Thursday, March 27, 2008

Who's Not Working Together

Open Letter to Clem Chartier:

Word has come that you are writing nasty letters to some of your Board of Governors.

Remember 5 weeks ago Clem you were re-elected and you committed publicly at the Assembly that you would work with all the Board of Governors to build the nation. In fact you did an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press and said – “focus now is getting the Métis nation united. "We have agreed to turn the page," said Chartier. "I have no negative feelings towards anyone who ran against me, or voted against me -- put that behind us." He feels the outcome of all this is a positive one.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/columnists/top3/story/4135671p-4727884c.html

Well in 5 weeks you have yet to work with anyone but David Chartrand. It was reported that you have received money. You write in your Fact Sheet "made significant progress in our financial and administrative structures to increase accountability and build the foundation upon which greater political growth can be achieved.” How are you doing that when you have not even tried to have a Board of Governors meeting? David and you are signing cheques – the money is being funneled through Manitoba Métis Federation and the other BOG members are not aware of where the money is being spent.

The Board of Governors hold the liability for the funds that MNC receives – you will not even have a meeting or have not completed one source of reporting to identify what David and you are doing. Now writing letters to the MNBC trying to create an ever ending battle is not conducive to putting this behind us.

Oh yea – we are hearing from your vendors – you have indicated in your “Fact Sheet” that you reduced payments to your vendors from 120 days to 30 days. Well that is not true – is it? Some of your vendors have been waiting since May or June, 2007 to receive payment on their past due accounts. You claim you were working on policies over the past year – when was that – between Board of Governors meetings or are you like Dale LeClair, your past CAO, who just fabricated policies as issues came up. Don’t the policies have to be approved by the BOG? Would that not require a BOG meeting?

We thought that maybe you were waiting to call a meeting until you had funds – but you have received funds – over a half a million dollars from the Métis Interlocutor’s office has been sent to you since you were elected. Still no BOG meeting. Have David and you paid your legal expenses with this money? Have you paid yourselves your alleged damages with these funds? Does not sound like significant progress on financial accountability to some of us.

There are also rumors that you are trying to bring back your good buddy Mr. Dale LeClair as your Chief Administrative Officer. Being that this position works for the Board of Governors – are you going to consult with the other BOG members to seek approval on this decision? There are many questions and very few answers. We have attitude and ego with no political foresight.

Clem, you and David like to point the finger at other BOG members and blame everyone else for your problems – but remember the grandmothers who told you about the four fingers pointing back at you. You are a real lawyer where you publicly put out words but your feet are heading in the opposite direction. Step up Clem – be a leader – you wanted the mess and ran to be the head of it – now face the music – call a Board of Governors meeting and get the parties to the table to resolve these issues. There is no room for the political egos of any of the leaders today and the longer this carries on the more embarrassing it is for all of us.

Métis Mama

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great posting!

Anonymous said...

Right on!

Anonymous said...

Hi Metismama,
Super information with this last post.
I have a couple of questions that maybe you can answer.
Why did the feds have no concerns intially with Metco ?
And with all of the info that has been uncovered here regarding the two peas in a pod(David and Clem), how the heck can the interlocutor send the $500,000 ?
Does that mean that David and Clem ARE in good standing with the OFI ?

MetisMama said...

Good Day Derryl:

First it is good to see you back – we’ve missed you.

I am in the middle of soliciting the actual contribution agreement. We understand through Federal Government contacts that just better then $450 thousand was released and another $180 thousand is suppose to be coming. The money is for this years 2007/08 fiscal year but it is in no way reflective of what they are generally allocated.

We are hoping that one or all of the existing Board of Governors request the CA (contribution agreements) that has released the money. We are also having some of our contacts work on the Freedom of Information application for the release of the contractual agreement. The second part is a considerably longer process. As the BOG who are legally liable for the activities of the MNC they have a legal right to access the information.

There is a forensic audit being done by more then one department and hopefully they have put strings in place to protect the interests of the resources that have been allocated but when you think about the 3 plus million dollar deficit – the organization is hardly keeping the sheriff from the door. The rent on the offices, based on the audit - is in excess of $20,000 per month and it is better then 6 months in arrears. If this money is used to keep the wolves away from the door – it is one thing – but there are indicators that would have us believing that the system Clem and David use can not be trusted.

Clem, David and several of their friends are under a great deal of scrutiny and things are not improving much. I suspect that government will not take any of them seriously unless they start to work out a recovery plan – and I mean the entire BOG. With Clem and David not even talking to the others – that is not likely.

There has been some activity by Clem in trying to goad BC into officially resigning from MNC. He would love nothing better then to get rid of the “BOOK ENDS”. We are hoping that they do not respond to the juvenile behavior that we are witnessing by the re-elected leader. Their withdrawal will not absolve them of their legal liability in the areas of financial decisions that were made in the mean time. In fact, their interests would best be protected by maintaining their membership – even if it is as a member on leave. Clem’s position is that there is no basis to be a member on leave – but the precedence was already set when Alberta and BC were only participating as observers from approximately the middle of 2006 until February 2007.

In my opinion when it comes to Metco – I believe that David’s friend Mr. Ian Potter bought David’s story that everything was above board and that it was legitimate. He sold that to the Prime Minister’s office on David’s lies last June. Then documentation was submitted to the various departments that would clearly have the Auditor General yelling if further examination was not completed. The Federal Government with their due diligence campaign and their Accountability Legislation can not afford to look the other way when evidence is produced to demonstrate serious irregularities.

There is more stuff to come – I just have more investigation to do to find collaborating information before we submit a post – but when it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, acts like a duck and walks like a duck – well we all know the story about David and his expensive Ducks.

Anonymous said...

It's truly amazing how Chem Chartier and David Chartrand are essentially saying the MNC is our organization the other Governers can go to hell!

Anonymous said...

Agree with previous reader. The MNC is so dysfunctional these days you wonder why government funders are still giving it taxpayer dollars.

Frank Godon said...

Don't you understand how it works? David and Clem have played this game most of their lives. Clem has played it most of his life (and he's a lawyer to boot) and David has played it at least the last 10 years. They know what to say, where to say it, who to say it to, and when to say it. These fella's are experts when it comes to these games.

Anonymous said...

That was then this is now. Not any more the internet is exposing them for what they really are.

A few years ago Winnipeg Metis lawyer Lionel Chartrand pointed out David Chartrand could say one thing, travel down the road and say something completely different and get away with it because no one was monitoring him.

Remember a few years back with the MMF was paying all or part of your air fare to Russia and even you thought David Chartrand was the cat's meow. Then when that ended, finally, finally you opened your eyes.

Ditto for Derryl Sanderson. All was fine and good as long as he was getting MMF paid gigs for his band. Then when for whatever reason they began to dry up he too finally saw the light and became anti-David Chartrand claiming he had no idea what the President was really like. Excuse me, how could you guys have been so blind was it the money? David Chartrand is a master at buying and selling people using public money.

Nice to see you finally saw the light!

Frank Godon said...

Anonymous you are correct in what you say, we know it now, but there are plenty of people out there who don't know and unfortunately some are Government people that open the purses.

Anonymous said...

To Frank,

Well it's about bloody time the government funders opened their eyes too! Aren't they "supposed" to be the guardians of our hard earned taxpayer dollars. After all we pay their salaries - yeah I know, they want yet another raise.