Analysis: How much goes to Indians? Not as much as you think!

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It's a plaintive cry of the political right in Canada that has become a familiar mantra in the mainstream national media and elsewhere in the country.

They bleat, $7 billion each year is "spent on Indians," with the unspoken message that it's too much and something must be done and soon.

Never is a word written about exactly how much of that money gets chewed up by the bureaucracy or in other corners of government. Maybe that's because it's a hard thing to find out. The Canadian government is not exactly eager to share certain information with the public.

There are 43 separate statutory exemptions in the Access to Information Act-43 reasons not to disclose government information to the public, the people who pay for it all. According to the government's own statistics, during the 16-year period between 1986 and 2001, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) provided complete disclosure on 1,096 of 4,526 information requests. That's 24.2 per cent. Partial disclosure (that usually means huge chunks of text and/or entire pages are blanked out) was made in 1,077 cases (23.8 per cent). In other words, much more than half of the information formally requested from INAC under the act was not disclosed.

There's no doubt that the amount of money allocated to INAC from Treasury Board is a gargantuan sum. The 2001-2002 departmental estimates reveal that $5.082 billion was budgeted for administration, Indian and Inuit Affairs programming and northern affairs programming. That's up from $4.826 billion in 2000-2001.

Other departments also budget money for Native issues. In the 2000-2001 fiscal year Health Canada spent $1.359 billion on Aboriginal health; the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation expended $275 million; Human Resources Development Canada spent $345 million; the Solicitor General's office $59 million; Industry Canada $30.8 million; Canadian Heritage $65 million; Fisheries and Oceans $173 million; Natural Resources $17 million; the Privy Council Office $9 million; Department of Justice $12 million and National Defense $6 million.

The total for all departments in 2000-2001 was $7.397 billion. Out of that total, before a penny reaches an Aboriginal person, government employee salaries, benefits, pensions, capital costs, travel expenses, hospitality expenses and other costs must be deducted.

While one might think that a government that preaches openness, accountability and transparency would be able to provide a detailed breakdown of all those costs, more than two months of research by Windspeaker failed to uncover such numbers in any easily accessible form. Research involved combing through the extensive and rapidly growing amount of government data that is now available on-line.

We also called and asked government sources for information, talked to academics who study government spending and openness issues, talked to former government employees and First Nation leaders and consulted government watch-dogs such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

It could be argued that most of the expenditures by departments outside of Indian Affairs are not made in the best interests of Aboriginal people and should definitely not be considered as money "spent on Indians."

Fisheries and Oceans spent millions on the policing actions against Native fishermen at Burnt Church and Indian Brook First Nations.

The Privy Council Office and the Justice Department spend money researching and strategizing ways to combat or limit assertions of Native rights, despite court rulings that the government has a fiduciary obligation to defend those rights.

While testifying in the Samson oil and gas lawsuit against the Crown in Calgary on Jan. 8, political science professor Thomas Flanagan provided some insight into what uses up some of the money that is allegedly "spent on Indians."

The former director of research for the Reform Party under Preston Manning, now campaign manager for Canadian Alliance leadership hopeful Stepen Harper, has spent a lot of his time arguing against the Native point of view in print and in court. When asked by Samson Cree lawyer Ed Molstad how much he made in 1987 to do research on the Crown's behalf on a Manitoba case that involved Metis land rights, Flanagan told the court he was paid $103,000 by the Department of Justice for a year's work.

Justice and Indian Affairs employ many such researchers and the cost of this work has not gone down in recent years.

INAC claims it spends only nine per cent of its total budget on administration. Most Native leaders say that is obviously false, a number arrived at through creative bookkeeping. In 2001-2002, the department's contribution to INAC employee benefits plans alone was $8.068 million or 1.6 per cent of department spending. The total for salaries was not disclosed, but accountants tell us that benefits account for approximately 10 per cent of earnings in the private sector and perhaps as high as 15 per cent in government. That means we can estimate that the salary total for the department that year (not including pension contributions) was between $60 and $70 million. But that estimate is probably quite low.

