Trust. Integrity. Reputation.
December - 2000
Amanda Woodward and son Darrell Joe performed at the opening of the Edmonton Art Gallery exhibit, I. Witness, featuring the work of Jane Ash Poitras,Thomas King, Rebecca Belmore, Skawennati Tricia Fragnito, and Floyd Favel Star.Alliance unites Native nations
Corbiere deadline upheld
Supreme Court slashes rent on Musqueam landChiefs flip-flop on objections to off-reserve voting rights
SIGA CEO had too much power, says Bellegarde
Grieving Elder speaks out
Discrimination comes from treating all equally - Guest Column
Remember the sacrifice - Guest ColumnYou can't have it both ways - Editorial
The above is only a partial list of all the stories featured in the December, 2000 issue of Windspeaker. If you are not receiving your own copy of Windspeaker, then you have missed out on a great deal of news, information and humour.
Alliance unites Native nations
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
EDMONTONAboriginal leaders in all parts of the country are using strong words to describe how they feel about the positions taken on Indian Affairs issues by Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day.
Aboriginal issues were not in the spotlight for the first couple of weeks of the campaign, but remarks made by the Alliance leader in Kamloops, B.C. on Nov. 15 started a process that led to protests and demonstrations at each successive stop on the Day campaign.
Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day
"We believe policies must lead to full, free and non-discriminatory participation of Native people in society. It requires a break from the past," Day said.
His party is on the record as being in favor of eliminating the tax-exempt rights of Native people, of instituting direct, private ownership of reserve lands, of eliminating what the Alliance calls "race-based" access to fisheries and other resources and of turning band councils into municipal-style governments.
All these positions are similar to those in the White Paper on Indian Affairs that then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien attempted to implement in 1969.
After a bitter struggle at that time, Native leaders were able to convince Trudeau to shelve the White Paper. Trudeau conceded that he hadn't appreciated the strength of the legal position the chiefs were arguing.
One of the main Native leaders in that fight was Harold Cardinal who, 31 years later, became a candidate for the Liberals in the northern Alberta riding of Athabasca. Cardinal told a chiefs' assembly in Edmonton on Nov. 1 that he accepted the invitation to run for the Liberals because he sees the Alliance position as a threat to his people.
"I was asked to run last summer," he told the chiefs, "and I agreed to meet with the prime minister. As many of you will recall, he and I had a fairly rigorous encounter over the Canadian White Paper policy. We decided to put our past differences aside."
Cardinal said he felt a strong need to do his part to defeat the Alliance.
"If it was a nutty right wing organization that was making the proposal that had no chance in hell, you might say let sleeping dogs lie. That is not the case," he said. "You're all familiar with the kind of B.S. that's being pumped into the Canadian people. As long as we remain silent on the sidelines, we are in danger of handing the right wingers a victory by default."
He said his Alliance opponent in Athabasca, Dave Chatters, had said that Ottawa's policy of recognizing special rights for Native people was "rubbish."
"So now we're faced with the prospect of having 26 MPs in this province taking the position that our rights are rubbish," he said. "We can't let that go unanswered. We have to move."
Cardinal said he understood that many Native people believe they shouldn't vote in Canadian elections, but he suggested that this time it was a matter of survival.
Native leaders say the Alliance's insistence on equality is a smoke-screen, a dishonest way to candy-coat the party's agenda of doing away with Native rights. They say forcing Native people - who have distinct cultures and a distinct world view - into conforming to Eurocentric values and culture is nothing but assimilation, and forcing distinct peoples to assimilate against their will is called cultural genocide. Throughout the campaign (as of publication deadline on Nov. 22), the Alliance leader has quietly refused to get into a debate on the merits of his party's Native platform. He was challenged to a debate in his home British Columbia riding of Okanagan-Coquahalla by Neskonlith First Nation Chief Arthur Manuel. Manuel said Day's staff told him the party leader was too busy to participate in that debate. Attempts by Windspeaker to question Day or any other Alliance spokesperson about the details of the party platform were ignored.
Day has refused to engage in any debate on Native issues. When First Nations Party of Saskatchewan leader Brendan Cross (who's running federally for the Canadian Action Party) forced his way onto the stage to confront Day during a campaign stop in Moose Jaw, Sask. in October, Day's only remarks were that Cross should get off the stage.
