Chief Joe Alphonse has been re-elected at Tl’etinqox-t’in (Anaham) First Nation in Sunday’s band council election for a fourth consecutive two-year term.
In the election for Chief, Alphonse received 142 votes, narrowly beating out Gerald Johnny who received 122 votes.
Chief candidate Sidney Harry got 34, Deborah Ilnicki 30, Anthony Billyboy 24 and Rosanna Stump 3.
The 12 people elected for the councillor positions include Randy Billyboy, Dona Cooper, Eleanor Cooper, Emily Dick, Harvey Dick, Daana Gilpin, Cecil Grinder, Dustin Hance, Isidore Harry, Therrien Harry, Gerald Johnny and Cyril Pigeon.
“We have five new council members and seven from the previous council,” Alphonse said.
Johnny, who was Chief before Alphonse, said the fact he didn’t get elected Chief but was elected as a councillor is not a set back.
“It’s probably a stepping stone for me to be a councillor,” he told the Tribune. “We need to have serious discussions about our land issues and put our federal and provincial leaders to task.”
During the campaign, Johnny said he heard lots of concerns about any future mining.
Alphonse said the new council will meet soon to identify portfolios, roles and responsibilities, followed by a community celebration with a signing and swearing in.
“Two of the council members who did not get back in represented us on a couple of significants seats,” he said. “Paul Grinder sat on the Punky Lake Wilderness Camp board and Leslie Stump sat on the Denisiqi Services Society board. We will be determining who is most appropriate and willing to sit on either of those.”
Community members often want to see their membership in the community, but to get big projects in Anaham the Chief has to be out there trying to make that happen, so the plan is give councillors more responsibilities when he is away from the community, Alphonse said.
“We will continue with our rights and title negotiations with the province and try to figure out a strategy to work with the federal government.”
Community safety and related social issues are also a priority along with job creation and development, he added.
“I think this past year we’ve created more opportunity in our community than we’ve ever had,” Alphonse said. “We need to sit down and do more longterm planning around economics for our community. At the end of March our community will emerge from a deficit for the first time in 30 years.”
When Alphonse became Chief he requested a forensic audit of the band’s past financial history and said once council is sworn in the results of the audit will be shared with the community.
