Bloods petition DIA on election changes

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CALGARY - A petition with more than 300 signatures from angry Blood band members was presented to officials from the Calgary Department of Indian Affairs Tuesday.

The petition was circulated to protest a Blood chief and council decision earlier this month to change their terms of office from two to four years.

Band members Duncan Bottle and John Chief Moon presented the petition to Bill Grant and Walter Hyshka, who represented department manager Bob Dixon who was unavailable.

Chief Moon and Bottle, who say the represent the concerned people of the reserve, told the officials that the Blood chief and council had made the bylaw amending the election without consulting band members.

"There wasn't even a general band meeting or any discussions with us," said Chief Moon.

The petition, addressed to Minister Bill McKnight, asks the minister to reinstate the Indian act and the two year electoral system. The band pulled away from the Indian Act in 1982 and has been under custom.

A copy of the petition has been sent to the department in Edmonton and a delegation of Blood band members will be travelling to Ottawa soon to present the petition to Minister McKnight.

"We are collecting our money together," said Blood Elder Duncan Bottle. "We are pulling in what we can so we can make the trip to see the minister."

Bottle added that band members on welfare and pensions are scraping together all their spare cash and some have even sold furniture and personal effects to put money toward the cause.

"We've already got $950 from these people, and they are all very poor," said Chief Moon.

Chief Moon added that if the department refuses to step in and the chief and council refuse to reverse the bylaw, there will be a massive boycott of the polls during the upcoming election scheduled for the end of November.

"We're not going to take this lying down," he said. "There are a lot of people unhappy with what the chief and council are doing."

However, a spokesman for the chief and council says it is unlikely that the bylaw will be repealed as chief and council "did not act illegally."

Band co-ordinator Kerby Manyfingers said the chief and council will not give a statement until after they have received the petition but they had acted in the best interests of the band.

"The chief and council's job is to act in the best interests of the people and very often they have to make unpopular decisions,' said Manyfingers. "With regard to the election bylaw the chief and council never overstepped their authority, although ideally there could have been a referendum," he added.

Manyfingers pointed out that the two-year system was just not working efficiently and that it had been one of the major problems of the band.

"The two-year system was plainly inadequate for policy and administrative needs. There is no continuity between elected officials and each new council has to learn new duties and responsibility," said Manyfingers.

However, Chief Moon says he is not satisfied with this answer and added that he felt the chief and council were trying to act like "kings."

"Our petition is growing every day and I think we'll have at least 500 signatures

by the time we go to Ottawa. These people in the council are trying to act like kings, they want to stay in power forever while we stay their serfs," said Chief Moon.

"We're taking a suitcase of complaints" to Ottawa, said Chief Moon, including documented evidence of poor housing, malnutrition, discrimination and many cases of blatant nepotism and family favoritism.

Elder Duncan Bottle appealed to the officials saying that he and other Blood band members are afraid of self-government and most people want to remain Canadian citizens rather than be "under the control of people like the chief and council.

"There are a lot of people with nothing to eat. They don't have good homes and the chief and council do nothing," he said.

The controversy started just over two weeks ago when a news release fom chief and council announcing the new bylaw was published in the Kainai News, a by-monthly publication produced on the Blood Reserve.

Several band members complained they had only found out about the new bylaw through the government-funded newspaper.

A meeting was held in Fort MacLeod where concerned Blood band members expressed concern over the new bylaw and a resolution to circulate a petition was passed unanimously.

At the time of going to Press Chief Roy Fox was unavailable for comment.