Aboriginal leaders all over the country are urging their members to get out and vote. Dwight Dorey, president of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, a group that lobbies for the rights of off-reserve residents, endorsed the Liberals.
"My biggest fear is that an Alliance government under Mr. Day would actually implement its policy on Aboriginal peoples," he said. "It's an appalling conglomeration of assimilationist intentions that would set Aboriginal peoples and Canada's Aboriginal policies back 100 years.
TOPBy Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
EDMONTONAlberta chiefs and National Chief Matthew Coon Come demanded more time, but the Supreme Court of Canada refused. The Corbiere decision went into effect on Nov. 20.
Earlier in the month, the Alberta chiefs held an emergency meeting to discuss the implications of the court's decision to extend voting rights to off-reserve residents, and made it clear they resented the imposition of the new Department of Indian Affairs election and referendum regulations.
Coon Come arrived at the meeting at about 11 a.m. on Nov. 1, making a stop while en route to Calgary. Within minutes of the national chief's arrival - and at his request, according to meeting chairman Leonard Bastien - reporters were asked to leave. After five hours of private discussion, Coon Come and the chiefs emerged to make a statement.
"We believe we have the right to self-determination," said Coon Come. "We have the right to establish our own political institutions, our own societies, to determine our own citizenship," he said. "And having come from that background, I fully support the enhancement of our own community-driven process, of our own forms of governance, of our own forms of codification in regards to our own customs and traditions, even as it relates to elections. I fully support the Alberta treaty chiefs that are presently sitting with me. We are demanding a moratorium on Corbiere. We feel that there is a unilateral imposition of regulations that were drafted governing the elections process. It was done without our consultation. It was done without our involvement. These rules as they are drafted will have serious impact on our people. The consequences of this process were not well thought out."
Coon Come charged that a significant part of the 18-month period provided by the Supreme Court for consultation by government with First Nations on the implementations of Corbiere was wasted by the government in planning the "so-called consultation process," he said. "We feel that what we are requesting [the moratorium] is reasonable given the implications, given the seriousness of this issue."
On Nov. 3, the Supreme Court ruled the deadline would be upheld.
TOPChiefs flip-flop on objections to off-reserve voting rights
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
EDMONTONSeveral Alberta bands have been fighting for the legal right to unlimited control of their membership lists. They argue it is a matter of self determination, though their critics accuse them of trying to keep others from sharing in the oil wealth the bands possess.
In the Corbiere case, however, the Alberta chiefs and the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations say their objection to new voting regulations that would include off-reserve residents is based on the process used to create the regulations, not the fact that off-reserve members have been given the vote by the Supreme Court.
"Let's make it very clear," AFN Chief Matthew Coon Come said. "We're not saying that our people who are off reserve should not vote. That is not what we are saying. What we are saying is that we need adequate time for consultation, however long that it takes, in order to properly assess the impacts, in order to allow for our people to grasp the impacts of the Supreme Court decision. There has been insufficient financial and human resources allocated to this. We feel that we need time for consultation and we certainly are not against off- reserve members voting in an election."
Coon Come said the draft regulations adopted by the Department of Indian Affairs was done without consultation with the people who are directly affected, and the process is what is being questioned.
But when the Alberta chiefs were asked if the Corbiere decision would be implemented, as-is, if a more satisfactory consultation was completed, a veteran Alberta chief from a territory where off-reserve members have been able to vote since the 1950s said that the chiefs actually object to more than the process.
"It's not only the process but it's something beyond that. It's an extinguishment of our rights," said Chief John Snow, speaking for the Treaty 7 chiefs. "First of all, the Indian Act was written, was made, by the federal government. They never consulted us when the Indian Act came out in the 1800s. It was to control us on reserves. It was a holding place until we were educated to go out into the mainstream society. That was the time when this election regulation was made.
"It was the government who made this Indian Act and who made rulings, regulations on this residency. It's not our thinking. So, I hope you will interpret this right. The chiefs here in their discussions are very much in favor, they've always given rights to their people to vote. It's a free country. We're in a democracy. But I think this one case-Corbiere-is unique. About two-thirds of [Batchewana First Nation residents where Corbiere originated] are living off reserve and one-third are living on and that creates a special problem. This case does not really affect that much right now. It affects some. But eventually over-population of the reserves . . . the reserves aren't expanding so maybe 20, 30, 40 years from now over half the population of various reserves will be living in the city and that's where it's going to present a problem."
