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Doris Bill re-elected as chief of Kwanlin Dün First Nation

This will be Bill’s third consecutive term as chief of the First Nation.
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Kwanlin Dn First Nation’s chief Doris Bill speaks at a press conference in Whitehorse on July 9, 2019. Bill was re-elected as chief on March 18. (Crystal Schick/Yukon News file)

The 2020 Kwanlin Dün First Nation election is in the books and Chief Doris Bill has been returned to office with a third term.

The vote, which took place on March 18, concluded with the re-elecction of Bill as well as incumbent Councillors Charles Joseph Chief, Raymond Sydney and Jesse Dawson. They will be joined by Charlene Charlie, Jess Ryder and Rosemary Waugh-Wilson as councillors.

According to the First Nation’s statement of poll results, 428 citizens voted for chief and 428 votes were cast for council. There were 327 unused ballots and five rejected ballots. This means, according to the statement, that 423 votes were counted.

Bill won the election with 235 votes. This was enough to beat out the two other candidates — Coun. Sean Smith, who received 162 votes, and Ian Kuster, who had 26 votes.

Waugh-Wilson got the most votes for councillor, with 202. Charlie got 192, Dawson got 190, Ryder and Sydney both got 187 and Chief got 170 votes.

Incumbent Coun. Howard MacIntosh and Elder Coun. William Carlick were not re-elected. MacIntosh got 167 votes. Incumbent Coun. Dennis Calbery did not seek re-election.

This election comes after Bill voiced concerns over holding the election during the COVID-19 pandemic. She voiced her concerns in a post on her personal Facebook page on March 17.

She said, in the post, that she contacted the Chief Medical Officer of Health Brendan Hanley for advice on holding the election at this time. She claims he advised the First Nation to delay the election six months, but that others on council disagreed with the advice and would not allow quorum to be met to allow for a discussion on whether to move the election to another date.

The News reached out to both Hanley and Kwanlin Dün to confirm the claims detailed in the Facebook post and comments about the election results, but did not hear back before deadline.

Contact Gord Fortin at gord.fortin@yukon-news.com