Voices are being raised to urge the Legault government to correct the mechanism that allows Aboriginals to vote in municipalities where they do not reside, two weeks after an Innu not residing in Natashquan was elected mayor.
In Roberval, the City has been asking for 12 years to be exempted from the application of this law. “It seems blocked at the political level. We don’t know why, ”said Mayor Serge Bergeron. The government’s inaction surprises him all the more because Mashteuiatsh, the indigenous community concerned, supports it.
Roberval is one of twenty municipalities in Quebec where Aboriginals from neighboring communities have the right to vote in municipal elections since 2009.
As revealed last week The duty, this has recently created tensions in Natashquan, where Henri Wapistan, an Innu, was elected mayor of the city even if he does not live on his territory and does not pay property taxes there.
According to the former Minister of Native Affairs and expert in constitutional law Benoît Pelletier, the government must act. “I hope that the Minister of Native Affairs and the Minister of Municipal Affairs will take the matter seriously and provide solutions, because that will create problems in the regions. Better safe than sorry, ”he says.
“Given that they have their own band council and their elected assembly, I consider that, at the municipal level, they form a distinct political unit,” explains Mr. Pelletier. “What could have motivated this decision was a concern for equality. But it is a very relative equality, because the converse is not true. Non-Aboriginals do not have the right to elect members of band councils. “
Mr. Pelletier is familiar with the file since he was the Minister of Native Affairs at the time of the change. At the time, he pleaded for the law to be amended, particularly with his colleague Minister of Municipal Affairs Nathalie Normandeau.
But the withdrawal of Mr. Pelletier’s policy, a cabinet reshuffle and the end of the parliamentary session got the better of this project in June 2009, a few months before the municipal elections.
The president of the Quebec Federation of Municipalities (FQM), Bernard Généreux, then strongly denounced what he considered to be a “lack of political courage” on the part of the Liberals. Twelve years later, he thinks none the less. “Seems like no one wants to touch this because everything related to Indigenous politics is explosive,” he said this week. For me, it still remains an aberration. I do not understand the recklessness and neglect that we have with regard to this issue. “
How did we get here ?
Everyone affected by this issue is asking the same question: why did the Liberal government want to grant this right to vote to aboriginal people, who had asked for nothing? And according to what logic? Despite repeated requests from To have to for two weeks, neither the Chief Electoral Officer (DGE) nor the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MAMH) have been able to provide any answers in this regard.
What we do know is that the twenty municipalities concerned were notified of the change in December 2007, specifically for the 2009 elections.
However, if one relies on certain articles published at the time, it appears that the government’s decision was not of an ideological nature, but rather a technical one.
According to Nathalie Normandeau’s press officer quoted in 2009 in the daily The Nouvelliste, the Chief Electoral Officer had informed the government in 2005 of an “ambiguity” in the Law on elections and referendums. The department would then have produced a legal analysis that led to the expansion of aboriginal voting rights.
The Quebec territory being divided only into municipalities, RCMs and unorganized territories (TNO), native reserves could not be considered as TNOs and must necessarily be part of municipal territory in the electoral law.
Was the CEO concerned that the constitutional right to vote would be infringed? If so, this concern is now unfounded, according to Benoit Pelletier, since the Supreme Court has just established that the Canadian Charter only protects the right to vote at the provincial and federal levels, not at the municipal level (Toronto versus Ontario ).
The case of La Tuque
He said there might be other ways to improve Indigenous participation in politics. “In my recommendation in 2008, I said that perhaps a piecemeal solution could be envisaged. It depends on regional contexts. “
Thus, the levels of collaboration between municipalities and reserves vary greatly from one region to another. In La Tuque, for example, mayoral candidates have made a habit of campaigning in neighboring Atikamekw reserves as well, and polling stations have been added in Wemotaci during municipal elections.
The Atikamekw Council also proposed to create an urban community with the City, or to reserve two seats on the City Council for its members. The community sees it as a way to offer better local services to Indigenous people living in urban areas, who account for 30% of the city’s population, reported this summer. Echo from La Tuque.
What does the Legault government intend to do? The office of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, Andrée Laforest, is said to have taken note of Roberval and Mashteuiatsh’s request. The minister is said to have even discussed it with Chief Gilbert Dominique this week. The request must “be studied in depth”, indicates the press secretary Bénédicte Trottier-Lavoie. One thing is certain, the government will have to change this law if it wants to move forward. The minister has not yet decided whether she intends to legislate on a case-by-case basis or globally for all the municipalities affected.