Ta’an Kwäch’än Council (TKC) citizens cast their ballots on Oct. 21 and voted in Ruth Massie as chief and Michelle Telep as deputy chief.
Massie previously served as chief for TKC from 2004 to 2009. She was also the Council of Yukon First Nations grand chief from 2010 to 2016.
Massie received 101 votes, whereas runners-up Christina Peters received 54 and Kevin Adamson received 49, according to a TKC media release. Two ballots were rejected.
Michelle Telep previously served as deputy chief from 2012 to 2018. According to the TKC release, she received 122 votes, and runner-up Kristina Kane received 82.
Massie spoke with the News on the morning of Oct. 24, the day of the swearing-in ceremony. She said despite it only being a few days after her election, she felt good to be among peers and people she had worked with before.
“I think I'm up for the challenge of going through our agenda, although the workload has not decreased, that's for sure,” Massie said.
TKC has outgrown its current administration building, and they have a plan to build a new administration building, per Massie. TKC is also embarking on a significant housing initiative, building townhouses for its citizens in Whistle Bend.
But Massie said little has changed for TKC in terms of implementing the Final Agreement since it was completed in 2002.
“I don't think we even scratched the surface on the implementation of our agreements,” Massie said.
She said Canada and the Yukon aren’t living up to their obligations, and First Nations representatives are constantly having to educate new government representatives about the agreement.
“That's one thing I find, that our people are very careful not to take other governments to task. But we have to, we have obligations to engage in those agreements, and its tri-party agreements,” Massie said.
Michelle Telep told the News that TKC has a lot of tools to help achieve the vision statement of the First Nation, which was crafted by elders and previous leadership. The vision statement underlines a commitment to “honour, respect, protect and care for our environment, people, economy and traditional culture as practiced by our elders.”
“I see the opportunity for the new leadership to continue to advance the implementation of the final and self-government agreements,” Telep said.
She said she wants to provide opportunities for citizens to live healthy and sustainable lives through education and employment opportunities within their traditional territory.
Chief Massie said she also wants to ensure TKC is more communicative with citizens about decisions made on their behalf. She said she wants more of TKC’s citizens to get involved, through opportunities like group planning and committees.
Deputy chief Telep agreed with that objective of community involvement.
“There's a lot of work to be done in self-government, as you may know, and so the more support we can get from citizens, the better it is for everybody.”
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
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