Meow everyone. Well here we are a new year , a new band wagon for the professional protestor to jump on. This time, its the Idle No More band wagon.It seems that what these professional protestors need is a really cold winter, to keep them inside because as the temps warm up, so do their sense of self importance. Case in Point.
Here in Toronto, as in many other cities, the latest flavor of the month protest is the Idle No More protest.
Now let me be very clear on this as no doubt the lunatic fringe of the professional protest movement will want to twist these words around for their own agendas. I SUPPORT THE RIGHTS OF THE NATIVE PEOPLE TO SELF GOVERN . Good, i trust that, that left no room for it being twisted around. What I do have an issue with is that the rights of our native persons is being used as a tool to hide a far bigger problem , that of gross and negligent mismanagement of funds by these bands. This whole Theresa Spence issue and starvation stunt is just that, a publicity stunt to divert attention from the real problem she wants to have hidden.
It is no secret that he band is one of the poorest of all the native bands , yet, she seemed ,as a so called chief / leader, to care more for herself FIRST than careing for her band members. She has no problem driving around in a really nice Cadillac Escalade which range in price from about $75,000.00 to over $110,000.00 .
Here is an article recently written about the gross mismanagement :
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A new audit of the Attawapiskat Indian reserve was released Monday. It was shocking.
The accounting firm of Deloitte randomly chose 505 financial transactions, between April 1, 2005 and Nov. 30, 2011, to review. They found “81% of files did not have adequate supporting documents and over 60% had no documentation of the reason for payment.”
A lot of that money was supposed to go to housing. Attawapiskat is the reserve where some houses have leaky roofs, poor insulation, broken plumbing and are generally unfit for habitation. But Deloitte wrote, “There is no evidence of due diligence in the use of public funds, including the use of funds for housing.”
Deloitte can’t find where the money went. But maybe the long list of people on the band’s rich payroll might know, starting with Theresa Spence, the chief, or her boyfriend, Clayton Kennedy, who just happens to be the town’s financial manager. He bills the band $850 a day to manage their finances.
In fact, there are 21 politicians on the band payroll. Plus plenty of full-time staff. But Deloitte didn’t find that reassuring: “Attawapiskat First Nation did not provide us with any job descriptions for individuals who are involved in the financial management of funding agreements.”
The band doesn’t even produce annual budgets. High school football teams have budgets. The band council doesn’t keep regular minutes of their meetings, either. Ordinary band members can’t find out what their politicians are doing. (Spence, in a news release Monday, dismissed the audit’s release as “no more than a distraction from the true issue” and said it was an attempt to “discredit” her.)
So what does this all look like, if you pour $100 million through such a system, as the federal government has done since 2005? Well, here are a few of the findings in Deloitte’s sample of 505 transactions.
In September, 2011, at the height of the housing crisis, they spent $4,333 on breakfast supplies. No documentation. No contract, no invoice.
In April of 2011, a “consultant” got paid $303,256. The identity of the consultant is not known. The documentation is incomplete.
What kind of consultant did Attawapiskat need for $303,256 last year? In the middle of a housing crisis? Was it a roofing consultant? Someone to develop a roofing strategy? Is that why they didn’t have money to actually hire a roofer?
There are many of these employment contracts – often six figures, always anonymous.
Another common one is “other purchases.” One was for $87,150. Auditor’s note: “Occurrence questionable.” Was anything even bought? Who knows?
Countless money was spent on legal fees. One payment was for $68,910 – lawyer unknown, no supporting documentation. Was it band business? Or maybe someone’s divorce?
What about a real estate deal three years ago for
$1.1 million? But it’s an Indian reserve. The band already owns all the land. And the vendor is anonymous. There was zero supporting documentation. Was this $1.1 million property deal even in Attawapiskat? Or was it in Florida?
There are a flurry of these property purchases – all secret, no street address or even a general geographic location given.Eighty-one percent of the files the auditor checked are this way. Not 1% or 2%. This isn’t an error. It’s a way of life.
If the people involved had Italian names and were from the Montreal construction industry, or French-Canadian names from Montreal ad agencies, instead of Indian “consultants” from Attawapiskat, there would be resignations and criminal charges flying.
But it would be racist to ask tough questions of Chief Spence and her boyfriend. And, she’s so close to starving herself, it would be mean, too.
Is Stephen Harper really going to meet with her on Friday? Shouldn’t the RCMP do so first? … “
Wait. You want more proof of gross mismanagement?
So, what we have are a bunch of professional protestors who have already hijacked other movements such as the Occupy Toronto Movement , and now, they are doing the exact same thing with this. They think that somehow, dancing in circles will make the problem go away. Well, it won’;t be going away anytime soon and if the Canadian Public is smart , they will demand that the government get directly involved to address these incompetent managers and chiefs and administer the tax dollars that we all pay into for these bands to get their handouts. My guess is that with a little bit of government help, these chiefs will not be driving Escalade’s anymore. As for Spence, if she really cared about her people, here is a novel idea, Sell the truck and give it back to the people who really deserve it .