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DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
Five people are running in a Feb. 13 byelection to fill a vacant seat on band council at Fort Resolution's Deninu Ku'e First Nation.

The candidates are Philip Beaulieu, Frank (Rocky) Lafferty, Lloyd Norn, Rachel Lafferty and Angela McKay.

The seat became vacant when a band councillor died late last year.

Raymond Simon, 62, died on Dec. 14 after a battle with cancer. In February of last year, he had been elected to a four-year term on council.

The person elected in the byelection will complete the three years left in that term.

Chief Louis Balsillie said he was surprised by the number of candidates.

"I expected more," he said. "It's a three-year term."

One of the candidates - Angela McKay - had argued the byelection was not necessary and that she should have been appointed to council. In last year's elections, she received the most votes among the candidates who failed to win a seat and her understanding of the band's customary election code was that she should have been asked to fill the vacancy.

Band council had a different understanding.

"We basically said we've got opinions from lawyers and it doesn't say anywhere in our code where an appointee should be the next one," Balsillie said, referring to the candidate next in line from a previous election.

The chief noted, at different times in the past, the band has either held a byelection or appointed a councillor in cases of a vacancy on council.

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