Bone remains Sioux Valley chief under deal: Tacan

Jennifer Bone will remain the chief of Sioux Valley Dakota Nation under an agreement that ends the former chief’s court challenge of the November election result.

Vince Tacan told the Sun on Tuesday he reached an agreement with Bone to move forward outside of court. The agreement ends Tacan’s push to ask a judge to invalidate the election and call for a new vote.

“It’s not ideal,” Tacan said. “I’m not happy with it, actually, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”

Bone did not speak to any details of the agreement, but told the Sun that an announcement will be released in the near future.

According to Tacan, the agreement empowers the original election officer, Burke Ratte, to count the ballots from the November election. The recount may impact the councillor seats, Tacan said, but will not affect the chief position.

On Nov. 27, Tacan filed a challenge in Winnipeg’s Court of King’s Bench asking that the court invalidate the election of Bone as chief and five councillors.

The legal action followed a tumultuous election in which Bone was ultimately declared the winner by 371 votes to 212 for Tacan, the incumbent. The process involved a change in election officers after the ballots had been collected.

Ratte told the Sun on Thursday he will look to ensure that the ballots counted in his absence are valid — that the count for spoiled ballots is accurate and that no ballots were tampered with.

“I’m going to go back in, I’m going to finish what I started and I’m going to sign off on the results, whatever they may be,” Ratte said in a phone interview.

“If I’m confident that the ballots have not been tampered with, I will stand by the result,” he said.

“I think it brings a lot of closure for everybody. I get to finalize the job I was contracted to do.”

Ratte was escorted out of the community of Sioux Valley by the RCMP on the night of the Nov. 13 election. He said he had received threats, and complained that a locked door had been forced open.

At the time, Ratte left the ballots on the First Nation in care of safety officers. He planned to return and count the ballots at a future date, but a community group unsealed the boxes the next day and counted the ballots on a livestream.

Ratte wrote a report to Indigenous Services Canada saying the election was nullified, while Tacan called the process “illegal” and launched a legal challenge.

When asked this week why he accepted an agreement about the election that he is not happy with rather than move forward with the court hearing on Jan. 5, Tacan said that there was significant financial risk involved, and his perspective has changed.

Tacan relinquished his aim to be included in a new election, but wanted to have a recount that could possibly change the seats on council.

“We agreed that the important thing for them is that I don’t run again in another election,” Tacan said. “I agreed to that because they have already finished me off politically with the allegations that were made that still have to go to court.”

Days before the election, Tacan was charged by Virden RCMP for an alleged sexual assault going back to 1984. Tacan previously referred to the allegations as politically motivated.

While the election dispute is on track to be resolved, Tacan said he intends to continue operating a secondary Sioux Valley website that spawned out of the election dispute for other purposes.

“We are going to use it more as an educational thing, a tool that will benefit bands. We want to talk about governance issues, food sovereignty, child care.”

» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com