The electoral officer declares Scott McLeod the Chief of Nipissing First Nation for the next three years.
Muriel Sawyer is the new Deputy Chief.
The race for Chief had McLeod and Doug Chevrier going ballot for ballot for the top position leaving former Councillor Arnold May far behind.
At 11:10pm McLeod had just 4 votes over Chevrier. At 11:15 they were tied.
At 11:25 they were tied again. By 12:30am, Scott McLeod was out ahead.
At 1:30am, McLeod was at 300 votes with Chevrier trailing with 240 votes.
In the end, McLeod won with 372 votes. Chevrier received 274 votes and Arnold May received 194 votes.
McLeod says winning is an amazing feeling, "I'm humbled and proud. It's something I don't take lightly and I look forward to serving this great nation. I give great thanks to my community, my family and friends for all of their continued support. We have lots of work ahead but I have a great, well rounded council to work with and together with our community we will do great things."
In the last election, Scott McLeod ran for Chief receiving 263 votes, losing to former Chief Marianna Couchie who garnered 328 votes.
The new councillors are Cathy Bellefeuille with 297 votes, June Commanda -380, Brian Couchie -360, Corey Goulais -457, Jason Laronde -327, Muriel Sawyer -480 and Eric (Rick) Stevens with 367 votes.
In 2012, June Commanda was made Deputy Chief with 410 votes.
2,091 voters were eligible to cast a ballot. Nipissing First Nation has 2,590 registered members: 852 live on reserve with 1738 people living off reserve. Last election saw over 600 votes cast.
The Electoral Officer Fred Bellefeuille read out candidate names from ballots starting at 8pm until 2:26am.
Marianna Couchie was the Chief of Nipissing First Nation since 2006, leading for nine years. Before that she was Deputy Chief for three years. During her leadership, Nipissing First Nation struck a constitution, Gichi Naaknigewin, into law in January 2014. With its passing Chief Couchie stated, “I know, that with whoever is chief after me, our rights will be protected.”
During the lead up to the election, Scott McLeod conducted a survey with women from Nipissing First Nation to choose the most important issues facing the community. Education of the children and taking care of the youth were ranked as most important.
The new Council’s inaugural meeting is Tuesday, August 4th.
