Members of Uchucklesaht re-elected Charlie Cootes Sr. as chief councillor in an election that pitted the long-time leader against his own son, Charlie Jr., and Warren Robinson.
Despite what he called the “family drama” of running against Charlie Jr., Cootes Sr. said he was pleased to be able to lead his nation forward into a new era.
“We are now a true government, not an Indian Act government,” he said.
The election took place Dec. 29 at the Uchucklesaht Tribe’s People’s Assembly held at the Port Alberni Lawn Bowling Club.
The vote count, which took place at 6 p.m., was the culmination of an agenda that included the annual financial audit, the introduction of an Official Community Land Use Plan and Land Code and discussion of proposed amendments to the Uchucklesaht constitution.
For Uchucklesaht members, there was a definite sense they were taking part in a day that will go down in history, as the nation voted to elect the council that will take them forward into a new form of governance under the Maa-nulth Treaty.
Ha’wilth Steve Rush reflected on that thought in his opening prayer.
“We ask the Creator to give us the wisdom to make the decisions that will make our nation strong and safe,” Rush said.
Chief electoral officer Kit Spence, who is a Victoria-based governance specialist hired by Uchucklesaht to conduct the election, said the election marks one of the transitions to local government status.
“This is the first election under the new treaty. The [Treaty] Act says elections are to be held in May, except for the first one,” Spence said. “This creates a council under the treaty. The current council is still under the Indian Act.”
The Uchucklesaht Council is composed of an elected chief councillor plus one elected councillor from each of the five families—two branches of the Cootes family (referred to as Cootes 1 and 2), plus the Robinson, Rush and Sam families—along with the four ha’wiih.
Pamela Watts had already been acclaimed to the Cootes 2 seat, and Carla Halvorsen to the Robinson family seat. Spence said the Rush and Sam families did not nominate a candidate for council.
In her capacity as executive and legislative secretary, Halvorsen said gathering Uchucklesaht members into a people’s assembly is an exercise in logistics. The 256 members are scattered far and wide.
“A lot of the people here today travelled from Victoria, Nanaimo and the Lower Mainland,” Halvorsen said. “We had a boat come up today from the village [Ehthlateese] with about 10 people.”
The Uchucklesaht Tribe has 169 eligible voters, of whom 18 cast ballots in an advance poll, in both the chief councillor and Cootes 1 family election. A further 47 members voted at the Lawn Bowling Club during the People’s Assembly.
At 6 p.m., Spence, along with assistant electoral officer Tara White of Snuneymuxw First Nation, and deputy electoral officer Nigel Atkin, set up a counting table in the dining area and were joined by the five candidates, who witnessed and verified the counts.
As part of the process, Spence cut open and emptied the sealed box that contained the advance ballots.
In the Cootes 1 family election, Wilfred Cootes Jr. defeated Robert Kenneth Cootes by a count of 18 to 15, with the candidates scrutinizing each ballot as it was recorded.
There was a sense of amicable tension during the vote count for chief councillor, with father and son, each keeping a tally as Spence inspected each ballot and showing them to the five candidates.
Occasionally, a ballot was slightly mis-marked, and Spence would either proclaim he was satisfied that the mark was accurate, or declare it a spoiled ballot. Each decision required the unanimous agreement of the candidates.
With a total of three spoiled ballots and including the advance ballots, the final tally was 26 votes for Charlie Cootes Sr., 22 for Charlie Cootes Jr. and 14 for Warren Robinson.
“Thank you to everybody. This is the first time we have had so many candidates, so this means our nation is strong,” the newly elected chief councillor told the waiting audience. “It sends a message that we have to do a lot of hard work for our community.”
Speaking after the vote count, Cootes, who except for one three-year break, has served the Uchucklesaht Tribe government since 1967, said the close election means he will have to be extra-diligent in all his dealings, knowing there was active opposition to the status quo.
“I am determined, especially for the benefit of our young people, to re-establish respect in our proceedings,” he said, adding that he plans to make information from council meetings and from the day-to-day business, such as planning and zoning applications, more readily available electronically, for a new generation of media-savvy Uchucklesaht members.
As the meeting broke up and attendees filed out of the hall, Cootes thanked members for taking the time out of their lives to attend the assembly, and bid them a safe return home to the many communities, some of them distant, where they live.
