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As a result, she overturned the decision to remove the councillor, Clifford Cardinal, from his position, and tossed out the requirement in the First Nation’s election code that applied to his community, Calling Lake.

“Mr. Cardinal is pleased with the court’s decision,” Allyson Jeffs, Cardinal’s lawyer, said Wednesday in a statement. “In particular, he hopes the door is open for more off-reserve members to lend their skills and experience to leadership by standing for elected office.”

The Bigstone Cree Nation includes the communities of Wabasca, Chipewyan Lake and Calling Lake in northern Alberta. In April 2017, the total population was just under 8,000 people, of which roughly 4,500 — more than half — lived off reserve.

In 2009, the First Nation signed a land settlement with the federal and provincial governments that acknowledged its right to self-government. It also adopted a new election code that designated a certain number of council seats for each of the three communities, but required that the chief and councillors be living on their reserves within three months of their election.

In an affidavit, Bigstone Elder Bert Alook said it’s a long-standing custom for the chief and council to live on reserve. “The people want their leaders to live amongst them,” he said. “Our people believe that the best leadership comes from those living on the reserve.”

Cardinal, who has lived 150 metres outside the boundary of the Calling Lake reserve since the 1980s, was first elected to council in 2010. In court documents, he claimed to have moved in with his son, who was living on reserve, to satisfy the residency requirement. When he lost the next election in 2014, he said, he moved back home.