Old faces in a new group

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First Nation chiefs and councils could be placed under the supervision of accountability boards if the deputy Reform Party critic for Indian Affairs and two Alberta Natives get their way.

At Calgary Reform Party headquarters on Oct. 23, Myron Thompson, Reform MP for Alberta Wildrose, appointed Ross Shingoose and Roy Littlechief as national and regional co-ordinators, respectively, of the newly formed Aboriginals for Accountability.

"We have a lot of areas that we would like to implement with the chief and council," Shingoose said. "We need some kind of a commission above the chief and council. The chief and council will be accountable to that board of directors."

Shingoose said the board, whose members would not be of the nation they oversee, would review all funding received from the federal government and conduct audits every six months to ensure the money is spent correctly. Shingoose would like to see a constitution arrived at between chiefs and councils, the people and the board.

"They will have to give a report to the third party management," Shingoose said.

Third party management has been in place to oversee the finances on the Stoney Nation for the past year, but recently, Stoney employees and community members rebelled. They said the accounting firm that was put in place by the Department of Indian Affairs had itself become unaccountable to the Stoney people. It's been accused of treating Stoney employees in a heavy-handed manner and of not releasing financial statements.

Siksika Nation Chief Darlene Yellow Old Woman said the idea of third party management could be possible for chiefs and council guilty of corruption, however, it did not apply to Siksika.

"That's why we have a treasury [board] to watchdog all the departments," the chief said. "With the auditors there, they have to tell us exactly what's happening in all the departments, what council's doing, travel, whatever."

Yellow Old Woman said the Reform Party's fixation on corruption began with the Stoney Nation but is now painting all First Nations with the same brush. According to Indian Affairs records, there are 600 First Nations in Canada. Thompson said members of 160 are crying corruption, but Yellow Old Woman said the party refuses to see past them to nations trying to achieve progress and self-sufficiency.

"There's a lot of good happening in some communities and they're not looking at that at all," Yellow Old Woman said. "They're picking up all the negative stuff."

She said Littlechief and the party are promoting animosity between Natives and non-Natives, but Littlechief and Thompson said they're in possession of documents proving corruption exists.

"These are some of the documents that we are going to find a way to deal with these people through a process of courts," Littlechief said. "We got the proof but how to put these people into court is what we're going to deal with."

Littlechief, who served for one term as Siksika Nation chief in the early 1980s, said the Siksika Nation people have been crying out for accountability for 20 years.

Peter Many Wounds, Tsuu T'ina Nation spokesman, said freedom of choice entitles searching for alternatives to current government institutions but he doesn't see the benefits of allying with the Reform Party.

"The kinds of political activities that are being undertaken, what I call partisan politics, to meet a totally separate, and, quite frankly, in my opinion, a destructive agenda, aren't doing anybody any good in the long run," Many Wounds said.