An Anonymous Contributor submitted this to post on the blog in relation to tomorrow’s meeting:
Tomorrow is a Special Assembly in Edmonton, Alberta. The elected officials of the Métis Nation of Alberta are fearful. They have walked around and told people how bad it is – but in the next breath all they talk about is their money.
The Special Assembly is a product of a resolution that unanimously passed at the Annual meeting in St. Paul, Alberta. It has us looking at dividing the existing electoral boundaries from 6 to 12 and having one elected official per electoral region. The resolution does not magically do anything else – with the exception that the resolution will not throw out anyone that is in an electoral position at this time. The changes will only take effect for the upcoming election in September.
The existing elected leadership keeps yelling - How will we afford this? Well how do we afford it now? We have two representatives per electoral boundary now – so we will change from 12 regional representatives to 12 regional representatives. The difference is that instead of a President and Vice President per region we will have one elected person per region. Right now – all the Vice Presidents of the Métis Nation of Alberta do not have a role. They all go around collecting a pay cheque and do not have to be accountable to the people that elect them because they all tell people they have to go to the President.
The reason that some of them are threatened by the change is that they are afraid of the change in the balance of power. Where did their votes come from? Will they have enough votes to get in again? Well – it will mean they have to work to get elected and talk to the people – get to know the change in the boundaries and develop a new base of power.
The other reason for consideration of the change of boundaries is that it is not perfect boundary lines but it is better reflective of the Métis population. Right now one of the regions represents almost 40% of the Métis population of Alberta. Between Region 3 & 4 they represent almost 70% of the Métis population.
There have been individuals who have tried to say the bylaws will change and there is more control for some over the others – none of that is true – the only thing that is being recommended for bylaws is changing from 6 to 12. There are no massive changes to the existing bylaws.
My understanding is there is a framework for a draft constitution being recommended in a second resolution but that is a different resolution that is only looking at the development of a living working document that will be implemented and worked on over time. It will have the Métis Nation of Alberta Association with bylaws for their corporate required structure but the building of their governance structure beginning outside of the societies act. This is not such a big deal – the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, the Métis Nation of British Columbia and the Métis Nation of Ontario all have this structure – we are not breaking any new ground – just trying to catch up.
Don’t let the fear mongering of elected officials determine what is right for our nation. Some of them have already shown us that they are not working on our behalf most of the time.
Sounds like everyone should attend. For more information on the meeting please refer to an earlier post NOTICE TO MEMBERS OF THE MÉTIS NATION OF ALBERTA http://metisbarefacts.blogspot.com/2008/03/notice-to-members-of-mtis-nation-of.html
Friday, March 28, 2008
Special Assembly – Ramada Inn – Edmonton, Alberta – March 29, 2008
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1 comment:
This resolution was not reconized as a special resolution by the resolution committee at the MNA AGM 2007 in St.Paul as it clearly affected all the bylaws from local to regional to provincial to election. It was turned down by the resolution committe because it does not even begin to identify which ones they are changing. Turns out one of the people on the committee were behind the resolution and took the comments of it being a "ordinary" resolution and pulled it before the committee's could speak to it at the AGM. Then re-introduced as a ordinary resolution. Listen to the people its not that Metis Albertan's do not want to move forward with a Constitution, just don't try and shove it down our throats and act like your not.
I agree Vice-Presidents have no direction in what their jobs are , lets revisit the resolution that put them in place in the first place and amend it as such to remove them. Sometimes it seems that VP are just there to campaign for when they are going to run for President on our dime as we are all taxpayers at the end of the day. They have no purpose.
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