The top earners in the department take home money and bonuses that are several times the average wage. The top bureaucrat in the department, Deputy Minister Marc Lafreniere, each of the top bureaucrats in each region (Regional Directors General or RDGs) plus the Associate Deputy Ministers (ADMs) who work at headquarters in Ottawa, all take home six-figure salaries supplemented by "at risk" (incentive) pay, based on performance of duties. The incentive can be anywhere between 10 and 25 per cent of earnings.

The Strong report (named after committee chairman Lawrence Strong) was commissioned by the Treasury Board and submitted in December 2000. It called for the creation of a new category of pay for deputy ministers.

The DM4 level would have a salary of $247,700 with maximum "at risk" pay of $61,900 total: $309,600). The salary number was said to be 12 per cent higher than the existing top salary at the time. That would mean the DM3 salary was $217,976 plus incentive.

INAC communications sources were not sure if the DM4 position has been created yet.

The report also revealed that the salary for the lowest executive pay scale (EX1) was $107,000. The actual salary range for an EX1 is between $80,200 and $94,400. The Strong report used the $107,000, because it included an average incentive addition.

Directors and senior policy advisors are included in the EX1 category. Next up the ladder is EX2. The salary range for this level is from $89,900 to $105, 800 plus incentives.

EX3s-directors general and some RDGs-earn salaries between $100,600 and $118,400 plus incentives.

Newly appointed associate deputy ministers (ADM) are in EX4. They earn between $115,600 and $136,100 plus incentives.

More senior ADMs (EX5) make between $129,500 and $152,400 plus incentives.

This year, Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault will earn a total of $194,496-$131, 400 as his base MP salary, plus the $63,096 additional minister's base salary. He also receives an additional $2,122 for a car and driver allowance.

The junior minister responsible for Indian Affairs, Secretary of State Stephen Owen, is paid $47,322.00 in addition to his MP's salary-a total of $178,722-with no car allowance.

We were able to uncover how much RDGs spent on travel and entertaining in 2000-2001. The 10 RDGs spent a total of $526,427 on travel and an additional $56,774 on "hospitality." Those numbers added together equal $583,201.

British Columbia RDG John Watson was the biggest traveller in the group, spending $70,678 tax dollars to attend meetings and functions away from his Vancouver office. Alberta RDG Barry Robb led the pack when it came to entertaining, spending $13,080. Indian Oil and Gas executive director Strater Crowfoot spent $33,389 on travel and $7,283 on hospitality. Each region also has an ssociate RDG that performs similar functions. We could not locate their travel and hospitality numbers.

Aside from the managers within the department of Indian and Northern Affairs, a small army of lesser bureaucrats earn comfortable livings. Each regional office has a staff of 100 or more. And the government employs many advisors on contract, special negotiators, third party managers and others. All earn top-end salaries, plus travel and hospitality costs.

British Columbia's First Nations Summit executive task force member Bill Wilson says the federal negotiators working at the more than 40 treaty negotiation tables in his province all make serious money.

"I'm a chief negotiator and when I work, I only bill for when I work, I make $1,000 a day and that's at the low end of my consulting fees," he said. "I make about $800 to $1,000 a day less than the federal negotiators. So they're making anywhere from $1,800 to $2,500 a day. And whose money is that? It's ours. And it's a scam."

University of Victoria professor Taiaiake Alfred, a Kahnawake Mohawk and columnist with this newspaper who is taking a sabbatical to write a book, said he knows he can earn $3,000 a day should he choose to do research for the government.

Others remind us that third party managers, contract players from outside the government, also submit big bills for their services. And that the thousands of people who earn their pay in the justice and corrections systems owe their job security to the over-representation of Aboriginal people in Canada's jails.

One should keep in mind, also, when looking at how much money is directed at Aboriginal people, that INAC is the federal government north of 60 and supplies services to all northern residents, not just Aboriginal people.

Aside from the 10 regions, there is also headquarters, the executive office and the minister's office. The "exempt staff," as they're called-those who work for the minister as opposed to the department-fit into a variety of pa