The results of 2024 Tk’emlups Chief and Council Election are in, and incumbent Rosanne Casimir is going remain as Kukpi7.

Casimir defeated her only other opponent, Councillor Joshua Gottfriedson, by a vote count of 282 to 201, which concluded early Sunday morning, just over a week after advanced voting began the Band’s election process.

The victory gives Casimir a 3rd, three-year mandate as Chief.

She became the Band’s leader in her first run for the top leadership 2018, after sitting as a Tk’emlups Councillor for three previous terms.

Gottfriedson, in the loss, will now be sidelined from the decision-making in Tk’emlups, as his run for the top job precluded him from trying to retain his seat on Council.

His main role as a Tk’emlups Councillor this past three years was as the Band’s Business Development lead, which will now be handed off to one of the seven new, or re-elected, Council members.

That Council will include four new faces.

Of the incumbents who decided to run again, three of them — Nikki Fraser, Dave Manuel and Thomas Blank — were re-elected.

Marie Baptiste, who has been a long-standing fixture within Tk’emlups politics dating back to the mid-1970’s, failed to regain her seat.

The four newly-elected Councillors are Myron Thomas, Vicki Manuel, Daylin Malloy and Boyd Gottfriedson.

Kamloops applauds Tk’emlups election

A short note of congratulations has been sent to Casimir by November’s deputy mayor of Kamloops, Dale Bass, who is tasked with speaking on behalf of the City in her current role.

“As deputy mayor, I am pleased to extend my council’s congratulations to you and your councillors. We look forward to continuing our amazing partnership with TteS,” said Bass.  “We value not only this government to government partnership, but also the friendship we share with our TteS neighbours.”

Casimir’s re-election should help maintain a level of continuity as the Band and the Municipality work on a variety of joint issues, including the expected role both will play in helping guide the replacement of the Red Bridge.

While the Red Bridge was — and its replacement will be — a BC Government asset, the province has promised local consultation before a new span is designed and built.

“We will sit down with the City of Kamloops and Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc to discuss long-term plans for the bridge to make sure people can get to where they need to go,” said then-Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Rob Fleming in the hours after the Red Bridge burned down in a suspected arson on September 19th.

Kamloops and Tk’emlups are also working on expanding transit routes into Band territory, while also trying to finalize the completion of the Active Transportation Network, which the municipal side has designed to link up with bike and walking paths being built by Tk’emlups.

For Casimir herself, the new electoral mandate provides an opportunity to keep advancing projects and policies she’s been championing, including the completion of an elders lodge and a healing center.

Of the 1,152 people eligible to vote in the 2024 Chief and Band Council election, 498 of them cast ballots, with 15 either rejected or spoiled.

That represents voter turnout of around 43%.

By comparison, this is lower than the most recent provincial election, which saw nearly 54% of eligible voters turn up, but also much higher than the 27% of eligible voters in Kamloops who decided to participate in the 2022 municipal election.

Of the 498 votes cast, 109 of them were done through online voting, representing just under 22% of the ballots submitted.

Online voting, while not currently allowed for any level of government elections in BC, or federally, is being adopted by a number of First Nations in the province.

The online option is being touted by supporters as a more convenient and fool-proof means of distance-voting than the existing mail-in system, which 30 Tk’emlups voters did use this election.

Of those 30 mail-in votes, seven were rejected for reasons which have not been disclosed.

All that is required for an eligible Tk’emlups voter to register for the online option is their Status Card Number, as well as their corresponding date of birth.

The Status Card Number doubles as the voter’s Election Identification Number, which is meant to prevent someone from casting more than one vote in an election.

The online process for Tk’emlups, which was run through evoter.ca, requires voters to fill out the necessary fields before the system will accept a final submission, which all-but eliminates voter-error from seeing a vote rejected.