Brazeau in the News Again

Okay – I guess I thought I did not care about his personal laundry but now I am annoyed.

Message for Patrick Brazeau:

Firstly, Patrick this so called “Native Establishment” who is that – your 14 year old son who knows you as a dead beat. The Aboriginal community that now perceives you as a less then honest person and full of hypocrisy. Have you ever heard the term our elders taught us about “Walk the Talk”?

Could I even begin to imagine what your latest untruth would warrant in the news now? You paid 0.089% of your income from the Congress of Aboriginal People to your 14 year old son in child support payments. You could not even bother to send the crumbs sometimes – no matter what processing excuse you chose to use as an excuse. Let us be clear – you are contributing approximately $3 per day to the well being of your child. Hardly what would be needed for bus fare to attend school. He certainly could not afford the lessons necessary to achieve a black belt in Karate. You have got to be kidding me. I am not sure what the laws are in Quebec but this is crazy. You are now paying 0.072% of your Senate income in child support – if you can be bothered to submit the payments. Let’s also be honest Patrick – the salary both at the Congress and now at the Senate does not come without other financial and personal rewards. That was only the dollar income that you reported less benefits and less expenses.

Patrick – you profess to be the great Aboriginal Leader who is going to change things from the Senate for the betterment of Aboriginal peoples and the people of Canada. Well maybe your first mandate should be to change the laws of this country so that people with no integrity can’t sit in the upper house. If you were truly the Aboriginal leader you profess to be you would not need a court to tell you to be responsible for your son’s well being. You would have increased his entitlement to a life that you chose to make him a part of when you impregnated his mother. Your child’s mother should not have to be in a position where she can demonstrate what a dead beat dad you are. (O yea – I’d like to make note that I don’t imagine she sees herself as part of the “Native Establishment” that you would like to blame for all your dirty laundry.)

In my view - the Congress of Aboriginal People should be sending a letter to Harper to firstly thank him for ridding the organization of you. Now they will work for decades to recover from the mess you have left them in – but why would you care – you will hide behind the apron of the Upper House.

Just as one last message – I am not the “Native Establishment”, Frankly, I am not sure who is – but I do know I do not have a relationship with AFN or anyone else that you perceive is your enemy and further to that – you don’t need any enemies because you definitely have one that is looking you in the mirror each day.

New senator lagged on $100 child support

Harper's controversy-plagued appointee repeatedly fell behind on payments for his son

Feb 10, 2009 04:30 AM

OTTAWA–Three times in the past five years, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's most controversial new Senate appointee fell behind in support payments for a son he has not spoken to in eight years – payments that totalled less than $100 per month.

Patrick Brazeau, the 34-year-old former aboriginal leader who was appointed to the Senate in December, missed one payment as recently as 11 months ago at a time when he was earning a six-figure income.

In an interview yesterday, he said he did not want to air any personal "dirty laundry," but he acknowledged he had been late on some payments and said he would consider larger monthly payments for the well-being of his 14-year-old son now that he was earning more than $130,000 as a senator.

Brazeau, who is scheduled to give his maiden speech in the Senate today, has faced a series of allegations since his appointment, including a sexual harassment complaint and a draft audit of expenses at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the congress he led, which resulted in a demand that at least $54,678 in expense claims be repaid.

Brazeau's style and penchant for luxurious trappings have also raised eyebrows, particularly his 2006 Porsche SUV.

"The child support payments are basically less than $100 a month," the son's mother, Dena Buckshot, said from her Gatineau, Que., home last week.

A spokesperson for Harper last night declined to comment on a "private matter," but a litany of charges against Brazeau has raised questions about how thoroughly the Prime Minister's Office vetted the young aboriginal leader before making the appointment.

Brazeau says many of the allegations are being brought by those who are pushing back against his bid to bring more transparency to the country's aboriginal leadership.

As national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Brazeau was widely viewed as a smart and articulate voice for aboriginal people living off-reserve, stirring the pot with talk of abolishing the Indian Act and bringing more accountability to native governments.

The former model with a black belt in karate was portrayed as a family man and spoke eloquently in the House of Commons the day Harper apologized for abuses in Indian residential schools.

Buckshot said she dated Brazeau briefly in 1993 but broke up with him soon after she discovered she was pregnant with the first of her three children.

She said she was concerned that Brazeau's visits with their son were inconsistent, so she sought to regulate matters through the Quebec courts in 2001.

The Star cannot publish information contained in documents from Quebec family court.

As a result of that process Buckshot said she began receiving bi-weekly child support, which is now $46.90 after it was raised by 2.5 per cent at the beginning of this year. Brazeau sends cheques to Revenue Quebec and the ministry sends a cheque to Buckshot twice a month.
Revenue Quebec has suspended these payments three times – twice in 2004 and once in 2008.

"We are writing to inform you that the debtor of support has not paid the amounts required under the act to facilitate the payment of support and that the (ministry) is taking steps to rectify the situation," says a letter dated Feb. 10, 2004. "In the meantime, however, the (ministry) has had to suspend your support payments."

She received a letter with an identical message dated Dec. 10, 2004 and a letter dated March 6, 2008 again says her support payments were suspended.

The letter lists a number of reasons why Revenue Quebec could not forward the payments – such as the debtor not having any income or the creditor not living in Quebec – but do not specify which applied to her situation.

Buckshot said gives her son the child support to use as pocket money. "I remember telling him this is how much he pays and I think (my son) was upset because he couldn't believe he drives a Porsche," she said.

The vehicle made waves when Brazeau started driving it around Parliament Hill but he said it is second-hand and he bought it before he learned of his appointment.

Brazeau said he does not want to discuss the issue of his relationship with his son.

"I'm not going to use the media from my vantage point to try and iron out this dirty laundry, so to speak," he said.

"My goal is still to develop a relationship with my son in the future, because it is true that I have not seen him in the last eight years, but the reasons for that are beyond my control and so I don't think that this is in the best interests of my son," he said.

He said he was aware some payments have been late "in terms of processing, but I have always issued cheques to Revenue Quebec in which they internally deal with forwarding the payment to the mother of my child."

He added that he has been paying the amount he was ordered to "and if there's any adjustments that need to be made in the future. ... I will pay accordingly."

Buckshot said friends and family have told her over the years to take Brazeau – who now makes $130,400 as a basic Senate salary – to court to increase his payments. She started the process when he first started working as a legal researcher at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, but decided it would cost her too much time, stress and money.