08) THE ATTAWAPISKAT AUDIT ‑ ANOTHER HARPER PLOY
By Jean Kenyon
Chief Theresa Spence of the northern Ontario First Nation community of Attawapiskat won widespread sympathy from Canadians when she embarked on a hunger strike in December, over the Harper government's assault on Aboriginal treaty rights and underfunding of basic services on reserves. Who could forget the painful pictures from last winter, of families living in uninsulated shacks in the deep‑freeze climate of the James Bay shore?
Many of us therefore considered it a victory for Chief Spence when Prime Minister Harper agreed he would meet with her on Jan 11. But it soon became apparent that Harper hadn't blinked, but was up to his usual shrewd political tricks. For on Jan. 8 the Conservative government "leaked" an audit it had ordered of Attawapiskat's books, and the results appeared damaging to Chief Spence. It was enough to satisfy Harper's redneck base, while sowing doubt and confusion among average Canadians.
But many important facts about the audit didn't make it into the mainstream media. Here are some of those facts, as I've learned them from reliable on‑line sources.
1. There was no finding of any fraud or misuse of funds, only that the paperwork wasn't done to the government's satisfaction.
2. The period audited was 2006‑2011, and Spence did not become Chief until 2010. Attawapiskat was under co‑management all that time, and audited financial statements were posted on its web site every year. And according to the Indian Act, all capital expenditures by bands must be approved by the Ministry!
3. The former Auditor‑General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, wrote in her final report in 2011, that "a heavy reporting burden is put on First Nations," and the endless paperwork is often completely ignored anyway by federal agencies.
4. There isn't any federal legislation governing the delivery of health and education, for example, on reserves ‑ or the standards to be met or who delivers these services. In other words, there isn't any framework of accountability on the federal side! Yet the bands' spending is micromanaged by the feds.
5. Of course the biggest finding of the Auditor‑General was that services on reserves are chronically underfunded. Each tiny band must negotiate with the feds every couple of years for money for basic services, then they must set up their own staffing arrangements to provide the services.
How many villages ‑ anywhere ‑ would have the skill and the clout to secure enough money, and deliver a wide range of services, and track every dollar spent (which itself takes a lot of paid staff time)? And how much more difficult to do all this in a harsh environment, where, for example, building materials must be brought in by ice road, and where generations of unresolved social problems persist, resulting from the many traumas of colonialism? The mind boggles at the heavy burden placed on a small band!
6. The amount in question ‑ I've heard $90 million to $100 million ‑ sounds like a lot of money, until you consider two things. It was spent over five years, and it had to provide ALL the services that the federal, provincial, and municipal governments combined provide to you and me.
Say it was $100 million, which is $20 million each year. Add $4.4 million from the provincial government, and the band had less than $25 million per year. For Attawapiskat's on-reserve population of 1600 people, plus some spending for another 1200 members who currently live off-reserve, that's in the range of $10,000 per person per year, for all education, health, social services, housing, infrastructure, and necessary government staff. $10,000 per person per year falls far short of basic needs.
I crunched some numbers the other day. How much is spent per capita by all levels of government in a year, for people living in a typical Ontario city? Adding it all up, I arrived at a total of $21,700 for the city where I live. Give or take a little for variations among municipalities, and we still have well over twice as much spending per capita in a modern Canadian city than per person on a reserve.
Keep that figure in mind the next time you see heartbreaking pictures of tarpaper shacks and despairing children.
The federal government would have us believe that it is being very generous to First Peoples. Nothing could be further from the truth.
(The following articles are from the February 15-28, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)