Snow also complained that when arguing the Corbiere case "the government was not arguing regarding our treaty rights. So there was a very poor representation in defending our treaty rights when the Corbiere case was presented. The government was not interested in our situation, but in their own situation."
On Nov. 3 the Supreme Court decided not to extend the deadline for Corbiere, and Coon Come expressed disappointment.
"This decision involves much more than simply voting. It will likely affect First Nations governments to the same extent that Bill C-31 did in 1985," Coon Come said. "The AFN fully agrees with the principles of political representation expressed in the Corbiere decision. Our rights as First Nations stay with us whether we live on or off the reserve.
"But this decision was supposed to be implemented in consultation with First Nations. Instead, the federal government is implementing a federally designed process.
"First Nations are uninformed and ill-equipped to deal with the decision. First Nations want to make sure that they are not caught up in further legal battles due to an inability to meet the expectations of citizens living off the reserve. Our governments already face extreme pressures on limited resources. Besides these pressures, the federal government failed utterly in consultations to address bigger issues like the balancing of rights. The inadequacy of resources so common amongst First Nations often is used to accuse our governments of mismanagement, poor management or lack of accountability. This situation will be made worse by the fact that First Nations are left with nothing to guide what they should or shouldn't provide to their citizens. The result could be a flood of further legal actions. Yet, the federal government has refused to consider these factors and has come out with last-minute regulations that are not well thought out and will cause further hardships for our communities and for all of our citizens."
During the first day of a two-day emergency meeting of the Alberta chiefs, their objections to the implementation of the Corbiere decision were not as carefully worded as those presented by Coon Come.
In his opening remarks, Chief Snow said the participation of off-reserve band members could destroy reserve communities.
"You could have an urban Indian as chief, running the reserve from the city," he said. "Our Elders are saying if many of the people are thinking like non-Indians, they could end up selling the reserve."
Chief Dennis Pashe of the Manitoba Dakota Tipi First Nation told the Alberta chiefs that his community was fighting implementation of Corbiere in court.
"I believe the DIA deliberately lost the case," he said. "They didn't argue section 35."
Section 35 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms deals with the entrenchment of Native rights in the Constitution. It might have been a suitable argument to stop the claim that Section 77 of the Indian Act violated section 15 of the Charter, which deals with equality rights.
Pashe and many other chiefs believe the federal government was looking after its own agenda by not raising - and perhaps, in the process, lending more strength to - section 35 arguments. Pashe pointed out that Bill C-31 was enacted by Canada as a way to address another offence against Section 15 of the Charter and it has caused profoundly troubling effects for First Nations.
"First, C-31 increased the number of off-reserve people," Pashe said. "The department said 'don't worry, they can't vote.' Then they deliberately lost the decision to ensure they could vote."
Indian Affairs regional director general for Alberta, Barrie Robb, was present on the first day of the emergency meeting. As his staff briefed the chiefs on the process of preparing to implement the decision, a visiting Saskatchewan chief tore into Robb.
"I have a hard time looking after my people," Chief Barry Ahenakew of the Ahtahkakoop First Nation told Robb. "We get inadequate funding because INAC only funds the on-reserve population. It's a wonder I'm still standing here as chief and, I'm not giving you guys shit, I'm just telling you. There has to be total funding. If there's not, we'll be in court on that. But it should be given freely and willingly. You guys are living high off the land on our resources."
Robb did not respond.
Chief Snow said it was a waste of breath talking to anyone but the minister and repeated the statement that government intentionally lost the Corbiere case.
Siksika Nation Chief Adrian Stimson told Robb he isn't willing to go along with the Corbiere decision.
"There was no consulting on this Corbiere case," he said. "Maybe with some elite of the AFN, but this was not given to us to look at."
Then Stimson told Robb what would happen next.
"I told you, Barry. I'm gonna break every law you've got and if you want to take me to court, take me to court," he said.
Respected Alberta Elder Fred Cardinal then asked to be heard. He hammered the chiefs for waiting until so late in the game to get involved.
"It's up to you chiefs to say 'These are our laws.' Up to this point, you have not done that," he said. "You've been trained, brainwashed to follow the system exactly the way they want. I get so frustrated because I don't see you guys moving."
