The Canadian Indian Act has to be amended (Part III)

Many Canadians gasped recently when the Canadian Taxpayers Federation revealed that 80 First Nations chiefs across Canada were paying themselves richer salaries (after tax) than the Prime Minister of Canada, to administrate bands typically the size of villages, while another 222 were raking in more than their province’s premiers.
Conservative MP Kelly Block’s pending private member’s bill that aims to require aboriginal chiefs to publicly disclose their salaries may not change the way many First Nations are governed.

As appalled as many people may be when chiefs help themselves to colossal pay cheques, the reality is there is frequently a widespread consensus in a lot of native communities that chiefs are entitled to make their own rules. The leaders of the small town of Bell in California thought the same thing and they were subsequently arrested and charged will stealing money from its fellow citizens.

More than a decade ago, the Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples recognized that because most reserves are so small, dominated by larger families, the system naturally tends toward oligarchy, where two or three large clans take turns running things, enriching themselves and their friends and family, before eventually being exiled by another powerful clan.

There is no protection from this kind of abuse in the Elections Act. There’s nothing in the said Act that will prevent outright promises of jobs, payoffs and/or kickbacks. That being as it is, the situation is just simply wrong and makes it possible for abusers of the Act to be totally corrupt without fear of retribution.

When the Indian Affairs Ministry conducted a poll of First Nations members in 2003, only 51% supported the federal government’s proposal, via Bill C-7, to improve on-reserve accountability. 37% said they were satisfied with their band’s governance — a number that aboriginal author and reform advocate Calvin Helin notes “accords roughly with the number of family members that Chief and councils are likely to have in a community.”

Even if a majority of members of an Indian band are outraged at their chief’s salary, they won’t necessarily protest. The reason is that they fear some form of retaliation.

When Ottawa hands over block funding to band councils, it’s really handing over power: the power to control who gets jobs, who gets housing, whose kids get money for college. Staying on the administration’s good side is a common survival strategy for many individual First Nations members. When Judge Reilly tried ordering a Crown investigation into the Stoney Reserve in 1997, he commented “I have been told over and over again that people are afraid to participate because of repercussions. Residents of the reserve describe it to me as a ‘prison without bars.’”

As Jean Allard, the former Manitoba MLA and former leader of the oldest Métis organizations in Canada; notes “There is no mechanism within the system that allows grassroots Indians to exert their rights as Canadians in a democratic country.” Meantime, some bands are ruled by a hereditary chief or by band custom (where elections are spotty).

Even if Ms. Block’s bill passes, Canadians and First Nations people still won’t really have any idea what chiefs are raking in. If it’s passed, Ms. Block’s private member’s bill, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, will go some distance to shedding light on the traditionally concealed payrolls of First Nations. But it can focus only on the money chiefs pay themselves out of federal funds.

On many reserves, chiefs’ salaries come, also, out of businesses that are owned and operated by the band. Chief Harry Sharphead of Alberta’s Enoch Cree First Nation may award himself the equivalent of a $275,000 off-reserve salary annually; about 30% more than the provincial premier, as the CTF revealed in April but the Enoch Cree own a thriving casino, and a golf course, as well as oil interests and retail outlets, from which Mr. Sharphead draws some of that wage.

A 1988 court case ruled that any records that reveal details of income earned from proprietary band-owned businesses are protected by privacy legislation—at least until some government cares to take a run at legislating otherwise.

It seems to me that the band members should get a share of the income realized from these sources. If not, then is that because their chief has siphoned off more than he should? Perhaps the band members will never know because chiefs that champion transparency and good governance aren’t particularly keen on sharing their salaries with the outside world any more than those whose salaries are obviously failing in good governance.

Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band in B.C. is frequently held up as a model of good reserve management: it’s been 15 years since that band, thanks in large part to his leadership, began earning more on its own, through its businesses, than it collected in federal transfers. Every one of the roughly 450 members gets an annual dividend from the profits earned off Osoyoos’s businesses, which include a winery, hotel, golf course, RV park and restaurants. But even the iconoclastically reform-minded and fiscally vigilant Mr. Louie discloses his salary only to band members, not the Canadian public. But that is OK because if his band members know what he earns, then they can either be satisfied or not. If they are not satisfied, they can either order him to reduce his salary or turf him out of office.

