Many grassroots band members across country are still in shock after seeing sky-high salaries that some reserve politicians had, to this point, been able to keep quiet.
So why on earth would Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, NDP leader Jack Layton and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe oppose a bill that could help fix the situation?
All three parties have indicated opposition to MP Kelly Block’s private members bill: C-575, The First Nations Financial Transparency Act. The legislation would allow the feds to annually post on the internet the salaries of all reserve politicians in Canada.
This would bring reserve politicians in-line with all other politicians in Canada that receive tax dollars and have to annually report their salaries to the public.
Ms. Block tabled the bill in response to several cases where the
Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) helped grassroots band members blow the whistle on exorbitant salaries. In each case, their elected officials were paying themselves large sums of money while many band members had no idea what was going on. Many questioned the high salaries given living conditions on the reserve and the small population.
In fact, because so many band members kept approaching the CTF for assistance in investigating their band’s activities, we launched -
www.ReserveTransparency.ca. The site helps educate band members as to their rights when it comes to obtaining band financial information and provides them with instructions on how they can get it.
Since the site was launched, band members from across Canada used the information to file numerous requests to the federal government for their band’s financial information. The vast majority of those requests are for details on their politicians’ salary levels.
In this case, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Federal data we obtained on reserve politicians’ salaries nation-wide showed some reserves had shocking pay levels.
Unfortunately current information laws prevented the federal government from disclosing the names of those politicians; that’s what C-575 will fix.
The data showed approximately 50 reserve politicians in the country received more in pay than the prime minister of Canada in 2008-09. About 160 received more than their respective provincial premier and over 600 received pay levels that were higher than someone off-reserve earning $100,000.
Remember, the average reserve in Canada has a population of approximately 1,100 people and we all know what the living conditions are like in most of those communities.
Once the story broke, feedback on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network was overwhelmingly in favour of transparency. After all, it would allow band members to decide if their politicians’ salaries were warranted or not.
One of APTN’s viewers, Vanessa Spence, told the network “I support the bill 100 per cent...our community is in debt by millions of dollars...everything's a secret.”
What Canadians need to do is sign petitions like the one we started to urge Mr. Layton, Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Duceppe to reconsider their position on the bill.
Opposition parties need to hear loud and clear that this is not an issue to play politics on; the status quo is not an option. All Canadians, especially aboriginal people, deserve to know how public funds are being spent on reserves. Bill C-575 takes an important first step.