He said the Alberta chiefs, once the most powerful First Nation organization in the country, had been broken up by money, that greed or desperation in the short term had won out over long term principles, like protection of treaty rights.
Taking up the Elder's charge about the chiefs' 11-hour objections, Robb said, "This issue is now almost 18 months old and we've had a hard time getting attention. We sent information, frankly, 10 months ago through the treaty offices. We didn't get much response."
TOP
Supreme Court slashes rent on Musqueam landBy Joan Taillon
Windspeaker Staff Writer
VANCOUVERA Supreme Court of Canada decision handed down Nov. 9 in favor of non-Natives holding 99-year leases on 40 prime acres belonging to the Musqueam band will stall British Columbia treaty land negotiations and set back relations between Natives and non-Natives for years.
So says Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, who complains the court is valuing Indian land at half the value of the land adjoining their reserve.
"Systemic racism runs deep and is firmly entrenched in the parliamentary and judicial system of Canada," he said.
Musqueam Chief Ernie Campbell had earlier been quoted as saying they would abide by the Supreme Court decision, but when it came down he said, "It's a sad day for this country."
The Musqueam band was looking for annual rent of $36,000 for the lots, or six per cent of fair market value as established in its leases with the 73 tenants. The best offer by the tenants prior to the court proceedings was $6,000 per year, according to Musqueam lawyer Lewis Harvey last July. The dispute went to the Federal Court of Canada in accordance with the terms of the lease for resolving rent review problems.
The Supreme Court of Canada case turned on the meaning of "current land value." In a 5-4 decision, the court set aside the Federal Court of Appeal decision that set annual lease payments at an average $22,800. It put them back to $10,000 a lot, the same as the trial division set in 1997.
The lower court had ruled that the market value of land under long-term leases on an Indian reserve is lower than fee-simple land off-reserve. Lots off-reserve were valued in the $600,000 range, but the court made a deduction of 50 per cent for the land in Musqueam Park.
The band was joined by DIAND in appealing that decision to the Federal Court of Appeal because the department's process of setting rents was challenged and this could affect other leases it holds.
The appeal court overturned the lower court and appraised the land as if it were fee simple land with an appraised value of $600,000 per lot. It did not discount the land value because of any Indian reserve features, but it did deduct servicing costs of about $120,000 a lot. It set rents on the lots at $18,400 to $26,400 per year.
Musqueam Park tenants appealed to the high court on the basis of the value of leasehold lands, while the band cross-appealed the deduction of servicing and development costs from the fee simple value of the leashold lands.
The tenants' spokeswoman is Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a lawyer who is running for the Canadian Alliance party in the federal election. Findlay did not return our telephone calls to her law office or her campaign headquarters, but a campaign assistant, Kathy Scheideman, who identified herself as a tenant and who was also named in the Supreme Court judgment, spoke to Windspeaker.
"I can tell you that although this was the best case scenario for this narrow window that was addressed in the courts, it is certainly not a resolution to our problems."
Information supplied by DIAND shows that on Sept. 20, 1999, DIAND sent a notice of default to five tenants who had made no lease payment since 1995 and 68 tenants who had made no 1999/2000 lease payments.
By March 14 this year, "32 tenants paid with post-dated cheques, 22 have paid at the 1999 level ($10,000), two have paid at the 1999 level, two tenants are fully paid at an average of $22,800, 13 tenants claim hardship, two tenants have not responded," the DIAND document states.
Scheideman said the rent increase won't force them out.
"We can't get out if we want to. We can't sell these homes. They're totally a liability. You can't give them away. I tried to give my home away to the Liberal government about a year ago. I tried to donate it as an auction item in a Liberal fundraiser, but they wouldn't accept it.
"We still are disenfranchised, we still have no asset, and we're going to have to renegotiate this all over again in a few years and we still have no control over the taxation rate that the band decides to impose on us."
She said, "they have doubled our city taxes, what we were paying to the city. And we were guaranteed in our lease that we would pay our taxes to the city and have political representation by the city . . . and the federal government reneged on that part of the lease. The lease was with the federal government and they just broke it. And they will not listen to us, they will not talk to us, they will not sit down and talk to us and allow us to negotiate.
Scheideman said the tenants' attempts to work things out with the Musqueam band over the past 10 years have been "an exercise in futility."
