Francis Verreault-Paul elected to head the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador

Francis Verreault-Paul from the Innu community of Mashteuiatsh has been elected to head the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL).

Verreault-Paul secured 21 votes in a single round of voting Tuesday in Quebec City. With 36 of the 43 community chiefs casting ballots, he received approximately 58 per cent of the vote. He needed more than half to win the election.

In second place, Constant Awashish from the Atikamekw community of Opitciwan received the support of 11 chiefs, followed by Cathy Martin from Listuguj and Monik Kistabish, who each garnered the support of two chiefs.

Verreault-Paul has served as Ghislain Picard's chief of staff for the past two years. Picard, a well-known figure who held the AFNQL leadership for 33 years, decided not to run for another term this year.

The election campaign officially launched on Feb. 11. Typically lasting two weeks, it mostly unfolds behind the scenes as only the 43 community chiefs can vote.

Four candidates were vying for the position, including Kistabish from the Algonquin reserve of Pikogan. 

The vote comes after relations between Picard and the Quebec government grew tense. In recent years, Picard repeatedly called out the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government for its strained relations with First Nations.

In a 2022 opinion piece in La Presse, he labelled the CAQ "the government of missed opportunities."

A year later, in a 2023 year-end interview, he doubled down, pointing to new political proposals from Quebec that he described as paternalistic.

And last month, in an open letter announcing his departure, he wrote that hardly a week goes by without his dealings with government authorities dragging him back to the hard-fought legal battles of the 1970s to defend Indigenous rights.

According to Neashish and Champoux, the law firm overseeing the election, each candidate had 15 minutes to present to the assembly, in line with AFNQL's electoral procedures.

The polling station was then open for one hour. If no candidate received 50 per cent plus one of the valid votes, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated, triggering a second round.