There is, generally, a sense among natives—often understandable given their history—that their dirty laundry is their business, and not that of non-natives, according to Albert Howard, the co-author of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry. It’s the same “us against them” instinct, he says, that often results in First Nation communities closing rank and refusing to cooperate with police after a murder.

Ottawa always has the option of sending money directly to individual aboriginals, instead of solely through the chief and council.

Mr. Allard may have one of the most interesting ideas for improving First Nations governance that you’ve never heard about. Under early treaties, the Indian Affairs department agreed to pay $5.00 to every individual aboriginal (many bands still celebrate “Treaty Days” where members symbolically line up for their yearly allowance). Mr. Allard’s proposal argues that, adjusting the amount for inflation to a few hundred dollars and sending it directly to First Nations citizens, would liberate them from the dependency on—and, often, subjection from—the chief and council with the purse strings. He writes: “The fundamental virtue of treaty money is that it frees individuals and gives them control over their own lives; something we should want for every man and woman in Canada.”

The only concern I have about that proposal is that would be equivalent to giving then welfare and if that is so, what would encourage them to seek employment?

The tiny native reserve of 300 people in rural Nova Scotia (Glooscap First Nation) is governed by three of the highest-paid politicians in Canada, including one band councilor who made almost $1-million in tax-free income last year, according to federal government records.

Glooscap First Nation Chief Shirley Clarke reacted angrily to what she described as "inaccurate, negative publicity" surrounding aboriginal salaries, which came to light earlier and turned the spotlight on her quiet community. Yet, she refused to explain what was inaccurate, or discuss what she and her two band councilors; her sister Lorraine Whitman and their cousin Michael Halliday are paid.

The federal records say Clarke and three councilors were each paid more than $209,000 in salary, honoraria and travel expenses last year. (One of the councilors, Janis Walker, died of cancer recently.)

The records say the same reserve received $912,563 in funding from the Indian Affairs Department last year, exactly the amount separately listed in Glooscap's audited 2009 financial statement. This surely must mean that none of the money went to the other 301 band members.

Hundreds of reserve politicians made six-figure salaries last year, including 82 who were paid more than Prime Minister Stephen Harper's income of roughly $300,000.

The highest salary $978,468 went to an unnamed band councilor at a small Mi'kmaq reserve in Atlantic Canada. Although the records do not include the names of individuals or reserves, other details make it possible to identify which reserve is home to the million-dollar councilor.

The councilor who made $978,000 tax free received more than $700,000 of that amount for what the federal government calls "other remuneration" — income typically paid for work related to band-owned enterprises, such as gas stations and casinos, or band-awarded contracts, such as road-paving and snow plowing.

On Tuesday Clarke, Whitman and Halliday invited journalists to the Glooscap band office to hear a statement from the chief. She said in part;

"The document provides an inaccurate perception that we are unjustly overpaid for the limited work we do on behalf of our community. Unlike non-Mi'kmaq politicians, we do not receive vehicle allowances, pensions, benefits, insurance or dry cleaning reimbursements.” unquote

Considering the fact that they are grossly overpaid, for their services to the band, it would be insulting to slap the band with reimbursements for such amenities as pensions, insurance and dry cleaning.

This chief also said, “It is unfortunate that once again, the public is too easily entertained by inaccurate, negative publicity once again, focusing on the Mi'kmaq.” The public isn’t entertained. They are angry.

Elsewhere on the reserve, band members said they were shocked to learn through the media that their chief and councilors were paid such sums for running a small community. It would appear that the leaders of the band are hiding the information relating to their salaries from their own band members

Although Glooscap's official membership now stands at 304, only 87 members actually live in the community, which consists of a store and gas bar, a video lottery parlour and the band office and health centre, all surrounded by a small neighbourhood of modest but tidy homes on the outskirts of the town of Hantsport.

One Mi'kmaq woman; a long time Glooscap resident who did not want her name published for fear of losing her job at one of the band-owned businesses, said many Glooscap residents are unemployed, and collect $110 per week in welfare payments. She said the Glooscap reserve, like dozens of others across Canada, is run by a small group of powerful families.

It is time to put an end to this kind of fraud being committed on the Canadian taxpayers and especially on the band members who are in dire need of assistance. It is up to the government to step in. But as far as the government is concerned, stepping in this fracas is no different than stepping into quicksand. Once in, it is hard to get out of it.