Keith Phillips, the Justice Department lawyer who was one of the lawyers representing the Crown in the Supreme Court action, said "Indian Affairs did appoint a facilitator (Glenn Sigurdson) in1999. That initiative was not taken up by the parties. . . . The tenants indicated that they were willing to talk; the band indicated that it was not willing to talk at that time, as the tenants had just declared a rent strike."
"But you know what," said Scheiderman, "the real fault here lies with the federal government. If someone is given absolute power, it is inevitable that they will abuse it. The government passed on, you know, awarded the band absolute power over us. In my opinion . . . a few people in the band are abusing the power that they have been given, but you know what, the rank and file band member is being abused as much as the leaseholders are, and they're not any happier about it than we are.
The UBCIC isn't happy either. So far as the effect the high court decision will have on future treaty land negotiations, Chief Phillip said he finds it to be "a very racist decision that panders to the business and corporate establishment. And the effect it's going to have on transactions on reserve lands is, it's going to totally undermine future negotiations with respect to land development on reserves. It will only serve to perpetuate our ongoing economic marginalization. I am just so deeply angered by this decision because it hamstrings our efforts to develop viable economies on reserves."
Chief Phillip pointed out that as a backlash to the decision, other people may decide to challenge rents set out in their own leases and decide to go to court to get them reduced.
"If we are willfully and purposely denied the right to develop our own reserve lands, you know, then we're going to look off reserve. We're going to aggressively pursue off-reserve land interests. We have no choice. So essentially, what I am saying is we're coming after the land that was stolen from us."
Chief Phillip said the BC treaty process, which he characterized as seven years of bad-faith negotiations on the part of the government, "is politically bankrupt . . . in the final stages of collapse." He said that situation, coupled with the Supreme Court decision, "puts us in a very dire predicament."TOP
Discrimination comes from treating all equallyBy David McLaren
Guest ColumnistThe Alliance Party was the first to play the race card. They did it as soon as they nailed down the central plank in their Aboriginal policy: "the rules must be the same for all." Treating people who are not the same as though they are and applying the same rules to people who are different results in discrimination. As Justice Murray Sinclair put it in the report of the Manitoba Justice Inquiry: "Systemic discrimination involves the concept that the application of uniform standards, common rules and treatment of people who are not the same constitutes a form of discrimination. . . . The reasons may be geographic, economic or cultural.
However, it must be acknowledged that the application of uniform policies can have a discriminatory effect."
For example, as Ontario Crown attorney Rupert Ross so insightfully recognizes in his book, Dancing with a Ghost, cultural differences in behavior (such as avoidance of confrontation or averting the eyes from a questioner) lead to misunderstandings in police stations and court rooms, and often to results prejudicial to Natives charged with offences.
He writes about alternative ways of delivering justice, such as community conferencing, which are more in keeping with Native ways and which are better at producing healing and reconciliation (the goals of Native justice systems) than our notions of guilt and punishment.
Another example - J. David Fairgrieve noted in Jones-Nadjiwon, his ruling on Nawash commercial fishing rights in the Bruce Peninsula:
"The Band's fishing income is a crucial part of its subsistence economy, and the limited access caused by the quota produced greater deprivation and poverty and contributed to increased unemployment and poverty, individually and communally. The quota had a serious adverse restriction and constituted an infringement under section 35(1) [of the 1982 Constitution]. .. . The Native fishery was seen as just one part of the commercial fishery. No special regard was given to the band's fishery operation, quite apart from the question of any constitutional priority."
What happened was the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources scrupulously applied the same rules in allocating quotas to Natives and non-Natives alike: they tallied up past recorded catches from Native and non-Native fishermen over a six-year period and divided by six. The problem was, the small size of the Nawash fishery (Nawash fishermen were restricted to a tiny area around their reserve) and the nature of that fishery (small open boats, close to shore) meant that the tiny, inadequate even for subsistence, Native catches were cast in regulatory stone. The government dutifully prosecuted Native fishermen, year after year, for violating regulations that were, in fact, discriminatory.
How did Nawash end up with such an inadequate fishery? That's the story of another form of racial discrimination. Their fishery was expropriated by American and Canadian commercial fishing fleets aided by a government policy to look the other way.
