[Editorial] Used and abused in Ontario

If only we could bottle the energy and enthusiasm of the young winners of the E-spirit Aboriginal Youth Business Plan competition, then we could splash it around on all of the problems in all of our communities and they would soon become memories of a distant time past.

Congratulations to these young people on their hard work and determination, and congratulations to the Business Development Bank of Canada for sticking with the competition over the last 10 years.

In the larger Aboriginal community, where good projects come and go on the whims of government bureaucrats and the fancies of politicians, it’s good to see this kind of long-term commitment to building the capacity of our next leaders.

The business plan competition may be specifically focused on entrepreneurship, but the skills learned through participation in the program are easily transferred to other areas of concern.

Not all the young people who work through the E-spirit online modules are destined to own and run their own businesses. Heaven knows, some of them may land in the service of their communities. It’s gratifying to believe that the knowledge they gain through the competition may be brought to the operations of band council, informing decisions, understanding opportunities, even providing protection from those who would exploit First Nations communities and their citizens.

We can’t help but think of the Henvey Inlet First Nation at this time, and the $44 million allegedly funneled through a charitable account under the name of the Henvey Inlet First Nation Support Organization to benefit, not the community, but wealthy taxpayers looking for a tax shelter.

Chief Wayne McQuabbie said millions in receipts were issued for cash over a five-year period. The nation of about 150 people received less than one per cent of those funds. McQuabbie brought the Canada Revenue Agency into the mix when he discovered the receipts. The agency’s report on the organization’s dealings “absolutely astounded us,” he said.

Well, chief, you should have a view of the situation from the outside looking in. It’s stunning to us to think that a community could be so misused in such a monumental way.

Where was the oversight? Where was the leadership? Where were the auditors, the federal government, and all of that reportage INAC insists that the nations do? How did all of this go unnoticed by so many over so much time? And in how many other communities are the same mistakes being made?

“For many of the trustees, it appears their only mistake was trusting someone’s word,” Chief McQuabbie emphasized. Henvey Inlet First Nation is a small community in Ontario. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of remote First Nations that an unscrupulous operator knocked at the door.

Just like in the residential school system, those people that would seek to do harm also seek out the most vulnerable and most isolated. But this kind of corruption is not something that one person can pull off alone, even though McQuabbie blames “a particular consultant.” It requires a great deal of willful blindness to allow such an operation to be successful, and maybe just a little quid pro quo, a little grease.

Let’s take this time, right now, however, to give McQuabbie his props for inviting an investigation into the situation. He could have swept it under the carpet. It’s easier not to talk about something ugly like this, and he chose not to take the easy path. Unfortunately that’s not the most common approach to difficulties in First Nations communities. So hat’s off to the man. There’s going to be some black eyes around the community after all is said and done, and it took some courage for him to get into the ring.

Windspeaker is going to be watching with particular interest to see if any of the money that was funneled through the support organization is recovered and who’s going to take the fall, and not just in the community or among the trustees of this organization. We wonder if the government will hold to account those taxpayers who moved money to their off-shore accounts through this organization. We also wonder out loud at how this organization was able to play so fast and loose with its charitable status and where all that transparency went that the government and the taxpayers’ associations are always squealing about.

Who in government is supposed to be watching this sector, and where were they in this situation? And how are we to determine if this isn’t a game being played out across the country? Many journalists have questioned the controls around charitable status, concluding that non-profits are rife with illegal activity and impropriety. The situation with the Henvey Inlet First Nation Support Organization does little to dissuade them from that opinion.

McQuabbie has said that the First Nation was kept in the dark about the workings of the organization, “which was actually run out of Winnipeg, not here.” The scheme he said does not reflect the character of the band or its members.

Perhaps, but maybe worse, it does reflect on the capacity in the community to understand that they were being used. The fact is, Henvey Inlet can never say again they didn’t know, because now they do. It’s time to give some serious thought to building the capacity of the community to better protect itself going forward, and it’s a lesson for every other First Nations community to take to heart as well, because it seems, no one else is watching out.

Windspeaker