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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknives Dene First Nation members who signed a petition asking for a new election for chiefs and council are at a stalemate with the current band administration.

Barbara Powless-Labelle says that there is no avenue for a petition against the current Yellowknives Dene band council to succeed, although she insists she won't be giving up any time soon. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

Barbara Powless-Labelle speaking on behalf of the roughly 150 petitioners, said that the current chief of Dettah, Eddie Sangris, and council told her the petition is illegal at the band's last open meeting on Aug. 25.

The chief and council refuse to accept the petition, even though she believes it has reached the required 40 per cent of voting members, because Powless-Labelle refuses to turn over the names of the signatories to the council.

Powless-Labelle said she gathered the names with the understanding that their identities would not be revealed to the band council, because members fear retribution.

"They set it up so you can't succeed," said Powless-Labelle.

"There's no opportunity for members to petition while maintaining privacy."

Powless-Labelle had hoped to turn the petition over to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada but the federal department informed the chief and council in a letter July 24 that the band should sort their differences out themselves, or take the matter to court.

"We're in a conundrum," she said. "The government doesn't want to get into it because they're happy to wait it out as we fight amongst ourselves."

The Yellowknives band council, as with the vast majority of aboriginal communities in Canada, make decisions on which houses go to whom, how financial benefits are distributed and who is hired for what jobs within the band, among other powers, said Powless-Labelle.

Another band member agrees that people are too afraid to come forward.

"People are intimidated. They're afraid of what might happen if their name gets known to chief and council," said the band member, who asked not to be named. "There is no freedom of expression at all."

The one avenue band members have to express themselves to the current chief and council is through public meetings, which are only open to band members. However, the openness to discuss the issues at these meetings is being withdrawn, said Powless-Labelle.

The Aug. 25 meeting was originally scheduled for Aug. 11 but was cancelled at the last minute, she said. Once the meeting was re-scheduled, there was a long list of items on the agenda and public input to those items was put at the end, which is unusual, she said. The meeting lasted for more than seven hours.

The band's lawyer, who is not a band member, attended the meeting which did not sit well with members, she said.

"People were mad," she said. "Our tradition is to have open dialogue in council meetings."

During that meeting, she said band councillor Roy Erasmus Sr. spoke the most about the petition, calling it illegal unless the names of the signatories are released.

Powless-Labelle said that will never happen while the council continues to ostracize those who speak out against it.

"It's really frustrating right now," said the anonymous source. "We could start another petition, but then what's the point?"

Powless-Labelle knows first-hand what the consequences can be for getting on the wrong side of the chief and council. In 2006, she was banished from the community after requesting a forensic audit into how impact benefit agreement money was being spent.

In June, Ndilo Chief Ted Tsetta was suspended without pay for signing a letter sent to Ottawa that questioned the conduct of the band council.

While Tsetta declined to comment for this story, Powless-Labelle said several members spoke up at the Aug. 25 meeting to support him, demanding that he be re-instated and paid retroactively for three months.

Council told members that Tsetta had not been suspended from his duties, and only his pay had been put on hold. They said they were now willing to work with Tsetta and may re-instate him later this month, said Powless-Labelle.

The band office did not respond to a request for an interview.

As far as the petition is concerned, Powless-Labelle said that after the meeting, she went back to talk to members about what to do next.

"People don't want it abandoned, they want it implemented," she said.

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