Discrimination against First Nations in North America has two stages. During the first stage, we completely marginalized Native peoples by treating them totally differently than we treat our own people. Thus colonial Canada broke, at will, the treaties it signed or ignored its obligations under them.
If someone breaks a contract with non-Natives, they have recourse to legal action. However, it was illegal (until 1951) for First Nations to hire lawyers in claims against the Crown. If the state took away non-Native children by force, politicians could expect some sort of retribution, even if only on election day. However, Canada removed Native children from their parents and culture for years and put them in residential schools as part of a clearly stated government policy of assimilation. Native people could not vote in federal elections until 1960.
Now that we have completely marginalized First Nations peoples by treating them as we ourselves would not be treated . . . now we can enter the second stage of racism. Now we can apply to Native people the same rules by which non-Native people govern themselves, confident that they will not be able to "measure up."
Native people are helped to start businesses, when entrepreneurial programs are not applicable, or workable. Then non-Natives despair over Native peoples' stubborn unemployment rates of 50, 70, 90 per cent. Diligently following the regulations non-Natives make for everyone, they prosecute Native hunters and fishers for trying to make a moderate livelihood in their traditional territories (by practising rights non-Natives have perhaps not yet recognized). Then despair at the poverty of Natives' tiny reserves.
People rejoice when the United Nations declares Canada the best place in the world to live. But then fret when the UN says they discriminate against a race of people - "It must the fault of the Natives themselves, because, after all, we treat them the same."
There is a way out. It is not through guilt, and it certainly isn't by applying the same rules to the Aboriginal reality. Non-Natives can reconcile themselves to Aboriginal people by listening to what Natives have been trying to tell them for the past 300 years:
"Honor the treaties. Recognize our Aboriginal and treaty rights to natural resources so we may become self-sufficient again. Let us chart our own course, as we did for the thousands of years before you came to our Canada."
David McLaren has worked with First Nations on racial and environmental issues for the past 10 years. He can be reached at <d.mclaren@bmts.com>.
SIGA CEO had too much power, says Bellegarde
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
SASKATOONSerious accusations of incompetence or dishonesty were leveled at the board of the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA) when the acting provincial auditor submitted his report on Nov. 15.
Auditor Fred Wendel suspects that more than $2 million has been mis-spent by the board. Gaming Minister Doreen Hamilton responded to the audit by firing the 16-member board en masse. At least two board members, Roland Crowe and Richard Bird, have appealed.
In his report, the auditor stated that the SIGA board was secretive and reluctant to account for its actions. Hamilton also announced that 16 recommendations related to improving financial management at SIGA will be implemented.
The auditor's report is filled with tough talk.
"Stewards of public money should spend money with due care and operate with a corporate culture of transparency. They should want to explain publicly how they plan to spend public money and they should want to account publicly for how they actually spend public money," Wendel wrote. "SIGA's board did not establish this corporate culture. In addition, SIGA's board did not establish good rules and procedures to ensure public money was spent with due care. The board's failure resulted in the improper use of public money that we discuss in this report."
The report was not complete because SIGA had still not disclosed important information to the auditor.
"We state in this report that SIGA will not let us examine its board of director's minutes," Wendel reported.
But what was in the report was damning enough.
"Through our review of SIGA's auditor's files, we discovered that SIGA's chief executive officer used SIGA's debit and credit cards for personal expenses. Also, we became aware that SIGA's board of directors gave the former CEO a retroactive salary increase to repay SIGA for these personal expenses," Wendel wrote.
Dutch Lerat, the former CEO, has not commented publicly. His Saskatoon phone was recently disconnected. It's estimated that Lerat owes SIGA in excess of $800,000 to repay money he used on personal expenditures.
Wendel outlined a long list of problems with SIGA spending.
"We found the following improper and questionable use of public money:
· Improper use of SIGA's debit and credit cards;
· No support for many payments. As a result, we do not know what goods and services SIGA received and whether the payments were for the management of slot machines;
· Unauthorized salary advances;
· Travel and accommodation expenses that were not reasonable;
· Contracts that were in excess of fair market value; and
· Contracts that are of indeterminable or questionable value."
The share of the revenue from the four casinos operated by SIGA are deposited into a First Nations Fund. The auditor recommended the government can recover its money, $1,085,000, by withholding payments due to the fund.
