Mathieya Alatini elected grand chief of Council of Yukon First Nations

Math’ieya Alatini, a former chief of the Kluane First Nation, is the Council of Yukon First Nation’s new grand chief. Alatini was elected and sworn in at the council’s annual general assembly near the community of Teslin on Wednesday where she beat out four other candidates for the role. The non-profit organization, commonly known as CYFN, advocates for First Nations in the territory with the grand chief acting as its political spokesperson. “We have an extremely high caliber of talent in our nations and I’m extremely honored to be filling this seat,” Alatini said. Candidates Rose Sellars, Steve Smith and Pauline Frost were eliminated in the first three rounds of voting. During the fourth round, Alitini came ahead of Ed Schultz, who previously served as grand chief in the early 2000’s, 31 votes to 23. While 33 votes of 54 were needed to win, Shultz conceded before a fifth round of voting could begin. Alatini is perhaps best known as a former chief of the Kluane First Nation where she served two terms before running for the territorial Liberal party in 2016. She currently owns a consulting firm, GSD Strategies, where she’s the chief strategist. Alatini said one of her top priorities includes acting on a recent resolution to merge the CYFN grand chief position with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Yukon regional chief into a single role. The two positions will officially be amalgamated on Oct. 1. “There is a mandate to bring together both AFN and CYFN, and it’s extremely important for us to be thinking about how we want that voice to be projected, and also on what matters. So, there’s some priority setting that needs to happen with the nations,” she said. Alatini takes the reigns from Peter Johnston who’s served as grand chief since 2016 and opted not to run for a fourth term. Continue Reading