Gerald Morin says it is business as usual for himself and 12 area directors of the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan.
The MN-S vice-president and 12 directors, who were suspended at a September legislative assembly, met this weekend in Saskatoon.
Morin says since the legislative assembly was illegal in the first place, the suspensions do not hold up constitutionally.
“There’s a provision within our constitution that the Provincial Métis Council shall set the date and location for the Métis Nation Legislative Assembly, and that was not done in this case,” he says. “There was no resolution from the Provincial Métis Council, we did not set the date or location of that meeting, it was called strictly by our president — on his own.”
When Morin and the other area directors tried to get a court injunction stopping the September legislative assembly, other MN-S members who agreed the meeting should go ahead passed a resolution to suspend them.
Northern Saskatchewan Conservative MP Rob Clarke, who was also at this weekend’s meeting, says he, too, has concerns about the way MN-S President Robert Doucette is running the organization.
“I just want to listen, see what the concerns are and see how things are going through the court process,” he says. “The challenges . . . . the signing authority and also with the expenditures and not releasing the documents. These are big concerns. It’s about transparency and accountability and it appears that the 13 local representatives of the Saskatchewan Métis Federation are also concerned and want the president to be accountable for it.”
Morin adds there have been disputes within the MN-S before, but never has a president had so little regard for the constitution.
“Under our current leader, if things happen a certain way and decisions are made that he doesn’t like — irrespective of what the constitution and our governing documents say — he will go against them.”
Aside from Clarke, Métis National Council President Clem Chartier was also at the meeting.
The two sides are currently waging a battle in the Saskatchewan court system over whether or not last September’s meeting had the constitutional ability to suspend Morin and the area directors.