The Williams Lake Indian Band will be deciding this morning what the next steps will be moving forward after a group of protesters shut a down a polling station on referendum voting on the NStQ treaty process Thursday.
A community member had voted and proceeded to destroy a ballot box, which from a legal perspective led to determine that the vote would not move forward all over the floor.
A non-community member then started to destroy ballots.
All other polling stations at Canim Lake, Soda Creek, Canoe, and Dog Creek remained open as originally scheduled without incident.
The referendum which is not a vote on the NStQ Treaty itself is to decide whether the NStQ membership wish to continue into the final negotiations stage (Stage Five) of the six-stage made-in-BC Treaty Process.
Stage Five can take anywhere from three to five years to complete.
Once a ‘final agreement’ is negotiated, the NStQ membership will be holding a final vote whether to accept the treaty, before the ‘Implementation’ (Stage Six) can begin.