Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ – The petition asking the Micmac Nation of Gespeg band council to call a new election has close to 400 signatures. However, the band council refuses to resign, according to one of the petition’s initiators. 

The petition was presented on November 24 at the Gespeg’s annual general assembly. 

“The current council could not accept the petition. They indicated that it should be filed with the president. There was an hour and a half of discussion and now we have to go to the election of the president,” says one of the community elders, Mark Sinnett. 

“The council is taking it personally and our petition does not target any specific individual. We are asking the council to be a little serious and understand that we have 379 members of the community who are asking for a new election,” says Mr. Sinnett, who repeats that the electoral process was not done well. 

“Out of 2,200 members, 1,300 do not have an email address. This proves once again that the community was not informed of the election,” maintains Mr. Sinnett. 

“We will continue. We will not give up. This is a community that speaks,” he added. 

“Unfortunately, there are many flaws in the Electoral Code and it has become a code where the president will have to make decisions that are outside the framework because there is nothing written in the code to follow up. It will be his interpretation that will tell us where we are going with the petition and what happens next,” Mr. Sinnett analyzes. 

If an election were to be called, it would be done under the current code. 

“The real problem is that people were not respectfully informed that there was an election in Gespeg. What is urgent is that we go back to the election and we will see to correcting the Electoral Code,” concludes Mr. Sinnett. 

The petition calls for the electoral process to be restarted due to problems that arose during the election of September 8. 

Given the potential conflict of interest, the council has opted not to make a public statement.