Hawaii trip no "junket" bands insist

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First Nations who attend conferences in holiday resort areas can expect to come under the gun for wasting taxpayers' money, recent stories in British Columbia newspapers show. Two January articles by Suzannne Fournier in Vancouver's the Province suggest bands used federal health care or education money to pay for fact-finding or research missions to Hawaii, which are portrayed as an unjustified and improper expense. Spokesmen for Health Canada, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a provincial child and family agency director are quoted naysaying such trips, but no substantive evidence of misconduct seems to have prefaced an invitation to them to comment on Hawaiian trips by First Nations.

Fournier reported one trip in December included 13 B.C. and Alberta First Nations leaders, including "several Whispering Pines band members (Chief Richard LeBourdais, band manager Orla LeBourdais, community nurse Colleen LeBourdais and two councillors and their wives), Ahousaht band Chief Angus Campbell and councillor Louie Frank, and the Sto:lo Nation's Maureen Chapman, Debra Schneider and Patricia Charlie."

Medical Services Branch spokesman Yousuf Ali "admitted", according to Fournier, an audit of eight B.C. bands showed they had misspent health funds, but nothing in Fournier's article links those facts to the Hawaiian trips or the First Nations who went.

How much business versus how much pleasure is conducted out of the country is for the bands to know and is no one else's business, seems to be the attitude of the beleaguered First Nations. Most of the Native people quoted in Fournier's articles did not respond to Windspeaker's numerous requests to bring clarity to the issues raised. The ones who did talk to us said the Province and other newspapers selectively present information in a way that is calculated to discredit First Nations.

For example, a Jan. 14 letter to the Province by trip organizer Dennis Josey takes issue with a picture of a beach that accompanied a Jan. 7 article by Fournier. The First Nations group for whom he arranged travel in December did not stay in a beachfront hotel, according to Josey. He also says the workshop fee for four days was $395 U.S., not $500 as Fournier's article states. In addition, he says he told her their delegation had a group hotel rate of $65 a night not $95 to $200.

Josey's response points out that "Canadian First Nations and Hawaiians are in the process of assuming responsibility for . . . health, education, housing, economic development, justice, child/family services, natural resources and employment." He says it is smart before doing this for First Nations here to consult with the Hawaiians, "who have succeeded in establishing and maintaining viable, cost-effective community programs."

A Jan. 7 press release issued by the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council states they have been studying and negotiating their takeover of health services from Health Canada and it defends their right to "compare how indigenous peoples from Hawaii are maintaining their language, culture and identity in the face of modern conditions."

Neskonlith Chief Arthur Manuel, chairman of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council, said "We reject any suggestion that our staff or representatives went to Hawaii for a junket, or vacation. However, we cannot speak for any delegation other than our own."

Fournier admitted toWindspeaker she had learned the room cost of $95 to $200 a night quoted by a hotel desk clerk and mentioned in her story was not in line with the $65 group rate the bands paid, but otherwise she stands by what she wrote. She says all her information came from Native community members who are unhappy with what their leaders are doing. She provided one published letter, allegedly from a Sto:lo Nation member, supporting her claims. She says she has others.

Shuswap Nation Tribal Director Dave Monture counters that the Province doesn't print First Nations' letters giving the other side. He said the negatie news stories have damaged his credibility and adversely affected his efforts to raise money for a local hospital.

He said he also met a wall of indifference when he talked to Fournier's editor. Both, Monture says, passed up his invitation to attend a press conference on Jan. 13, which was supposed to inform all media about the results of "a recent Hawaiian fact finding trip as reported to the chief's council on Jan. 12th, 2000." Windspeaker received notice of the B.C. press conference Jan. 12.

When Windspeaker reached Monture on Jan. 21, he provided extensive information about Hawaiian Native people and their social, political and economic situation as well as Hawaiian contacts. He indicated he could not speak about the December trip mentioned in Fournier's write-up, since he had only heard about it the day before the meeting with the chiefs Jan. 12.

Monture says he's frustrated that "nobody's interested" in substantive First Nations health issues.

He provided a breakdown of the cost for four Shuswap people to attend a Hawaiian conference Nov. 8 to 12. He said the November trip was the topic of the Jan. 13 press conference too.

Monture said he would ask Leigh Ann Edwards, a Neskonlith councillor who went to Hawaii in November, to provideWindspeaker with information about her trip. She did not return our telephone calls.

Whispering Pines band manager Orla LeBourdais responded to requests for information about the Hawaii trip she attended with "We've been instructed not to talk to the press." When pushed, she said we had the option of submitting questions for consideration by their council.

Then on Jan. 21 Whispering Pines Chief Richard LeBourdais called to provide details regarding his 100-member band. He said six people went to Hawaii in November for seven or eight days and he accompanied the health conference group on that trip. International trade between Indigenous nations and other forms of economic co-operation were prominent in his discussions with he Hawaiians. He did not explain his band's earlier reluctance to talk to Windspeaker.

Ahousaht First Nation Chief Angus Campbell and councillor Louie Frank did not return our telephone call. Band manager Joe Campbell said he knew nothing about the trip.

Although Fournier's articles make a big deal out of members of the Shuswap Nation and the Sto:lo Nation visiting Hawaii in December and November, they don't target the Alberta and Saskatchewan band members who also went, which caused one B.C. spokesman to ask whether putting B.C. bands in a bad light with the public was connected to the sensitive treaty negotiations underway there now.

On the other hand, a January press release provided by the Sto:lo Nation's Xyolhemeylh-National office (a child and family agency) on behalf of Maureen Chapman, chief of Skawahlook First Nation and the portfolio holder for Xyolhemeylh, responds to what Chapman describes as "inaccuracies" in the Jan. 7 article by Fournier with rhetoric about understanding poverty and working for the betterment of her Nation without refuting much of what Fournier said.

The release does say Chapman and Debra Schneider did not represent the Sto:lo Nation or Xyolhemeylh, but went to Hawaii as representatives of their Skawahlook First Nation. It also says Skawahlook does not receive federal or provincial funding of health or social services.

A woman in the Xyolhemeylh office said Chapman went "on her own band funds, okayed by her own members. And the one who went on our behalf, as our agency, was our cultural advisor, Pat Charlie, to do cultural exchange with the Hawaaian Aboriginals."

Chapman responded to Windspeaker's request for an interview by saying she wanted to talk about the trip and would call back. Several telephone calls to her made over subsequent days were not returned, however.

The Montana First Nation (Hobbema, Alta.) and the Ocean Man First Nation (Stoughton, Sask.) confirmed they also sent delegates, two and five respectively. These eople could not be reached at press time. Diane Meguinis from Tsuu T'ina First Nation in Alberta said she paid her own way and her son's and took advantage of a seat sale to take 10 days' holiday. She said she did not visit Hawaii as a leader on behalf of her band.