Paul re-elected Pictou Landing First Nation chief
PICTOU LANDING — The results are in, and the people of Pictou Landing First Nation ( PLFN) have re-elected Andrea Paul as chief.
Incumbent Paul bested three other candidates with 151 out of 294 votes; over 51 per cent of the vote. The next closest candidate for chief was Jonathan Beadle who took 62 votes or a little over 21 per cent of the vote.
A majority of council members were re- elected though there are two new faces. Gordie Prosper and Derek Francis will join Crystal Ann Denny, Dominic Denny, Wayne Francis Denny and Anthony Nicholas.
“It feels great,” said Paul. “I was nervous since you don’t know what will happen.”
This will be her second term as chief. She has previous served two terms on council before being nominated and elected as chief.
“I’m very excited to continue work on things already started and begin new projects.”
Paul noted the previous council’s work on a wind project, training centre and new school for the community. She is looking forward to exploring the option of using VLTs as a source of revenue for PLFN.
“We want to move forward with gaming since it’s something we haven’t taken advantage of,” she said. “We’ve had some hard discussions about it and we’ve lost revenue by not having the VLTs.”
One seat was left vacant when Paul moved from a council position to chief in the last election and one individual, Louie Joe Francis, was not reelected.
“While I’m excited to work with this new council, I was sorry to see Louie go,” she noted. “He’s contributed a lot and it’s sad he won’t be joining us as we move forward.”
Tricia Fultz, deputy electoral officer of the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq, said the election ran smoothly.
“Turnout was pretty good,” she noted. “We were finished counting the ballots late Thursday night and posted the results at 11:30.”
Band elections are held every two years and candidates are selected at a nomination meeting held 45 days before the election. Those members who live outside PLFN have 35 days after that to mail in their votes.
“People cast votes from all over,” said Fultz. “One was international, from outside Canada.”
The chief of PLFN core funding is $52,000 per year and each councillor’s core funds are $21,000 per year.