Square Pegs and Round Holes

"We disclose the salaries of councillors and chief."
"We have supplemented federal funding with our own dollars and we do a line-by-line audit in the community hall every year."
Onion Lake Cree First Nation Chief Wallace Fox, Alberta

Onion Lake Cree First Nation Chief Wallace Fox, with legal counsel Robert Hladun, has filed a lawsuit against the federal government's new transparency law.  Photograph by: John Lucas, Postmedia

"The Act applies the same principles of transparency and accountability to First Nation governments that already exist for other governments in Canada."
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt

The new federal transparency law that requires public disclosure by reservation governments and Indian bands of all their finances and transactions has not presented too much of a challenge to most of the nation's First Nations; certainly not the 529 out of 582 who have sensibly complied. Chief Wallace Fox is an exception; he takes umbrage at the very suggestion that his band is required to adhere to the legislation.

The Onion Lake Cree has its financial fortunes enhanced substantially by oil and gas holdings which as Chief Fox sees it, does not require him to make public disclosure of all the band's finances. The deadline for disclosure having passed, Chief Fox rejects the insistence and threats from the Aboriginal Affairs Department that it will take steps to withhold funds to the tribe on the basis of non-compliance with the First Nations Financial Transparency Act.

The fact that Chief Fox's decision to defy the requirements for disclosure over the band's revenue from oil and gas operations may in other words, put it at risk of losing the $1 million in housing funds along with funding for the salaries of about 800 employees in the band should Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt decide to follow through on the warning to make the threat real and financially painful is offensive to the chief.

"Enough is enough", he declared. It is beyond puzzling that a band comprised of four thousand people would require 800 of that number to be employed by the band. Of course it is not the purported band revenues from oil and gas operations that pays their salaries, but tax dollars. If the bulk of those employed have their positions related to the oil and gas operations, surely an explication is required through the publishing of all financial data.

There is a cautionary tale in the most recent disclosures forced upon the Sushwap First Nations in British Columbia, when public revelations were made that the chief, his wife and his family each earned in excess of tax-free $200,000 annually to administer a band of several hundred living on the reserve. That revelation resulted in a recent election overturning his position as chief. The new chief, a former band councillor, has discovered that the former chief's claim that assets to the value of $75 million held in the band's name has disappeared.

Claims of successful businesses operated by the band, including a resort, a supermarket and real estate holdings, with revenues from the band's Kinbasket Development Corp., operated by the former chief's son, with his take-home pay in the half-million range, haven't actually materialized. Having been dismissed from his role as CEO of the band's development corporation by new chief
Barbara Cote, Dean Martin is threatening a lawsuit.

Of the 582 First Nations, 52 now risk losing their entitlements to funding for their bands due to the unwillingness of their chiefs for whatever reason to accede to the new legislation requiring long-overdue financial accountability. Hardly what one could describe as responsible governance.