Warren Paull has been re-elected as chief of the shíshálh Nation – and with the majority of council also returning, he says they “want to make sure we hit the ground running.”
Paull, 65, had 132 votes in the Feb. 15 election, a six-vote margin over Lenora Joe, a former councillor who’d also held several positions in the nation’s administration prior to her retirement in 2018, after eight years as education director.
The other candidates, Randy Joe and Nievelina Carmona, were well back with 48 and 31 votes respectively.
“It was a really well run campaign on all sides,” Paull told Coast Reporter. “Everybody kept it above the belt and kept it to the points and we had a good discussion.”
Paull said although shíshálh elections are often close – his margin of victory in 2017 was 14 votes – this one was unusually close.
“I’m duly humbled in the sense that when it’s that close it means that you may have done well but there are other visions – competing visions – that may take the nation in a different direction and I have to mind that,” he said.
One of Paull’s first commitments when the was elected for his first term in 2017 was to end the restriction on non-resident voters to allow nation members living in other communities to both run and vote in the chief and council elections.
That change, which required sign-off from Ottawa, finally came though just before the election and did not have a large impact on turnout. Of the 988 eligible voters, 337 cast ballots – a turnout of 33.9 per cent.
All four shíshálh Nation councillors were acclaimed in January after one of the candidates withdrew.
Corey August, Alvina Paul and Selina August, who were first elected in 2017, are returning for another term and will be joined by Barbara Joe, a former chief administrative officer with the nation, taking the seat currently held by Keith Julius, who decided not to run again.
Paull said although a formal community celebration to mark the election of a new chief and council isn’t scheduled until early April, he and the councillors will be sworn in Feb. 18 and get right to work.
He also said having the majority of the council returning will make that job easier, and Joe’s addition is “a real plus.”
“She’s a former CAO, she fully understands the organization. She ran the organization for a number of years and she brings a really experienced voice to the table,” Paull said. “Everybody wants to get to work and put together a really good game plan.”
Paull also told Coast Reporter that he plans to sit either as the shíshálh Nation’s director or alternate at the Sunshine Coast Regional District.
“I think one of the things we’ve lacked in, given all the other things that have taken place, was a steady presence at that table,” Paull said. “The Foundation Agreement has changed fundamentally how we interact with the local governing bodies and we have to have a conversation around that with all of them and I look forward to that discussion.”
Paull said one of his other priorities is moving ahead with the constitutional amendments that started with the expanded voting eligibility, and he’s been impressed with the team the federal government has assigned to work with the nation on the constitutional process.
“We’re looking at perhaps introducing legislation in the fall,” he said noting that while the current federal and provincial governments are on board, “everybody’s very aware of the limitations of a minority government and we want to get things done as fast as possible.”
