Whatever your exposure to band council corruption stories may be, I really must repeat excerpts from a previous post in which I explained that--

SELF-GOVERNANCE is exactly what Canadian First Nations peoples do not enjoy.

Take a look at the larger picture please.

Many people seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that First Nations have self-governance and run themselves freely. This is far from the truth, but given that most Canadians are familiar with the municipal model, the confusion is actually understandable. It isn’t as though Canada does a very good job of teaching people about the Indian Act.

Attawapiskat publishes its financial statements going back to 2005. If you want to know where the money was spent, you can look in the audited financial reports. This document (PDF) is available in the linked article from "The National Post" (December 2011)...it provides a breakdown of all program funding.

[link to fullcomment.nationalpost.com]

Just getting to this stage alone proves the falsehood of the claim that there is no accountability and no one knows where the money goes.

Yes, Attawapiskat received $90 million in 5 years from the Canadian government. That refers to the total; the average is about $18 million per year in federal funding since 2006.
This was not earmarked for housing, and it was not available for Chief Spence to spend at her discretion. Hardly.

An important fact that many commentators forget (or are unaware of) is that section 91(24) of the Constitution Act of 1867 gives the Federal Crown exclusive powers over “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians.”

EVERYTHING - including healthcare, infrastructure, education cost per pupil, social services of all kinds - For non-Natives, the provinces pay for this (the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, etc.)

For Natives, it is all federal funding.

The Canadian Department of Aboriginal Affairs has reported that only $5.8 million has gone towards housing for Attawapiskat, in 5 years. At most that could have built the community 23 new houses, in 5 years,if Attawapiskat had merely let the older, existing houses go without any repairs or maintenance for those 5 years.

Letting existing homes go to pieces in a remote and harsh environment is not a great strategy, however.

Other costs are incurred: the people in charge of housing do not work for free, and there are other costs associated with administering the housing program.

The point here is, $90 million sounds like a huge amount, but the real figures allocated to housing, for example, are much, much smaller.

Band councils have their hands tied!

Ministerial approval is actually a requirement before any capital expenditures can occur on reserve. In practice, a Band will generally pass a Band Council Resolution (BCR) authorising a certain expenditure (say on housing), and that BCR must be forwarded to Aboriginal Affairs for approval.

That’s right. Most First Nations have to get permission before they can spend money. That is the opposite of ‘doing whatever they want’ with the money. Bands are micromanaged to an extent unseen in nearly any other context that does not involve a minor or someone who lacks capacity due to mental disability.

The bottom line to all this is federal bungling of the management of First Nations infrastructure, housing, and education. This as been pointed out by the Auditor General of Canada in 2011, in a formal report, as well as 5 years earlier in 2006... identifying deficiencies in program planning and delivery by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Health Canada, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

The reports also provide a number of recommendations to improve these deficiencies. The 2011 report evaluated the progress made since the 2006 report, and in most areas, gave these federal agencies a failing grade.

Example: Housing

Were you aware that provincial building codes do not apply on reserve? Some provincial laws of ‘general application’ (like Highway Traffic Acts) can apply on reserve, but building codes do not. There is a federal National Building Code, but enforcement and inspection has been a major problem. This has been listed as one of the factors in why homes built on reserve do not have a similar ‘life’ to those built off reserve.

Poor timing for provision of funds is another key issue. “Most contribution agreements must be renewed yearly. In previous audits, we found that the funds may not be available until several months into the period to be funded.” This is particularly problematic for housing as “money often doesn’t arrive until late summer, past the peak construction period, so projects get delayed and their costs rise.”

Can you see now that Harper has been lying in his Conservative Party's repeated vilification of Chief Spence and other First Nations leaders? How coldly calculating to distort the issues, for political gain -- completely disengaged from the real suffering he has caused?

In Conclusion:

The paternalistic system of federal support, with apron strings attached a mile long, and proven federal bureaucratic mismanagement, is precisely what the First Nations Indigenous Chiefs want to put an end to.

As the system now operates, First Nations peoples are at each other's throats, with no opportunity to raise themselves up by their own hard work and enterprise... They can only scramble for handouts, 'authority' positions on the Band Council, and then double-cross each other, as manipulated by the federal government. Divide and conquer has been Canada's game for over a hundred years.

Under the Indian Act, these people cannot even be recognized legally to enter into a contract, such as a business loan.

So you have the phenomenon of the crab pot.... As soon as one of them starts climbing out of the trap, the others claw him back down again.