More About That Audit

The awesome Canadians are making complete assholes of themselves. (Which, in a sense, is kinda honest!) Setting aside for a moment the obvious hypocrisy they're displaying in calling for Chief Spence to be dragged in chains to the Peace Tower for alleged indiscretions or incompetence that their own governments practice on a routine scale, ... they're also showing themselves to be ignoramuses and racist turds quick to pass judgment on the First Nations just because they're the First Nations

I will say again; I have believed and still believe that there are corrupt First Nations leaders. My gut instinct though, is that if Chief Spence is corrupt or totally incompetent, she wouldn't have declared a State of Emergency about housing on her reserve to draw attention to it. If she was corrupt, she would have stayed quiet herself and come up with excuses exonerating herself (of which there would be many plausible ones) and if she was incompetent and overwhelmed, she would have given up in defeat.

Furthermore, she wouldn't then go out on a hunger-strike. Given the fact that harper has used this crisis (created by decades of federal neglect on the part of successive Liberal and Conservative governments) to seize power and justify his asinine, Tom Flanagan inspired liberal bullshit, I'd say that Chief Spence's hunger-strike has more to do with harper's power grab than with some incoherent conspiracy theory that only makes sense to a racist moron.

In that spirit, it seems appropriate to link to this Rabble.Ca article reminding us about a June 2011 Auditor General's Report on conditions on First Nation reserves.

And then Fraser gets to the nub of the problem that Deloitte describes (but fails to explain) in the Attawapiskat case.
That is the issue of the onerous and inappropriate level of paperwork, record-keeping and reporting imposed on First Nations -- an issue Fraser raised with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs on numerous occasions, to no avail:
"Contribution agreements involve a significant reporting burden, especially for small First Nations with limited administrative capacity. Communities often have to use scarce administrative resources to respond to numerous reporting requirements stipulated in their agreements. We followed up on Aboriginal Affairs efforts to reduce the reporting requirements of First Nations and found progress to date to be unsatisfactory..."
...
Finally, the former Auditor General points out the challenges that small and relatively poor First Nations communities face in providing complex services that, elsewhere in Canada, are provided by larger, well-resourced entities such as school boards:
"The federal government established each First Nation band as an autonomous entity and provides separate program funding to each. Many of these First Nations are small, consisting of communities that often have fewer than 500 residents. There are more than 600 First Nations across Canada. Many of them are hampered by the lack of expertise to meet the administrative requirements for delivering key programs within their reserves. They often do not have the benefit of school boards, health boards, or other regional bodies to support the First Nations as they provide services to community members."

 Finally, let's note that Chief Spence's life partner is calling for a forensic audit if people are so incensed by the Deloitte & Touche audit:

Spence’s partner, Clayton Kennedy, who is also the band’s former co-manager, said financial accountability had improved over the last two years in Attawapiskat, which posts all its financial documents online. He said none of the money was ever misappropriated and every dollar could be tracked by simply approaching the vendors and the banks involved. He said the department should call in the forensic audit requested by the community back in 2004.
“If everyone is so concerned about the lack of documentation, then fine, come back, start contacting the suppliers, go through the banks, get into it in a little more detail because I don’t think you’ll find any misappropriation of funds,” said Kennedy, who was the band’s co-manager between July 2010 and August 2012.
...
Kennedy said he’s not surprised the auditors failed to find documentation for transactions dating back to 2005.
Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan called for the audit in December 2011 at the same time he imposed a third-party manager on the community, seizing financial control away from the band council and administration.
When the auditors landed in the community for two five day stints in early 2012, the band’s staff was already working to the limit dealing with the third-party manager, who was from BDO Canada’s Winnipeg office.
“My staff didn’t have time to get to the nuts and bolts,” he said. “We were worried about payroll and welfare payments that were withheld. I had to provide a raft of information…(The third party manager) wanted to take over all the payroll, he wanted all the information, personal information for every employee by program.”
Kennedy said most of the band’s accounting staff had “no knowledge of the majority of transactions.” He said they pulled out boxes of files from a warehouse to meet the auditors’ demands.
“My staff was preoccupied with operations and did not have a lot of time to devote to the auditor’s queries,” he said.

 Remember people: While there are a lot of fucking racist scumbags in this country, there are almost as many people like us, and, most Canadians actually are so self-centered they don't give a shit and will listen to whoever doesn't sound like a ranting, racist, KKK-loving imbecile.