84 native nations resist Canadas Financial transparancy act

www.cbc.ca...

Nov 26 2014 the government of Canada has set as a final deadline for the native bands to comply with regulations that demand financial statements be public......
What Has been my impression of some native management of funds is that the chief and council and all their relatives get the lions share of goods and services from the funds disbursed by the feds......
The rest live a somewhat more subdued and sometimes hopeless existence.......
Perhaps the holdouts have much more to hide.....at least in some cases.....

From last weeks Macleans:

site.macleans.ca...

Just started it so no opinion.

a reply to: stirling

Been following this for quite awhile now. The CBC publish's some pretty biased stuff on it. The comment sections are racist beyond belief! The monies are paid either for Canada's use of treaty lands or supposedly basic infrastructure. It's not robbing peter to pay paul as is always suggested.

Now is there a hierarchy of families on the rez and usually the rest of the band members DO suffer for it. In a few cases audits have been called for by the members and it's been fluffed off by the Band Council and Ottawa.

From what I understand some Bands are resisting publishing to make a point to the govt, but I'm willing to bet more don't want the transparency. The problem with holding back funds is it's the little people who will suffer, not the Band Council members individually, which is a shame.

If the Band Councils were fined and jailed as individuals this would make more sense.

Gee, I am sure this has nothing to do with us telling them to piss of with their pipelines. Making the financial staff jump through even more hoops, nah, harper wouldn't do that for revenge, while the ignorant racists laugh with glee that they are sticking it to the "freeloaders"

It's none of the "general public's" business. If they wanted to make it more transparent to the band, that is another story.

That IS the problem...there are a lot of band admins who end up with the gravey while the band hardly gets any potatoes.....this has been this way almost forever.....
its not a racist comment either......
This thread is for my old friend and mentor Romeo.....

a reply to: stirling

I think it should be transparent. Natives have just as much of a right to know what their leaders are doing with the money as much as the rest of us deserve to know what our leaders are doing, corruption can happen anywhere.

Yes so may be spending their money properly and others aren't, that's something that happens all over the place.

a reply to: TKDRL

Sometimes we have to keep in mind that the MPs who bring forth these bills and ideas are human beings who have their own reasons for getting involved in something and sometimes those reasons are very positive. It has zero to do with pipelines. It has to do with people. Sometimes people see enough to start calling out the corruption.

Where I live is surrounded by reserves. With all the money going in the people living on the reserves are not living well, except for a few. Some can't even get housing or repairs to the existing housing on their land, yet there was supposed to be money for this.

I'm not native, but I have native family on reserve on the other side of the country. Two young cousins committed suicide during a rash of youth suicides. A lot has come out since regarding funding for the school and youth center.

Where are the band members supposed to go for help when they are being hurt by the corruption of their council if their band council only answers to themselves?

a reply to: stirling

Having lived on two reserves in the span on 4 years, I can honestly say that corruption is rampant to say the least. The chief and the favourite councelors often get all the monetary benefits they can while the majority of the people on reserve live in sub par conditions in houses that are often not completed or not built properly to begin with.

That's what happens when you have a group of people who don't care managing another group who cares even less. Call me racist or whatever you want but if you want to hear the truth from someone who's been there, the reason things don't change or get better is because no ones cares to do anything to change things, the ol' sense of entitlement strikes again

I have observed similar things and have had the pleasure of companionship with a certain native elder who
has over the years told me some very disheartening stories.....The problem is an inter racial one though........ if we could only see the boundaries of our own reserves more plainly.....The exploitation goes on everywhere....
We would know that truly evil will always prosper when good men do nothing....
I am hoping the native peoples may finally get some redress.....from their own...

Different strokes for different nations I guess .I would think that the nation of Canada might like to see a little more transparency within their own Govt. as well and should be making noise to that effect .Their seems to be a big black hole somewhere between the Senate and the PMO's office as well directly in the PMO's office .There is that saying that you need to clean up your own back yard first . I am not saying that the individual first nations couldn't do a better job for their constituents but that is their responsibility not some other nations to impose on them . It would be like some European nation telling Canada what it has to be transparent about . The issue of what constitutes sovereignty of a nation has to be taken into consideration and respected . a reply to: Sabiduria

A reason I think the corruption is what it is today had more to do with the old tradition of choosing a chief being replace with the Euro type of elections .It was usually the elders that chose the chief in the past . I have said that the type of system we have now was designed that way so that it could be corrupted and corrupt people could operate within it . We see it happen all the time where one party will parachute in a popular charismatic person to run in location they have had little to do with most of their life . a reply to: threeeyesopen

It's a commonly known fact that many reservations have their own form of class warfare going on within their governing policies.

Chiefs and head council members are dipping their fingers into the cookie jar and living quite comfortably while the rest of the peons are living in squalor-like conditions... particularly the most northerly reservations. Many of these places don't even have running water in their homes while the chief is living in a 2000 sq ft home and driving around in an $80,000 pickup truck.

The head band members have no right to whine and complain about this... they've done it to themselves by way of greed and dishonesty to their own peoples.

Unfortunately, those bad apples have ruined it for the rest of the tribes across the country who actually do govern themselves with honour and dignity.

For that reason, I'm on the fence about this one.

Is it fair that all the other tribes have to pay the price because of some bad apples ?

Or does it make more sense to force transparency only onto those who've been caught in their dishonesty ?

originally posted by: TKDRL
Gee, I am sure this has nothing to do with us telling them to piss of with their pipelines. Making the financial staff jump through even more hoops, nah, harper wouldn't do that for revenge, while the ignorant racists laugh with glee that they are sticking it to the "freeloaders"

It's none of the "general public's" business. If they wanted to make it more transparent to the band, that is another story.

Here's the correct answer to this story. The First Nations are the last bastion between the gov't and their precious pipeline. Prob nowadays is that one has to read between the lines.
Let's see some transparency from the gov't coffers - where tf does our tax dollars go anyway? If it went to where it said it all did, we'd still have a full line of public services, for one thing. Every time they strip a service away from the public, why is there no outcry from the public when our taxes are not decreased?
Gotta divert the attention. These are such old tactics.

a reply to: ItsEvolutionBaby

The money goes to elections and to substidizing company projects. Where else do you think it goes?
lol.

How they live up there with no shelter in the 17-1800's?

It get real cold and snowed a lot. What did the babies do?

Jeezus Harvin they weren't helpless or stupid....they have survived the frozen north since before we showed up......

Update here........down to just over 50 hold outs now......

www.cbc.ca...

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Canada does want to see more transparency within our own Government, Stephen Harper conned Canada into thinking he was going to bring about a more transparent government but it has been anything but.

Canada is only demanding it because First Nations Leaders are ignoring their own people's demands, We are trying to be their voice. Canada demanding transparency of First Nations Leaders is akin to England demanding transparency of Canada, they have the right because we are a colony of England.

Not sure if you recall a couple years back how the Inuit were living in horrible circumstances, their leaders couldn't do anything about it so Canada sent money & resources. Nothing has changed up their, the Inuits are still living under third world conditions. Makes me wonder what happened to all that money and & resources that were sent to them.

originally posted by: AnuTyr
a reply to: ItsEvolutionBaby

The money goes to elections and to substidizing company projects. Where else do you think it goes?
lol.

Haha you're so right!
And there is that pipeline to build...