Dutch Lerat was a vice-chief of the FSIN when SIGA's board dismissed its previous CEO in February 1996. Lerat was appointed acting CEO.
"In the spring of 1996, the board hired a consultant to do an executive search for the position of CEO of SIGA. The consultant did the search and provided a list of candidates for the position. We were told the selection committee of the board interviewed everyone on the consultant's list. We were also told the acting CEO did not submit a resume and was not interviewed by the selection committee.
Lerat was hired June 27, 1996 but no background check was done, Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming told the auditor because since "the applicant was a FSIN vice chief at the time of the application, a detailed background check was not considered necessary."
Without saying it directly, Wendel's report created the impression he doesn't believe Lerat should have been hired in the first place.
"We are unable to find any evidence about the CEO's training and experience for the job," he wrote.
The provincial Justice department will review a number of situations arising out of the audit to see if criminal charges are appropriate.
A few of the most alarming incidents involved what appear to be kick-back schemes and possible fraudulent activity.
"Included in promotion expenses is the cost of leasing a Hummer (an army type of vehicle adapted for public use). SIGA leased a 1997 Hummer for promoting SIGA's casinos. SIGA paid at least $5,250 per month for this lease. At the end of the lease, the vehicle was returned to Eagle's Nest Enterprises," the report states. "Instead of leasing the vehicle from a dealership, SIGA leased the Hummer from Eagle's Nest Enterprises. Eagle's Nest Enterprises is owned by an individual who provides other consulting services to SIGA. SIGA did not have a copy of the lease for us to examine.
"On Nov. 24. 1999, SIGA leased a new Hummer for two years from the spouse of a person who had a consulting contract with SIGA and attended board meetings and received reimbursement for board expenses. This person was formally appointed as a board member on June 30, 2000. Under the terms of this lease, SIGA must go to this individual first to lease any further vehicles before leasing vehicles from anywhere else. Simply put, the restriction forced SIGA to lease vehicles from this individual rather than leasing vehicles from those who can provide competitive leasing rates," the report reads.
The report also details board members caught in a conflict of interest by entering into contracts with SIGA, expenses submitted for spouses who traveled along with board members even though public policy dictates that spouses must pay their own way and many other improprieties.
Recently re-elected Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde told Windspeaker he doesn't dispute any of the auditor's findings.
"No. We've already implemented 75 per cent of the provincial auditor's recommendations. So we've concurred. We want to be open and transparent about everything. So, nothing to dispute. We want to make sure that what has happened in terms of the SIGA situation doesn't happen again in the future. So, one, the problem's been identified and, two, we're working to correct it," he said, during a phone interview on Nov. 22.
One of the first public statements Bellegarde made after the report was made public was that SIGA and the FSIN had made "mistakes." Windspeaker asked him what the difference was between mistakes and corruption.
"When we say mistakes have been made, we're not trying to lessen it by any means because files have been forwarded to the department of Justice and if things have to happen that way through the legal route then let due process take its course," he answered.
"We want to make sure that people realize that we have opened the door for gaming here five years ago via White Bear opening up the first casino. The gaming agreement we have in place is by far one of the most progressive in Canada. It's not ideal by any means because at some point . . . when do we deal with the issue of jurisdiction? That's not dealt with anywhere in any gaming agreement in Canada and that's where we have to lead. We say, we've learned from this experience. We've learned many, many things, but bottom line is it's created jobs and wealth for our people and we want to continue to do that."
He was asked for a short answer describing what went wrong at SIGA.
"Short answer - too much power and control in one individual. It was abuse. We had proper checks and balances and monitoring in place but the system seems to have failed because there was just too much authority vested in one person," he said. "He was the CEO and the chairman at the same time. The structure, there was some flaws in it from day one. It's my portfolio. Gaming's my portfolio.
"We're structured in the sense that we have a chief and four vice-chiefs and each of them has portfolios. The chief's ex officio in everything. But if I delegate to you and I get reports saying everything's fine, I believe you. Why shouldn't I believe you? But then once we start getting information that things aren't proper, and that was in June when we started getting all the information and that's when thing's started being corrected - I won't say unravel - just being corrected and that's basically six months ago.
While frequently insisting that the FSIN accepts the blame for the mess, Bellegarde nonetheless noted that the provincial agency responsible for monitoring SIGA also dropped the ball.
