Aboriginal Money – Who is exploiting what?

http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/recgen/pdf/50-eng.pdf

Federal Spending on Aboriginal People

There is a great deal of talk about the waste of Tax Dollars from Canadians and the lack of accountability for those dollars.

Métis Mama believes that fiscal accountability is important but so is political accountability. It is not just important for Aboriginal leaders but all elected leaders – mainstream and otherwise.

I did some research into the situation because we continue to hear about the billions of dollars that have been allocated to Aboriginal people. For many of us – those dollars are not evident in our communities. It is easy for us to identify bad leadership as the reason for all of our problems – but things really are never that simple.

Truthfully, I am of the belief that resources in the way of financial are not always the solution. Based on the value of resources that appear to be expended on our behalf – we should be the problem free – but an assessment of the resources becomes necessary. At the following website there is disclosure of the budget for the department of Indian and Northern Affairs for 2007 – 2008. This would be the resources that were expended under “Aboriginal” by the Federal Government up until March 31, 2008.

The total budgetary amount available for use is: $7,372,034,338.00. That is 7 billion – three hundred and seventy two million dollars for those that don’t want to count commas.

There is another 134,876,519.00 was expended in non-budgeted expenses.


The First Nations Statistical Analysis Institute [FNSAI] received 4,888,000 dollars. Who is the First Nations Statistical Analysis Institute? – They are an arm of Statistics Canada that the Federal Government set up early in 2006. The board and directive of this institute is determined by government.


The Canadian Polar Commission received 1,015,933 dollars. Who is the Canadian Polar Commission – Another Federal Government department that has the mandate to - The Canadian Polar Commission's mandate requires is to monitor polar knowledge in Canada and around the world. I am not sure how that is the responsibility of just the Aboriginal people of Canada – it should be of interest to all Canadians.

The Indian Claims Commission received 6,476,313 dollars. Who is the Indian Claims Commission? They are mandated to help First Nations and the federal government settle claims. Located in Ottawa, the Commission has a staff of approximately 51 people and a budget of $6.9 million (fiscal year 2005-2006). The Commission's day-to-day operations are carried out by a Management Committee which reports to the Commissioners.

Under the Office for Residential School Program $3,732,160 dollars were for Federal Government employee benefits. (This does not include salaries.) The Operating Expenditures on this program are listed at 453 million dollars. This was to conduct 1.3 billion dollars in residential school claims.

This is just a few things that I was able to quickly pull out of the 500 plus page document. My point to each of you – as much as the various Aboriginal representative groups receive money and need to be accountable – much of what we hear is actually money that the Federal Government expends in making Aboriginal people an economic resource and the sustainability of many public servants jobs.

In addition to these things that are mentioned are dollars for instance that we hear are for things like off-reserve funding for Aboriginal housing. Much of that money is actually allocated to the various provincial and territorial governments who then take their administrative piece of the pie and then the money is often transferred to municipal governments or agencies who then take their piece of administrative bureaucracies and then the money is allocated to property developers hands and the monitoring and accountability of those dollars does not have to stand the same test of outcomes and measures that many of the Aboriginal representative organizations must live up to. They are also not under the same policy of only using 12% for administration. Once a provisional government places these ‘Aboriginal Housing’ dollars into their general revenue accounts with the rest of their transfer payments – they become impossible to track.


Aboriginal people provide many opportunities for the development of infrastructure and bureaucracy in governments. The next time you hear about an Aboriginal program – remember the governments of this country almost consume 30 – 50% of those resources for their own use.