Chiefs balk at federal contribution agreement

One First Nation is not signing its annual funding contribution agreement with the federal government and another is signing under duress.

And both Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam and Onion Lake Cree Nation Chief Wallace Fox are calling the federal government’s actions “extortion.”

At the heart of the issue is the government’s decision to roll the laws included in a variety of omnibus bills pushed through the House as part of the funding contribution agreement.

“What they’re doing is they’re making it into a legal binding document saying that (we) have no issues in regards to all the bills they signed because (we) signed this contribution agreement and it states that  on there and that’s extortion,” said Adam.

First Nations across the province and the country have been vocal in their opposition to omnibus bills C-38 and C-45, which included changes that impacted First Nations in a long list of amendments in areas such as environment and economic development.

Fox says that not only does the new agreement remove clauses that protect treaty rights but it includes a clause that ties First Nations into following any subsequent policy or legislation changes brought in by Ottawa that impact the contribution funding agreement.

Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada issued a statement saying the changes to the funding agreements “are solely administrative in nature and do not in any way change the authorities or requirements of our funding recipients. There is no explicit or implicit funding condition in any of the current or pending departmental financial agreements with First Nations regarding either C-38 or C-45, both recently passed legislation.”

For ACFN, not signing the agreement means losing more than $1 million from this year’s operations budget.

“We’ve come this far with what money we’ve had and we’ve done pretty good for ourselves so I imagine we can carry on for a while longer,” said Adam.

For Onion Lake, it means scrambling to put money in place for the first 10 days of the new fiscal year as the federal government took exception to what Fox called “signing under duress” which makes the contribution agreement a non-legally binding document.  The government has agreed to come through with the $20 million.

Fox says his First Nation also considered taking the route now being walked by ACFN.

“We presented it to our general band membership and we provided opportunity for our membership to speak. We provided them with three options,” Fox said. “They said, ‘Stand up to them, Chief.’”

Along with signing the agreement under duress or not signing the funding agreement at all, membership also considered and rejected signing the contribution agreement without protest.

Fox now has the meeting he has been pushing for with the government as set out by the dispute resolution mechanism which is part of the agreement.  Fox made the request in a letter dated March 18 to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt.
The letter addressed other concerns as well including ensuring “the health, safety and welfare of this nation is prioritized.”

The $20 million that OLCN receives from the federal government, says Fox, includes over $4 million for social assistance and only $180,000 for economic development and job creation.  OLCN has a membership of 5,500, with 3,000 living on-reserve.

Fox says Onion Lake has been using $30 million from its own resources to address the issues of economic development on-reserve.

Onion Lake has also taken a stand on Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which was recently passed into law despite protest by First Nations over lack of consultation. Under the new law, First Nation are required to post their financial statements on the Internet.

“We are 100 per cent accountable to our membership. We are not accountable to Canadians or Indian Affairs. They didn’t elect us. It’s our people, the Cree people of Onion Lake, we are accountable. So we provide transparency … to our membership,” said Fox.

He says that none of OLCN’s businesses have received federal funding and therefore should not be open to the scrutiny of the Canadian public.