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“We’re all mad about this, and we’re going to be asking for an independent audit,” added band member Ron Jackman. “For one’s man action, we shouldn’t be judged as a community.”

Chief Giesbrecht was paid $914,219 for the fiscal year 2013/2014, according to documents posted online as a result of the federal government’s new First Nation Financial Transparency Act.

The chief’s income dwarfs the salary of any other mayor, premier or federal representative in Canada, and is larger even than the $737,855 the band received from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs for the 2012/2013 financial year.

In addition, as the income is tax free, it is equivalent to $1.6 million in taxable earnings. Chief Giesbrecht also racked up $16,574 in expenses.

“I want the public to know that the membership knew nothing about this,” said Marvin Joe, a former chief and one of two band councilors at Kwikwetlem, speaking to the National Post by cell phone on Friday morning. “And if it wasn’t for this new transparency act, I don’t think we ever would have known.”

The remuneration was apparently wildly out of step with what Kwikwetlem chiefs normally collect. Band member Debbie Joe said it was not too long ago that their leaders collected welfare because they earned nothing at all.

“Most of our chiefs up until now made $34,000, with $1000 bonuses at Christmas time, which is about what everybody received,” she said.

On Thursday, a band office statement explained that the chief—who also acts as the First Nation’s economic development officer—normally earns $100,519 a year.

But in 2013, Chief Giesbrecht received an extra $800,000 bonus due to a section in his economic development officer contract that gave him a 10% cut on all new “capital projects and business opportunities.”

“Whoever thought the bonus would be this much? I tell you, I never would have,” Chief Giesbrecht told Tri-Cities NOW in a Thursday interview. “I never in my wildest dreams thought I would make that kind of money on [capital] projects like this.”

Chief Giesbrecht has not spoken to the press since, and a public statement assured band members that the provision which granted him the 10% bonus has since been removed.