The First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which came into effect July 29, has been sold as the means to make First Nations chiefs and councillors more accountable by publishing their salaries, expenses and other funds they receive from their band or a band-owned entity.
On the surface it looks relatively benign, but a closer look reveals some flaws in the interpretation.
First, it is one-sided.
There is no job description included about what a chief or council member does. People might compare the role of the chief with that of a reeve of a rural municipality. Yet a First Nation takes on all the functions of a provincial government. While a municipal council usually has separate boards and administrations to handle health, education, social services and other programs, on a reserve everything eventually falls in the lap of the chief and council.
Many chiefs and councillors are on duty 24 hours a day. The councillor responsible for the welfare and social development portfolio might find himself or herself working after hours and on weekends regularly. One councillor on my reserve told me that we didn’t have a band administration, we had a crisis centre.
I find it unsettling when some greedy leader makes the news. It’s the worst-case scenarios that grab the headlines and are interpreted to be the norm, while chiefs and councillors who make a modest wage are ignored.
Ghislain Picard, acting chief of the Assembly of First Nations, sees it as part of the federal government’s propaganda war against First Nations. We can all agree that the current federal government is not our friend. It views First Nations as adversaries who stand in the way of pipelines and oilsands development. Therefore, one-sided, negative information suits its needs.
The AFN has also pointed out that this legislation goes further than accountability legislation for federal, provincial and municipal politicians. The new transparency act extends to all band-owned entities, including businesses. Their competitors now can access band records and look at the books of band companies, something the bands can’t do to their competitors.
Many First Nations are involved in large land deals, including purchasing rural and urban land with plans for commercial development, oil and gas ventures and so on. Business likes to fly below the radar, but this legislation will lay out our plans for all to see.
Northern native companies compete in the mining industry for camp maintenance, trucking, construction and other contracts. If they have to publish their financial information, they will reveal their financial position and could find themselves at a disadvantage come bidding time.
This legislation changes the landscape for band politics. The electorate will look at the salaries and travel expenses of their chief and council and decide if there has been waste or prudence in the spending of the band’s money.
In many cases, this legislation only formalizes what is already occurring. Many chiefs and councils already freely distribute their annual audit to band members, who have the right to know the salaries, travel expenses and per diems earned by their leaders. But this process should be done internally. Making the information public will allow incomplete information to be made public.
For example, there is serious underfunding of education, health and social programs for First Nations. A chief who has to travel to the regional office or Ottawa to lobby for funds would rack up a large travel bill, which critical groups jump on as an example of flagrant overspending.
Our leaders have serious political work to do, and lobbying for fair funding is necessary. The government has a conscious policy of underfunding First Nations at a level averaging about 65 per cent of provincial programs. We can’t allow this information to be used to hobble our leaders from doing their job.
Doug Cuthand is a columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
