Chief Edward Machimity said he was going to call the Ontario Provincial Police if the reporter didn't leave the Ojibway Nation of Saugeen reserve within 30 minutes.

Chief Machimity and his son, Marvin Machimity, had pulled up in a pickup truck outside Betty Necan’s home after getting a tip there was a CBC News reporter inside.

"I am the chief. I didn't call you," said Chief Machimity, seated on the passenger’s side with the window down.

"If I call you, then you can come," he told the reporter.

Saugeen is a remote community located 400 kilometres north of Thunder Bay. For years, members of the band have complained that the chief and his handpicked councillors, known as headmen, and band officials rule the reserve with an iron fist and for their own benefit.

The chief has been in power for 33 years and many in the community say they are fed up.

But his grip on power is tight.

His daughter is one of his headmen, and so is his best friend. His wife is the band manager, and his son is the cultural director. His son-in-law is chief of the two-member band police service.

Sitting behind the wheel of the idling pickup, the chief’s son, Marvin, says all the negative talk is just lies and rumours meant to discredit his father.

He says jealousy is driving his father’s opponents.

"They want to get the chief out because they are seeing the success of the leadership," he said.



"There is going to be no election until I die."

Saugeen is part of Treaty 3, which was signed with the Canadian government in 1873. Marvin says people from the community have no idea what’s actually in the treaty, which leads them to make irrational demands of the band.

"This generation knows nothing about the treaty," he said. "They want to get money, free."

Chief Machimity also mentioned the “treaty issue” during his 18-minute exchange with CBC News.

When asked what sort of arrangement he has with forestry companies logging on his community's treaty territory, the chief said he had none. He said the forestry companies give his contracting company logging contracts.

"I am under custom usage, the Indian way of life," he said.

"I have been a contractor for the last 30 years."

The chief made it clear the revenues from the logging contracts with his company go directly to him.

"Where do they go?" he said. "In my pocket."

Machimity, who is in his late 70s, said he'll remain chief until his last breath.

"I am lifetime chief," he said.

"There is going to be no election until I die."

Chief for life

Founded in the mid-1980s, Saugeen is a small community, with a total band membership of 242 people, about 100 of whom live on the reserve. Its reserve lands, which total about 60 square kilometres, were established in 1990.

It is one of 358 First Nations that operate under what’s known as a custom election code. Under Section 11 of the Indian Act, a band can create its own system to select its leadership.

Bands with hereditary leadership selected under the Indian Act section on custom codes are rare. The one other high-profile example of a chief for life is in Buffalo Point First Nation, about 200 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg. The chief there, John Thunder, inherited the position from his father.

Edward Machimity became Saugeen’s first chief in 1985, after Gilbert Machimity, head of one of the community’s founding families, appointed him to the post.

Paul Machimity, Gilbert Machimity’s 49-year-old-son, said Edward had the support of the community after it broke away from Lac Seul First Nation and formed its own band.

Paul said he doesn't believe there were any formal elections held between Edward's appointment as chief in 1985 and the creation of the custom leadership selection code that installed him as lifetime chief 12 years later.

"People just went along," he said.

It seems Chief Machimity got the idea for the customized process, known as the Custom and Usage Convention, from two men from Onion Lake, a Cree nation in Saskatchewan.

The men were known as “treaty technicians,” according to community member Betty Necan, 47, who met with the pair at the time.

"People just went along."

She said the men developed the convention along with Chief Machimity and his family. It was presented to the community as a finished product during a meeting at the school in 1997 and officially adopted, she said.

A band document on the custom code said it was ratified by "the original families as represented by Edward Machimity, Gilbert Machimity and David Necan."

Gilbert Machimity and David Necan have since died.

John Mahimity, who is Chief Machimity's brother, said in the beginning the community supported his brother's leadership.

However, over time, his brother began to exclude the community and grew intolerant of opposition, said John Machimity.

In a phone interview Wednesday, he said a band police officer showed up at his door to deliver a letter from his brother and two of the three headmen demanding he cease organizing to replace his brother and council.

This wasn't the first time the band police had been used for political purposes.

In May 2016, Chief Machimity sent a memo to Durell Keesic, his son-in-law and chief of the band police, requesting he investigate Hilda DeRose after she shared a post on Facebook about a meeting to replace the band's leadership.

The 2016 memo from Chief Edward Machimity. Post image on Pinterest: The 2016 memo from Chief Edward Machimity.

The 2016 memo from Chief Edward Machimity.

In the memo, the chief said he wanted to pass a band council resolution "where chief and council will take action" against individuals who call band meetings without authorization.

The memo doesn't specify what type of action Machimity had in mind.

DeRose said the police chief handed her the memo as a warning during a community meeting held by a group of women who wanted to oust Chief Machimity by simply declaring his mandate had been revoked.

"They just do what they want."

"I was taken aback by it, shocked by it," DeRose, who now lives in Hudson, Ont., said in an interview with CBC.

"We haven't been treated fairly for 21 years. They just do what they want."

After the meeting in May 2016, the women sent a letter to Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, informing her that Edward Machimity was no longer chief.

The department wrote back two months later saying the minister had "no legislative authority" to intervene and that the department would continue to recognize Edward Machimity as chief until it was "formally notified that an election has occurred."

Paul Machimity and Hilda DeRose. DeRose was one of a group of women who tried to oust the chief in 2016. (Jorge Barrera/CBC) Post image on Pinterest: Paul Machimity and Hilda DeRose. DeRose was one of a group of women who tried to oust the chief in 2016. (Jorge Barrera/CBC)

Paul Machimity and Hilda DeRose. DeRose was one of a group of women who tried to oust the chief in 2016. (Jorge Barrera/CBC)

Ottawa rarely intervenes in custom code leadership disputes, no matter how many letters the membership sends.

The last time Ottawa did so was back in August 2010, when Conservative Aboriginal Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl invoked Section 74 of the Indian Act to terminate the leadership of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, a First Nation in Quebec, located about 300 kilometres north of Ottawa.

Barriere Lake used a traditional mode of leadership selection known as blazing, where the elders choose the chief and the community then gathers and either approves or rejects their choice.

The federal government argued that Barriere Lake faced intractable and long-standing leadership conflicts that were affecting the delivery of services to the community.

The government forced the community to hold an election under the Indian Act election code.

In her 2017 book, Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State, Shiri Pasternak, research director of Ryerson University’s Yellowhead Institute, argued the move was a politically motivated coup d’etat.

She described it as an "exit strategy" for Ottawa to avoid implementing an agreement signed in 1993 that gave the Algonquin community, which never signed a treaty, control over its claimed traditional territory.