Band members protest poor service

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This article was published 20/05/2009 (6228 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Band members upset about the low level of services on First Nations — and the high cost of administering them — took to the streets in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

“When I look around in my own community, there’s nothing,” said Muriel Woodford, a member of Little Saskatchewan First Nation. She led a group of protesters to the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council sub-office in downtown Winnipeg. The federally funded tribal council represents her community and six others.

It has a bloated budget with little to show for it, said Woodford.

The tribal council headquarters is in Fairford First Nation but it leases a satellite office in Winnipeg for $46,800 a year, according to 2007 financial reports. Its staff of six receives annual salaries and travelling expenses totalling half a million dollars.

“There’s nothing coming out of that office,” said Woodford, who lives and works in Winnipeg but has grown children and grandchildren back on the reserve. The tribal council isn’t known for doing anything except administering post-secondary education funds, she said.

However, in 2007, the tribal council reported spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on social development ($151,985), housing and fire safety ($217,181) and economic development ($325,903).

“What’s happening with all that money?” Woodford asked.

That same year, the tribal council was sued for $124,629.87 by Tribal Wi-Chi-Way-Win Capital Corp., for defaulting on loans it made to Lake St. Martin First Nation and Fairford (Pinaymootang).

The tribal council didn’t file a statement of defence. The court ordered its executive director, Joe. M. Anderson, to show up for examination and bring the tribal council’s tax returns, bank records, financial statements, third-party contracts and records of any real estate or vehicles it owns. Before that could happen, the tribal council decided to pay up instead, and the matter was settled.

Anderson did not respond to requests for an interview Tuesday.

Woodford has led several protests in front of Indian Affairs offices in Winnipeg when the department removed her band’s chief and two councillors from office for vote-buying and corruption and then allowed them to run again and get elected.

Woodford and others have complained the band is sinking in debt because of financial mismanagement.

Speaking out hasn’t made Woodford and the demonstrators popular back in Little Saskatchewan. Their photos scribbled with profanities were plastered on a community billboard there. Rather than intimidating them, Woodford said it’s strengthened their resolve to hold leaders to account.

Now, she’s being joined by neighbouring First Nations members in calling on their tribal council to show them where the money went.

The leaders who should be holding the tribal council to account are instead benefitting from it, said protester Clarence Sumner.

“It’s disgusting,” said Sumner, a Fairford First Nation member. The federally funded tribal council’s seven chiefs have received up to $45,000 each per year in per diems and travel expenses for being on the board of the tribal council, according to documents obtained by the Free Press.

For 2007, Chief Emery Stagg of Dauphin River First Nation claimed $45,261. Stagg did not return calls to the Free Press on Tuesday afternoon.

“They’re triple-dipping for travel expenses,” said Sumner. The salaried chiefs can claim travel expenses for meetings they attend on band business, child and family services business and tribal council business, said Sumner, who is moving back to Fairford to care for his elderly mother after being away for 20 years.

Sumner said he has close to 50 nieces and nephews living there and is worried about their future in a community with no recreation services. He wants the band and the tribal council to direct some funding to help the youth.

“There’s a lot of addictions to pills and alcohol and problems. That comes from not having anything to do in the community… they turn to crime or they’re getting into trouble.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca