Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 07/99) - There's no peace for the North Slave Metis Alliance and there won't be in the near future.

Alliance president Clem Paul called an annual general assembly May 1 to change the NSMA constitution. This was done, even though Metis locals 66 and 64 launched a lawsuit against the organization claiming as many as 60 previous members had their memberships unlawfully revoked.

"My supporters, along with Rae-Edzo Metis local 64, is enough to ensure Clem Paul wouldn't get elected again," local 66 president Bill Enge said.

"That's why he's trying to revoke my membership, and the memberships of my family and friends."

At the May 1 meeting, Enge and others who had their membership revoked were denied access. The meeting went ahead even though it appears a quorum wasn't achieved.

Rae-Edzo Metis local 64 vice-president, North Douglas, is an NSMA member. He recorded the proceedings on videotape but left when the eight members needed from Rae-Edzo to get a quorum were not present.

"They didn't have a quorum to begin with and once I left, they definitely didn't. That made the meeting unconstitutional," Douglas said.

The proposed changes include dropping a clause that states the president and vice-president must be elected every two years, and that elections must alternate every two years between the two communities.

The original constitution also states three directors must be members from Rae-Edzo. That clause was dropped.

Metis local 66 board member Marc Whitford tried to get into the meeting, but was told he was not a member.

"I would say the people that are in the Fort Rae area are in great danger of losing their representation in the NSMA," Whitford said.

"Under the new changes, the people who are in Rae wouldn't have the voting power to elect a president from their area. In effect, it's no longer an alliance. All the power will rest in Yellowknife, and it would be driven largely by the Yellowknife Metis Council."

That's a problem, Whitford said, because Paul is also president of the Yellowknife Metis Council.

Paul said there is only about 30 NSMA members in Rae-Edzo, adding that more than 300 members are from the Yellowknife area. It's the NSMA members, he said, that are calling for constitutional change.

"The people in Rae will always be members in our alliance," Paul said.

"It's ridiculous that people have said I'm doing this for my own good when all I care about are the Metis people. We can't stop moving ahead as an alliance because a few people have a dispute with the board."

On the court case, scheduled for June 1, Paul said their lawyers will be filing for a full dismissal of the charges brought against them.

"The lawyers wouldn't be (filing for dismissal) if they weren't confident. We feel there's not enough evidence to support the claims against us," Paul said.

"We've been operating without a membership list. A membership committee reviewed and compiled a list recommending to the board who should be accepted as members -- some applications were denied."

Enge said not only did they have an original membership list, but that he has a copy that will be entered into evidence at the trial.

He doesn't dispute Paul's claim that more North Slave Metis live in the Yellowknife area, but said Paul himself drafted the bylaws to ensure Rae-Edzo members had decision-making power. Otherwise, they wouldn't have agreed to become members.

"There's no question there's more North Slave Metis residing in the community of Yellowknife than in Rae -- that's the reason they ensured they had guaranteed representation on the board of directors. They didn't want to be dominated by the Yellowknife NSMA members," Enge said.

"We agreed, myself, local 64 president Sholto Douglas and Clem Paul at the outset what the terms of membership would be and (Paul) wrote the terms of membership himself," Enge said.

"By holding an annual general assembly, he has strengthened our lawsuit against him. It has clearly exposed his illegal actions such as banning bonified members like myself. Second, he did not have eight Rae-Edzo members to conduct a properly constituted assembly.

"To change a society's constitution you have to go through the proper channels -- you can't do it by holding a bogus assembly."