How's It Going, Canadian First Nations?

"Do Canada's values permit those First Nation chiefs -- some of whom are mini-Trumps -- to systematically violate equal justice under law to those they govern, enabled by Canada's blind and deferential eye?"

"When is this conversation going to open up?"

"Some [membership] applications, like the children of an incumbent chief, are processed quickly and secretly ... It is very lonely and challenging for individual members, or those entitled to be members, to hold a rogue exercise of power accountable."

"They [Chiefs] understand the requirement for nation rebuilding. They know that inequality is bad for everyone and that almost every modern social problem is more likely to occur in a less-equal society. So they want to build a society founded on equality and spiritual values."
"But other elected leaders do not know this. Power, in their hands, is treated as absolute, personal power. It’s cut loose from standards of procedural fairness, principles of justice, equality, transparency, accountability and fiduciary selflessness. The inherent right of self-government does not justify absolute power and harming people."

"But they [Parliamentarians] look away. They don’t want to interfere or appear colonial. They defer to the inherent right of self-government. They look good and it mitigates the federal fiduciary risk." 

"Canada created this condition and its abdication consummates an unholy political union with self government sovereignty assertions."

Indigenous lawyer Catherine Twinn

Catherine Twinn says Canada has abandoned First Nations citizens by ceding its oversight powers to band councils. Photo: APTN News.

"The [First Nations] communities know full well what LNG [liquid natural gas] is all about. They approved it They signed onto it. They wanted the training. The media is not telling the whole story.:

"There is a well co-ordinated, well-funded machine shutting down Canada. the agenda is basically anti-fossil fuel, but also forestry and mining."

"This machine has set back Aboriginal reconciliation by 20 years."

"Most Canadians are becoming painfully aware that there is a distinct movement underway to undermine our resource economy and with it, undo the achievements of Aboriginal community leaders who have been successfully reconciling Aboriginal rights and title with the Crown for the past 15 years."

"Many of those lining up against the Coastal GasLink pipeline are non-Aboriginal, while some are even from south of the border."
"Foreign influence is nothing new, but what we are seeing today is a well-executed campaign financed by the likes of Tides Canada and the U.S.-based Rockefeller Foundation."

"Researcher Vivian Krause has well documented the source of these funds and has followed the distribution of money to environmental activist groups here in Canada. If she wasn’t taken seriously before, I’m sure Canadians will take another look at her research today."
"Caught in the middle are First Nations such as the Wet’suwet’en, whose people are being divided by a question of authority between the elected band council members and hereditary chiefs. The other group that’s caught in the middle are everyday British Columbians — including fellow Aboriginals who just want to get home, to work or to the hospital."

"The fact of the matter is that all 203 First Nations in British Columbia have different approaches to governance. The last thing any of us need is intervention from foreign groups that want to hijack our future for their own objectives."

Ellis Ross, Indigenous leader, Liberal MLA, British Columbia

Harrison Thunderchild, a member of Thunderchild First Nation, is taking the First Nation to court to force them to comply with the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. Provided photo. / Saskatoon

Tribal governments in charge of close to one million Indigenous Canadians are accountable to no one. They should be accountable to the people they govern, but they are not. They think of themselves as all-powerful, and they behave as though they are, in distributing the assets of reserve funding from the federal government, and managing the welfare of the community. In so doing they favour friends and relatives and supporters, while neglecting the equal rights of all tribal members of a reserve.

And the way the current federal government hoves to non-interference in Aboriginal affairs, the situation in many of the reserves continues to fester, as council members and chiefs accrue all benefits to themselves, and control the well-being of the entire reserve population as they see fit. Those within the community who chafe at the inequality of the situation are punished by a smaller share of whatever it takes to meet quality of life guidelines, from the choice of housing on down.

There are no fewer than 632 First Nations tribes in Canada, all considering themselves independent nations and a law unto themselves. Some councils are a credit to their tribes, managing their responsibilities well, and leading their reserves into prosperity as a measure of meaningful guidance and governing decisions. All too many others are complete and utter failures under petty dictators who siphon off tribal funding for those they privilege including themselves.

Since 2015, when the current Liberal government of Justin Trudeau took office, law and order has been left to tribal chiefs and councils. Most First Nations operate their own election process, their police forces, and provide vital services such as housing, health care and aligned benefits, passing and enforcing their own tribal laws. The Trudeau government handed full autonomy to tribal governments, by choosing to set aside enforcement of the First Nations Financial Transparency Act brought in by the previous Conservative-led government. 

That Act made it mandatory for all bands to publish public audits of band finances; audits of band expenses, inclusive of council and chief compensation. What was once mandatory has become optional. And while many bands  take the high road and publish that data for public scrutiny knowing they have nothing to hide, many others choose to ignore the need to be fiscally and publicly accountable because they do have much to hide.

Billions of tax dollars are involved in the transfer of funding to all the band councils. Audits of band expenses may or may not now take place. When those audit requirements are waived by the band council, and there is nothing to publish, to inform members of the reserves how the funding meant to be equally distributed among all band members in the upkeep of band resources, they are kept in the dark although activists within the reserves tend to have a fairly good idea of how deeply their rights are being ignored.

In the previous government that enforced the requirement to post band audits, civil rights actions involving some band members and their leaders were undertaken by the federal government. Now, "The compliancy burden has shifted to those least able [to insist on them] -- the band members", points out Catherine Twinn. "Few can afford to hire lawyers, go up against the resources in the command of chief and council and risk their necessities, such as housing, program supports and jobs, often controlled by the elected leadership."

Last winter's rail blockades by protesters spurred and inspired by hereditary chiefs who had overridden the authority of elected chiefs in rejecting construction of a liquefied natural gas pipeline in British Columbia, temporarily froze the country's rail transport. The pipeline had been poised to proceed in the wake of years of negotiating with the affected tribes through whose traditional land the pipeline would be built. Support for the project was overwhelming among the tribal residents and their elected chiefs.

A proportion of profits to be allocated to the tribes, and a significant number of jobs guaranteed, along with appropriate job training. The hereditary chiefs, against the judgement and support of the pipeline by the elected chiefs, set up illegal road and rail blocks, demanding a stop to the project. According to prominent Indigenous leader Ellis Ross, climate change radicals had manipulated the protests with an aim to shut down the nation's resource base through the power politics of dividing people over a project for future prosperity that would bring them together in a common purpose.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, poses for a selfie with Tsuu'Tina First Nation councillor Emil Starlight in early 2016