generalspeaking

Another Credit To His Nation

He's got 'nothing to hide', and good on him. After all, everything is out there, in the open, in any event. It couldn't be handily hidden, merely out of sight. There are enough who will vouch for the fact that Woodland Cree Chief Joseph Whitehead is clearly and unabashedly involved in extortion as a way of life. But of course that can be understood; he does that for the furtherance of his peoples' fortunes.

To ensure that whenever development of any kind takes place on his peoples' traditional 'hunting lands' (a minor inconvenience that those same 'hunting lands' are, in reality, provincially owned public lands) enriches his First Nations tribe, providing employment for those able-bodied and capable men eager for employment and the regular salary it brings in. And why shouldn't they be?

On the other hand, it's the personal enrichment of Chief Whitehead that appears to be the perpetual problem here, his self-availing blackmail, a neat system he has engineered whereby those wanting to business in the areas he claims to represent fully understand that they will be granted entree only upon presentation of well-endowed cash settlements, with him, personally.

It's been documented by a Calgary auditing firm hired by his very own fellow council members that much illicit activity has taken place. That personal agreements were conducted with contractors and sub-contractors on the understanding that if they balked at paying up, they would simply put themselves out of business. And so it was that Chief Whitehead received $137,000 from one business in a two-year period.

And successfully solicited $160,000 from another to secure sub-contracting work on Woodland Cree projects. And another operator, of Canadian Pipeline Construction, having paid $50,000 cash to secure work. And on and on it went. An awful lot of money changed hands between contractors and Chief Whitehead, yet he denies the very idea of having personally profited.

But because of his machinations, the agreements he made, the personal funding he extracted from companies eager to do business in the Peace River area, employable aboriginals from his band had work. And because he was, in this manner, successful in arranging these entitlements for himself that enabled his reserve to gain employment - something the industry was prepared to offer to workers on reserve without his intervention - he was given credit for providing work, and elected as Chief time and again.

Other than those times when other council members became so dispirited and disgusted that they threw him out. The band should be wealthy given the royalties received from gas exploration and extraction, yet it finds itself in a perilous economic state, with insufficient cash on hand to pay for necessities. And that puzzles them, since they had several millions in savings and have no idea where it's gone; as a result they cannot pay staff.

The Edmonton law firm Miller Thomson LLP, contacted by creditors contending they were promised payment of outstanding arrears to be generated through a land transaction, found that "The nation is living well beyond its means. The shortfall between revenue and expenditures is approaching a half million dollars per month and is not sustainable."

The principal of the reserve's Cadotte Lake School resigned, claiming that band cheques were 'bouncing'. She was joined by several teachers, unable to collect their salaries. Chief Whitehead blames the previous council for wrong-doing, that he was left to pick up the pieces of their disorganized and incompetent stewardship. "They just put us in the hole and I'm here to fix it." It'll only take a few months: "Our books will be awesome and everything.

He hasn't convinced other band members, those who name themselves "Woodland S.O.S." and who have written letters to the minister of Indian Affairs, claiming that "since being re-elected Mr. Whitehead has turned the band's financial surplus of over $3-million he inherited from the last council into a total bankruptcy. We now have payroll cheques bouncing, teachers and staff quitting, and suppliers of goods and services to the band being unpaid - due to corruption and illegal payments to the chief's friends and family."

They've also written to the federal government, that the band has discovered it was missing contributions to the pension plans of teachers at the school. They are additionally asking the Indian Oil and Gas Commission, in charge of on-reserve mineral rights to stop an unauthorized deal Chief Whitehead is proceeding with, without council members' approval.

Chief Whitehead remains blase about all of this. "Maybe it's jealousy. Maybe it's personal. I don't know. I have nothing to hide. The only thing I will fight for is for my people." Obviously, a good and honourable man, complacent in the knowledge that he is doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Little wonder, as yet another example of business-as-usual, that the First Nations communities suffer such desperately bad leadership, and remain vulnerable to exploitation from their own.

Labels: Canada, Political Realities, Traditions, Troublespots

posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 27, 2009