Corrupt, Unaccountable Aboriginal Chiefs

[Anonymous]

As usual, my buddy Lorne nails it. Native chiefs should be subject to the same standards of accountability as any other elected official in Canada. Unfortunately, far too many of em make Mike Duffy and Allison Redford look like a model of honesty and transparency.

It's outrageous that Ron Giesbrecht, chief of the 80-member Kwikwetlem First Nation in B.C., made $914,219 tax free last year and a further $16,574 in expenses. That's the equivalent of a taxable off-reserve income of more than $1.3 million.



Even Canadian senators who are padding their incomes with $20,000 or $30,000 a year in dubious housing and travel expenses only make about $170,000.



Giesbrecht made the equivalent of seven-and-a-half times what a senator makes!



But as galling as the Giesbrecht revelation was, there were two others last week that were at least as bad.



For one, while Giesbrecht wins the 2013 First Nations salary lottery, his compensation is not that far off what a lot of chiefs make.



Of the 630-plus band chiefs in Canada, nearly 100 make more than the prime minister. And an average band has fewer than 600 members.



About a third of chiefs make as much or more as the premier of the province in which their reserves are located.



There was a chief in Nova Scotia two years ago who made more than $900,000 for leading a band of just 42 souls. (Giesbrecht should have charged more. He had twice the population burden!)



Whenever you hear horror stories about the poverty and squalor on reserves, remember the destitution almost never applies to the chief and band council. For instance, hunger-striking Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence was living in a very comfortable home and working out of a large, modern satellite- and Internet-connected office the whole time she was showing TV news crews around the dilapidated housing on her Northern Ontario reserve two years ago.



The Kwikwetlem First Nation received nearly $13 million from Ottawa and the province last year. That works out to $155,915 per resident.



Since Ottawa spends about $7,500 per non-aboriginal Canadian each year and provinces spend between $7,000 and $10,000, Kwikwetlem receives far, far more from governments than non-aboriginal communities do.



That's another example of why claims that the feds and provinces are underfunding First Nations are hogwash. If money were the answer, the problems facing First Nations would have been solved long ago.



So how did Chief Giesbrecht end up with such a windfall?



Well, he just happened to have stepped in and replaced his band's economic development officer, who just happened to have left on the eve of a major land sale to the B.C. government. Because the economic development officer's contract contained a clause granting him a 10% bonus on any gross profits made by the band, interim economic development officer (and chief) Ron Giesbrecht just happened to pull down $800K when the $8.2-million land deal closed.



The Kwikwetlem band spent $155,405 on education, $177,868 on health, $64,276 on community development, $93,382 on social services and $101,427 on social housing – and $914,219 on its chief.



The problem is a broken governance model.



Ottawa and the provinces give lump-sum grants to band councils whose job it is to decide who gets a job and salary out of that budget, who gets a new home or renos to an existing one, how much health treatment will be available on-reserve, whose kids get scholarships to university or college.



If non-aboriginal communities were run the same way – with no private property and little private income – a third or more of them would be dysfunctional and bankrupt, too.



The other troubling revelation last week is that Aboriginal Affairs is the worst-run department in Ottawa. It scored just above fail on most performance indicators.



When bands get in trouble or when they are attempting to navigate federal programs and bureaucracy, they run into a stone wall of ineptitude.



More money and more pity won't solve anything.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/08/01/why-money-wont-solve-first-nations-problems">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/08/01/w ... s-problems">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/08/01/why-money-wont-solve-first-nations-problems

[Anonymous]

Gary Joak will be posting about a friend who knew a chief that was crooked.  

[Anonymous]

Gary Joak will be posting about a friend who knew a chief that was crooked.  

Gary Oak is free to post his opinions just anyone else..



I don't like the use of racial slurs in titles though.

[Big Wave Dave]

The chiefs are making some serious coin.

[Anonymous]

The chiefs are making some serious coin.

They shouldn't have to reveal what they make though. These very spiritual leaders are above petty things like transparency.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if reserve Natives feel their elected leaders should be more transparent about salaries and how money is allocated?

[Anonymous]

I wonder if reserve Natives feel their elected leaders should be more transparent about salaries and how money is allocated?

There is no real opposition on a reserve to hold their feet to the fire. The press is the chief's motuhpiece.

[Gary Oak]

The department of chugaboo affairs got one of the worst grades of all government departments.



That's our creative paraphrasing of the wordy "Annual Report on the State of Performance Measurement in Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada for 2011-12 and 2012-13."



If you think that's a mouthful, try reading the bureaucrat-speak document released last week.



It's basically a report card that looks at how well the aboriginal affairs department is setting real goals and achieving them.



The report grades ten categories. It uses a colour scheme of red, yellow, green and blue. Eight categories are either red or yellow, and two are green. None get the "A" mark of blue.



In other words, they failed. Big time.



Amid the management jargon, some damning sentences stick out: "Cost-effectiveness remains an area with few indicators dedicated to it, making it difficult for the Department to report on questions of efficiency and economy."



But are they only a couple tweaks away from turning things around? Sadly not: "It is clear that a cultural shift remains in its infancy."



This is totally unacceptable - both for taxpayers and the regular folks on the reserves.



Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt and Prime Minister Stephen Harper must do more to improve this department.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/08/20140805-072551.html">http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/st ... 72551.html">http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2014/08/20140805-072551.html

[Anonymous]

^Big fucking surprise!!