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That’s all Michael Benedict, an Abenaki of the Odanak First Nation in southern Quebec, says he could get from his band leaders when it came to financial transparency.

There was transparency between the band and Ottawa, Benedict argues, but not between the band and its members.

“We had a summary of the financial statements. But I wanted the (documents) that go along with the filing of the financial statements,” says Benedict, who says he was told by band leaders that obtaining them would be “complicated.”

Odanak chief Rick O’Bomsawim says his band has an “open- door policy” when it comes to its books, certainly since 2007 when O’Bomsawim took over as chief.

O’Bomsawim says the band gave Benedict the information he sought.

The back and forth dispute is one of many that has played out across the country between band members and their councils, a war of words that prompted the federal government to usher in the controversial new First Nations Financial Transparency Act . Bands have always had to provide financial statements to Ottawa. What’s new is these financial statements, including information about the salaries, expenses and benefits for chiefs and band council members, are now to be posted on the federal government’s Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada department website.

That started happening at the end of July.

Benedict and Beverly Brown, who belongs to a native community on the other side of the country from Benedict, in coastal B.C., were among several First Nations people who have previously addressed parliamentary committees to advocate for the new law and complain about being blocked from seeing their bands’ books.

Brown, a legal assistant, is a member of the Squamish First Nation in north Vancouver. Benedict is a former employee of the Assembly of First Nations, for Quebec and Labrador.

Band councils deny records held

Squamish and Odanak leaders say claims they prevented access to financial records are false, and that their bands have long provided comprehensive details to their community members.

Benedict came to the Odanak band’s office around last November or December and “requested every financial record for the last four or five years. We gave him a copy of every single thing,” chief O’Bomsawim says, adding Benedict left the band’s office with boxes full of documents.

“We never heard back from him again,” O’Bomsawim adds. “I don’t think I could be more transparent.”

Benedict says he didn’t get all the information he sought, and some of what he did receive contained several accounting codes he couldn’t interpret, and he later gave up.

He says the new act has been a step in the right direction toward getting over hurdles to transparency.

The First Nations Financial Transparency Act continues to stir controversy as a 120-day extension from the end of July ticks down for native communities to submit their financial records, with the federal government threatening to withhold funding from bands that don’t provide disclosure in time.

Proponents of the legislation, including the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, argued that many native community members were being thwarted when they tried to get financial information from their leaders.

Revelations since the act came into force of some bloated salaries and expense accounts for chiefs and band councillors further demonstrate the need for the new law, supporters argue.

But opponents say these instances are few and far between, and view the new law as patronizing. They say native bands were already providing financial disclosure to their own members, and the transgressions of a few bands are being used to tarnish the hundreds of Indian band governments in Canada.

“Open and accountable”

“Agreements with the federal government have for many years required fiscal transparency for band members. Part of agreeing to receive federal funds is the requirement that your books be open and available to band members,” says Douglas Sanderson, a lawyer and associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Toronto. Sanderson is a Cree from northern Manitoba.

“Thus the trumpet calls for accountability appear not to be for the benefit of First Nation members, but rather to open the communities’ books to a political base of skeptical non-Indian citizens who do not believe that ‘you are spending our money wisely,’ ” Sanderson argues.

“What the Charbonneau Commission has clearly demonstrated is that some politicians are corrupt, and that corruption isn’t a uniquely First Nations problem,” Sanderson added, referring to the probe into municipal corruption that among other things resulted in Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay resigning after it was revealed his party collected illegal contributions from Mafia-linked construction firms.

Since the disclosure law came into force, more than 70 per cent of about 600 Indian bands have submitted financial records to Ottawa. St least one group, the Tsuu T’ina First Nation near Calgary, maintains the law is unconstitutional and remains a holdout over concerns that posting proprietary financial information online for the public at large could harm its members’ business interests.

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Many bands haven’t yet complied but most say they’re in the process of doing so and are getting their financial records together in time to meet the extension.

“As we’ve said in the past, most communities have been transparent and accountable to their band members,” says Assembly of First Nations acting national chief Ghislain Picard. “That’s the approach we favoured all along.”

Still, some revelations that were a surprise to people within and outside First Nations communities.

For instance:

Chief Ron Giesbrecht , who is also economic development officer of the Kwikwetlem First Nation in Coquitlam, B.C., earned $914,219 in the last fiscal year. Defending the payout, the band issued a statement saying $800,000 was part of a bonus given to him that equaled 10 per cent of the profits from band businesses and capital ventures. Marvin Joe, a councillor with the band, has called for the chief to resign and pay back the bonus money, arguing it belongs to community members. The band’s population is 82 people. Chief John Thunder of the 126-member Buffalo Point First Nation in southeastern Manitoba earned $129,398 last fiscal year in salaries and benefits.

But First Nations leaders say they make modest annual salaries, on average in the $37,000 range, based on 2010 estimates.

Conservative MP Kelly Block (Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar), authored the transparency bill. Advocating for her bill in the House of Commons in November 2012 , Block told fellow MPs that research has shown about 25 per cent of First Nations people said salary information for their public officials was not available to them.

“Some First Nations will only release information about spending and the reimbursement of government officials’ expenses on request. Others outright refuse to do so. It is precisely because some First Nation leaders will not release this information that community members are forced to ask Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to provide them with the details on their behalf,” Block said.

“I heard from individual members of First Nations communities who complained that their local governments refused to release financial information.”

The same message echoes in a recent interview with Colin Craig, prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“I don’t want to leave the impression every chief and councillor is withholding information and being unethical and all that. There are lots of good chiefs and councillors out there, but we ran into many many cases where band members were telling us they weren’t getting this information, and that’s why we started pushing the government to table the Financial Transparency Act,” Craig says.

Like Benedict, Brown describes being thwarted when she tried to get information about the Squamish First Nation’s band-owned businesses.

The band was in the news Monday after two of its elected officials maintained their official status but were relieved of their duties, after a third-party investigation discovered problems with how nearly $1.5 million was spent from the band’s emergency fund.

There are few records to show how the money was spent or why, and the probe found some money was spent on entertainment expenses, including restaurant bills and Vancouver Canucks tickets.

Brown told the federal committee that Squamish community members deserve to get the finances for each of the band’s corporations, “specifically, true figures and not gross misrepresentations of finances that do not have enough detail to be meaningful, and are so vague that (they) give the illusion of transparency while hiding secrets in plain view.”

But band councillor Chris Lewis, a spokesperson for the 4,000-member Squamish community, in an interview denied Brown’s claims, saying the band distributes its consolidated financial statements to members every October, including own-source revenues from entities such as leases and businesses.

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