Strahl forces vote in native dispute

Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl has used rarely invoked Indian Act powers to force voting on a small Algonquin community innorthernQuebec that has been locked in a years-long battle with the federalgovernment, while being torn by internal divisions. In a letter to Barriere Lake, a 450-person community that sits about 300 kilometres north of Ottawa, Mr. Strahl, pictured, said persistent instability in the community had forced him to step in to replace the community's generations-old traditional system with an electoral one. "I have come to the difficult conclusion that the community, as a whole, is lacking the political will and the governance tools to resolve the matter," Mr. Strahl says in the letter. "I have decided, therefore, to invoke the powers conferred upon me by the Indian Act."