Members of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation are voting in both a general election and on ratification of a historic land claim Friday.
Incumbent chief Jason Henry is being challenged by former chief Thomas Bressette and Kenneth Wolfe Junior. Nearly 50 names are on the ballot for the nine band council seats.
A second vote Friday on a federal government settlement offer could bring a nearly 170-year-old First Nation land claim to a conclusion.
The offer has already been overwhelmingly ratified by Aamjiwnaang First Nation by a vote of 687 to 26.
Ottawa has agreed to pay $35,728,354 as compensation for the misuse of funds from the sale of lands in 1853.
Aamjiwnaang is to get 52 per cent or $18,513,445 of the claim with the remaining $17,214,909 being allocated to Kettle and Stony Point.
An investigation found that J. B. Clench, a superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1830 to 1854, misappropriated land sale proceeds and the Indigenous communities never received a penny.
The historic claim concerns the sale of land in what is now downtown Sarnia that occurred after Walpole Island separated from the Sarnia Indian Band, and prior to 1919 when Kettle and Stony Point separated.
The fraud was swept under the rug for over 100 years until a mediator was brought in and an inquiry into the “Clench Defalcation” was held in 1997.
Polls open at 9 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. but due to the complexity of a double vote during a pandemic, the electoral officer has postponed the counting of the votes until 9 a.m. Saturday, November 14.