"Sask. Liquor and Gaming Authority had ultimate authority to approve and vet every year of SIGA's operations and expenditure plan. So for the past five years, the province through SLGA had the authority," he said. "They kept vetting things and approving things but nothing comes to pass on their side. The other thing that we learned about as well, through our 1995 gaming agreement, how much power and authority the province really did have, and does have because our gaming agreements and operating agreements are in place until April 1, 2001. Basically SIGA was almost like a Crown corporation of the province, with a little more authority than their existing structures. That's what we're seeing now."
Opposition members and some Saskatchewan chiefs suspect there was political motivation behind the government allowing things to go as far as they did. Bellegarde first insisted that his organization is not making excuses and accepts its share of the blame before agreeing that political rivalries may have played a part.
He said there's no chance the casinos will close.
"They'll continue to operate. We want to basically save First Nations gaming in Saskatchewan and I think we're on a process and a path to do that," he said.
Asked if grassroots people are going to resent the way money that is so desperately needed was so carelessly expended, Bellegarde wouldn't say.
"You're going to have to ask them."
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Grieving Elder speaks out
By Terry Lusty
Windspeaker Contributor
EDMONTONGarrett Campiou, also a member of the Chalifoux, Dumont and Lefthand families, died at 10:43 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 15. For 12 days the strapping 14-year-old Cree boy had been in hospital on life support following a severe and brutal beating on Nov. 3.
His life ebbed as he was removed from life support. One of his three grandmothers sang a Cree death song she had learned from her grandparents, as family members and friends gathered to say their goodbyes.
Campiou's passing was tragic. His injuries left him in a coma and brain dead. Charges against two of the four people arrested for his assault were upgraded to second-degree murder following his death.
Rose Auger, a medicine woman and Elder, was rattled by the boy's death. She is a sister of the boy's adoptive father, Billy.
Although Auger faults the influences of television, movies and bad company for the violence that ultimately struck her nephew, she is quick to say that it is the responsibility of youth to take control of their own lives.
"It is your own self that can determine to stop doing drugs, to stop following these [bad] ones that are leading you," she said. "Stop it and look for good things, in your powwow, in your dance, language, songs and, most of all, your history."
She says a look to the ancestors, who and what they were, speaks volumes to their greatness and that of Aboriginal history and culture.
She lamented that young people have lost their culture, do not apply the traditions, demonstrate little respect for human life or property. She said many are caught up in gambling and dysfunctional homes.
"You cannot be a traditional person who lives good, in harmony with all Creator's laws, if you drink and you still gamble and you're home is full of violence and abuse."
Auger says sports and recreation programs help, but the real solutions run much deeper. Schools could help by bringing in traditional resource people.
"They don't want to be bothered. It's all just talk," Auger charges.
Healing centres and other Aboriginal organizations that could help are "all just window dressing," she said.
They need to work with real leaders and traditional people and government has to kick in more dollars for adequate programs, Auger argues.
"With the Canadian Native Friendship Centre, our government just gives us enough to survive as an organization. Our people need to venture further and ask for more funding, especially in the urban centres," she states.
Identity is so very crucial, Auger maintains.
"We need to immediately look at our lives, make that time for our children. Take care of them, love them, nurture them, cause down the road, if you don't do that, you're going to suffer.
"In the jails they have their sweatlodges, their Aboriginal Elders. Out here they have nothing. Everybody needs a sacred place in the city. We have to look for that help in our ceremonies, our traditions," Auger said.
"For sweatlodges and ceremonies, there's not much expense to it. Sweats have worked in the city and involve little expense. People and places need that sacredness. Then there's less violence and evil to take control of our children, our lives and the city. That's what's going to make it happen, those ceremonies. But who is going to make it happen? I don't see anybody doing the real thing."
People with the ability are disappearing and others are not being trained or educated in the culture and traditions.
Auger encourages people to take up the challenge.
"Come and understand that wonderful, powerful feeling of being connected to Creator and being able to acknowledge the spirit people when they're around you 'cause that is what life is all about. It's so wonderful, so beautiful," she states.
As for her lost nephew, Garrett, "I believe my beloved nephew was chosen by the Creator to bring attention that this life of young people is hopeless. That is a life of lost identity or no identity at all . . . no history, no nothing. If you do not have identity, you cannot achieve a life of being well."
