Federal government removes Moosomin Chief

Despite leadership turmoil, councillor and chairperson Brad Swiftwolfe is confident Moosomin First Nation can continue to forge ahead with business partnerships in order to pull out of third-party management.

“Since (Chief Elliot Kahpeaysewat’s dismissal) in the past two weeks, we’ve visited a whole lot of our business partners and everything was okay. Basically, it still is the council that makes the decision at the end the day, it’s just that the spokesman is not there,” Swiftwolfe said.

Swiftwolfe was appointed by Moosomin council to take over as chairperson when Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada declared the office of chief vacant.

Kahpeaysewat was stripped of his position last month following an investigation that arose from vote-buying allegations in relation to the January 2011 band election.

“Based upon the information submitted in connection with the appeal, including the report of an independent investigator, there was sufficient evidence to support the allegations of corrupt practice whereby Chief Elliot Kahpeaysewat provided money to multiple electors in exchange for their votes,” Michelle Perron, spokesperson for AANDC, said in an email.

“This is in violation of the Indian Act,” Perron wrote.

Elections held on the Moosomin First Nation fall under the federal Indian Act and that is why the government can take the action it did, says Rod Desnomie, communcations advisor with AANDC’s Saskatchewan office.

“Whenever there’s an election appeal under Indian Act those come to the department,” he said. “Under custom code they would have their own appeal mechanism, some kind of tribunal board they would have set up, they would take appeals to and they would hear it that way.”

If vote-buying were a concern in a community with a custom code, AANDC could not step in.

“It would be up to the community. That would be considered an internal matter for the community to resolve and if they couldn’t resolve it internally, then they could turn to the courts for a resolution,” Desnomie said.

About one-third of First Nations hold their elections under the Indian Act. The majority of First Nations have adopted a custom code to conduct their elections.

The terms for Moosomin Chief and council are two years.
“We’re pretty close to elections so we’re going to wait,” Swiftwolfe said. The band will be governed by the remaining elected officials until the January 2013 election. There are eight councillors.

In the meantime, council will continue to focus its energy on getting Moosomin First Nation out of third-party management. Moosomin came under a Third Party Funding Agreement Manager in December 2010, with BDO undertaking the contract from AANDC. On April 1, 2012, Barkway Management Ltd., out of Shellbrook, took over. Third-party managers are contracted by AANDC to administer federal funding for the delivery of programs and services and to work with First Nations to improve their financial management, reporting practices and develop their capacity to be self-managing.

Swiftwolfe says Moosomin was given a third party manager because the First Nation was operating at a 20 per cent debt of its annual AANDC budget. Debt over eight per cent usually has AANDC taking action, he adds.

Swiftwolfe, who is completing his third term on council, says debt was not accrued because of mismanagement but because of a lack of increased funding from the federal government to complete business on the reserve.

“It’s nothing new in any First Nation because funding arrangements from (AANDC) haven’t changed over 20 years and the dollar’s not worth as much as it used to be,” he said.

To get out of debt, Swiftwolfe says Moosomin has to stop depending on government funding. To that end, council has been meeting with off-reserve businesses to form partnerships in order to bring income to the reserve and to increase the number of social programs Moosomin can offer.

“We’ve basically got to do the same things over and over again until, if you are injected with new funds, then you can basically do something. What we have right now, we can’t do too much change,” Swiftwolfe said.

“We are hopeful that the requirement for having a third-party funding agreement manager in place can be removed within the next 12 months,” Desnomie said.

There are three levels of intervention by AANDC. Third-party management is the highest level. Moosomin First Nation is the only Saskatchewan First Nation in that category. However, 32 other Saskatchewan First Nations are either recipient managed or co-managed.

While Kahpeaysewat’s supporters are not pleased with the Chief’s dismissal, Swiftwolfe says Moosomin is close enough to an election that change was anticipated. Swiftwolfe has not yet decided if he will be seeking his fourth term in office.