(June 15, 2024) Clara Morin Dal Col is sending a message that is loud and clear to the handful of incumbents from the Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC) Board of Directors who have announced they are going to seek re-election in the upcoming MNBC General Election.
Ms. Morin Dal Col says, “I am running for President in the upcoming election, and that declaration that you and your group of supporters passed at the Métis Nation Governing Assembly (MNGA) back in March that was aimed at stopping me from running was meaningless and pure politics. In other words – it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.”
Article 23.8 of the Constitution has always referred only to existing members of the MNBC Board who can be removed from office for so-called breaches of their fiduciary duty. The declaration that was passed in March claimed that the Article in the Constitution also applies to anyone running for office in a future election, which is fundamentally out of alignment with the existing wording and intent.
Ms. Morin Dal Col says, “The declaration was nothing more than a political opinion passed at an MNGA – it has absolutely no legal force, legal standing nor legal effect when it comes to me running as President in the upcoming election.”
She says, “If they had wanted to try and do it properly, they should have proposed an amendment to the Constitution, and then taken it to the people at an AGM, but the proponents knew that it would never pass, so they thought they would try this phony approach. Maybe next time, they will do their homework about what a declaration is and what it isn’t, and seek advice from people who really know the rules of governance and what is required to try and amend our Constitution.”
Ms. Morin Dal Col, who was first elected as MNBC’s President in 2016 and re-elected in 2020 says, “The current group of directors wrongly removed me from office in January 2021 just four months after I was re-elected to office by MNBC citizens, and now they want to stop me from running through a sham declaration because they are afraid of me. Métis believe in fair and open elections – elections in which our Métis people will decide who should be their President. That right must never be taken away from them.”
So here’s the latest, Walter Mineault, the current MNBC Vice-President says he is going to run for President (has anyone told the current President – Lissa Smith). In response, Ms. Morin Dal Col says, “Bring him on…because I already defeated him in 2020, and with his track record as a member of this current group, and by the way in the last year he had the largest per diem costs of any Board member ever in the history of MNBC, I will defeat him again.”
He’s the same guy who pushed hard to have MNBC Board salaries increased by 36% in October 2022, and then at last year’s AGM complained that MNBC Board Members were probably living on close to the poverty line.
He’s the same guy who has been a vice-president of a Board of Directors that has been the least fiscally responsible ever.
He’s the same guy who attended the special general assembly of the Métis National Council (MNC) back in September of 2021 in which the MNBC representatives moved the motion to bring Métis Nation Ontario back into the MNC which subsequently contributed to the relationship problems with First Nations that continue today.
He’s the same guy who claimed MNBC would have self-government within 18 months, but 18 months have long come and gone and there is no self-government.
He’s the same guy who at the MNC General Assembly in Ottawa in December 2023 claimed that MNBC was still in a judicial review regarding MNBC wanting to be designated an Indigenous Governing Body, but in actual fact the judicial review had been adjourned more than a month earlier after MNBC filed a request for an adjournment.
So with a track record like that, Ms. Morin Dal Col says, “Bring him on because I will defeat him again in the next election. This whole Board’s track record is an embarrassment.”
The twice-elected former President says, “I and the members of the Clara Morin Dal Col Team are ready to take on this group of incumbents who have cost us more than $3.5 million in salaries and travel related expenses in just the last three years. Think of it $3.5 million. Exactly what has that $3.5 million gotten us? Nothing!” And they want self-government! Really?
Ms. Morin Dal Col pointed out that all the money they have spent is money she helped to negotiate with the federal government when she was President. She says, “This group has not negotiated one single new sub-accord for funding in the last three years but they have no problem in spending big money on their own salaries, travel, contractors and hiring many more staff, even assistants for some Board members.”
This group of incumbents do not deserve to be re-elected.”
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(For more information about the Clara Morin Dal Col Team click on the link below):
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