Governance legislation coming back?

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First Nation officials have been told to prepare for a busy season once newly elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party of Canada government begin their legislative session after the April 3 throne speech.

Several technicians we contacted this month have been told to take time off and use up any backlogged overtime before Parliament resumes.

The new government is preparing its new Federal Accountability Act (FAA), which sources say will also be known as Bill C-2. It will follow through on Harper's campaign promise to improve accountability and transparency throughout the federal system. An informed Ottawa source says C-2 will also contain provisions that will seek to force tighter accountability measures on First Nation governments.

Harper has promised that the FAA will be the first piece of legislation his government will bring forward. It's expected the bill will be introduced in the first weeks of the new parliamentary session.

The timing suggested by our source tells us that no formal consultation process will be established in advance of tabling the FAA. If that happens, it will cause legal problems for the government and will more than likely spark a wave of protests not seen since former Indian Affairs minister Bob Nault tried to push his First Nations governance act (FNGA) through Parliament.

Acting on very specific information from a reliable source, Windspeaker contacted Diane Laursen, the spokesperson for Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice, informing her that we were going to publish the assertion that the FAA would contain provisions that will directly affect First Nation governments.

Laursen replied that "it would not be appropriate to discuss legislation in draft form and I'm sure the minister would not speculate at this point. However I know he has pointed out that this legislation will affect all Canadians and the legislative process itself allows for significant consultation."

Later, in a one-on-one with Minister Prentice via telephone on March 21, we asked the same question directly.

"I'm not going to speculate on the accountability act," the minister replied. "It will be tabled in the House of Commons when it's tabled. It's a piece of legislation that will apply to all Canadians."

Hours earlier, on national television, Prentice was asked essentially the same question by the host on CTV's Mike Duffy Live. His answer was the same.

But accountability is clearly on the new government's radar. During his first speaking engagement as minister in early March in Vancouver, Prentice raised the subject with the chiefs of the First Nations Summit.

"This is a new government that was elected on a clear mandate that includes financial accountability in the expenditure of public funds. And I know that there are many points of view in this room on that issue and I would just counsel you for a moment to consider two things," he said. "First, look at this issue from my perspective as a minister of a department that expends something in the nature of $8 billion per year. The voters of Canada have made it clear, very clear, that they expect me as the minister to be accountable in terms of how those monies are expended, whether directly or indirectly. Secondly, ladies and gentlemen and our guests, I have never yet met a responsible First Nation chief or council member who wasn't fully committed to financial accountability to the people who they serve. So I would like to hope that we will focus that debate in the days ahead on the question of how we achieve that sort of financial accountability rather than the negative question of whether we proceed that way."

With the surprise retirement of Dwight Dorey in late February, Patrick Brazeau, a citizen of the Kitigan Zibi First Nation near Maniwaki, Que., is now the national leader of the Congress of Aboriginal People (CAP). He was vice-chief when CAP endorsed Harper's Conservative Party of Canada during the electon campaign.

Brazeau told Windspeaker that Harper's response to CAP's inquiries included a commitment that was the "first time any government had tried to address the issues with respect to off-reserve people."

"That's why we supported them," he added. "It's always been our position that the current reality of funding is that for every $8 spent on reserve, only $1 is spent off reserve and yet the majority of Aboriginal people, regardless of whether they're First Nations, Inuit or Metis, reside outside the context of reserves. And we have been pushing for years and years for the level of funding to be more reflective of the numbers."

The new CAP leader confirmed that there is lots of talk around Ottawa about governance reform.

"It's definitely a rumor in discussions that we've been hearing. In terms of the specifics, first of all, the congress hasn't asked the question and we haven't been approached in terms of how that would all pan out," he said.

"We supported the governance legislation back in 2001 specifically because of the accountability measures that were going to be introduced in that legislation. What I'm talking about is accountability to the members in the reserve. Because quite often many off-reserve or Aboriginal people or what they call Bill C-31 Indians often try to get access to budgets or where the money's being spent on those reserves and very often people can't get those answers because chief and council just shuts those people out. So when I talk about accountability and if that's the direction where this government is going, then we'll probably support that as well," Patrick Brazeau said.

Brazeau met with Prentice and made the point that there's no sense following through on the Kelowna commitments if it can't be assured that the money will reach the grassroots people.

"Our issue coming out of Kelowna was that we didn't know where the funds were going to be taken from and we didn't where they were going to go," he said. "The pint that we were trying to make in Kelowna is that there should be a mechanism put in place so that these funds will actually reach the Aboriginal people with needs and not filter down into the organizations so the organizations get the bulk of the money and the people at the grassroots level continue to suffer the consequences of that."

News that First Nation governance and accountability will be resurrected as an issue was welcomed by former Manitoba Progessive Conservative Northern Affairs minister David Newman, who now spends a lot of his time representing clients with a complaint against their chief and council.

"The problem with the [federal] government is that they have been too cautious, too patient, too deferential with the argument of the chiefs from too many different bands that the government should not effectively legislate or have legislation applicable and enforced for the benefit of members against chiefs and councils. [The chiefs argue] that the government should leave it up to them to do it themselves and that's part of the process of self-government. Well, I simply do not agree that in the interim that should not be done. I think it's an abdication of responsibility by the federal government not to require, for example, that the Indian Act be subject to the Human Rights Act of Canada," he said.

Assembly of First Nations (AFN) spokesman Don Kelly said National Chief Phil Fontaine had no fear of any proposed accountability process. Although he said the AFN had no knowledge of any plans in that regard. Kelly said the AFN had been working on accountability measures as part of the Kelowna process and the AFN renewal process and that Fontaine had proposed a First Nation ombudsman and First Nation auditor general and that may well be what will be brought forward in the FAA.