A newly elected councillor for the town of Hearst is celebrating another win.
Gaeten Baillargeon says he'll be able to keep his council seat, despite not pledging an oath of allegiance to the Crown, according to provincial law.
The requirements have now been changed by the province and he was sworn in at a special council meeting Tuesday night.
Baillargeon is a member of the Constance Lake First Nation.
He was supposed to be sworn in with the rest of council last week, but did not want to pledge allegiance to the Queen.
He says that would conflict with his views as an Indigenous person and asked for the wording of the oath to be modified.
It was referred to the province, and Ontario's Minister of Municipal Affairs sent a different declaration for Baillargeon to swear to instead.
“You know, I didn't do this for nothing. Maybe that will get more Indigenous people willing to sit in office. And maybe that's one of the reasons, because like I said, if you work at any other pillar of the government that exemption exists. If you run for Chief and Council, that exemption exists. At AFN (Assembly of First Nations) and all the other places, they don't have to swear allegiance to the Queen because we were not (her) people, this is not ceded country. We never lost it, right?!" said Baillargeon.
Baillargeon says he received a personal phone call from the provincial minister, Steve Clark, on Friday evening to tell him the news.
