprised of the Metis provincial organizations in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario. He has been its president since 2003. He was formerly president of MN-S from 1998 to early 2004.

He argues it was unconstitutional for the MN-S last month to amend legislation requiring all those who vote in an election to be a registered card-carrying member or have applied for membership by March 30.

“Every individual born into our nation living within Saskatchewan has the right—if they are 16 and over—to participate in the election,” he said. “We’ve had a practice since 1988 where we’ve been simply showing up as citizens to the polls and swearing a voter declaration form that you are Métis and then you are allowed to vote. Our constitution allows that.”

paNOW has reached out to the MN-S for comment regarding Chartier’s candidacy for president. Following the launch of Chartier’s legal challenge, MN-S told us last week it would be premature for them to comment on any action that has not yet been served upon MN-S.

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glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @princealbertnow