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editor·in·chief’sdesk
First Nations Politicians ANDLeaders
t’s truly a disgrace that 82 of these band leaders made more than the Prime Minister in 2008/2009, while another 222 earned more than their premiers! Where is the scrutiny from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada? INAC has a long history of looking the other way in these matters, when their fiduciary duty to the Native Peoples is their prime responsibility, which they have woefully neglected for years and this has resulted in the raping of the resources of all Native Peoples. First Nations leaders giving themselves these obscene salaries are simply parasites at their people’s expense. These leaders are almost without exception lacking in the experience, education and skills to receive the salaries they give themselves. In the marketplace these leaders couldn’t get a comparable job, let alone one at these wages, nor anywhere close to those rates! Far too many bands hire their own people who are untrained and inexperienced for the positions. Far too many bands pay the same salaries that qualified, experienced nonIndians receive, thereby overpaying them. Since they pay no income tax on their salary this is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money! Travel expenses and other allowances further add to this farce. Band employees should receive salaries based on experience and have them rated as after-tax salaries. Interestingly a leader of my own band attempts to justify this practice by stating that to rate their member employees’ salaries as after-tax salaries would be discrimination, excuse me, …that they should be paid the same as a non-native, who has to pay tax on their earnings. This leader refused to see the difference and couldn’t or wouldn’t admit that one of our members would have an advantage of thirty to forty percent because of their no tax status! This leader also wouldn’t acknowledge that if a member’s job became obsolete and that member had to join the workforce outside the reservation and suddenly had to pay taxes on that earning they wouldn’t feel underpaid, as they wouldn’t have the experience or training that warrants a top wage for their position and have to pay taxes on a lower salary. There was no comment on our band’s practice of advertising positions, giving preference to Native People; don’t we have a Human Right Commission that says you can’t do that? It is impossible to advance our native people with this kind of flawed thinking; it is simply an excuse to take full advantage of funding and to milk it for all it is worth. Project these practices across our country and it becomes
an enormous amount of taxpayers’ money being totally squandered! This is the “Give me” principle at its worst and does not help our people. Far from it. In a recent newspaper article about these obscene salaries, Genevieve Guibert, spokeswoman for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, said they haven’t reviewed salaries, nor would they. She added that the department has no role or authority to determine salaries or remuneration for First Nations Chiefs or Councillors. This is a cop out: the Department can easily set the salaries as a condition of funding and stop this insane money grab by our so called leaders. Native organizations also need scrutiny, often they pay attendees to attend conferences and pay them a per-diem to attend. Far too many conferences are held at posh resorts like Wolf Creek in Alberta, where many will play golf, or even have a golf tournament! Major resorts are far too expensive a destination to use for a conference on native issues. How many attendees attend the entire proceedings and how many miss sessions because they are out playing golf, instead of attending the conference? It would be interesting to see how many of these so called leaders go back to their membership with a comprehensive report of the results of the conference. Millions of dollars a year could be saved by having these conferences live via their computers at their office, thereby eliminating travel, meals and all the other expenses involved, thus stopping what amounts to a free vacation at an expensive resort. INAC is to blame for this disgrace in spending, their lack of scrutiny and to their fiduciary duty to natives. Transparency is sorely needed, and is long overdue. The losers are the grassroots native peoples of Canada, and thus their futures are being squandered, and have been for decades. The native peoples of Canada have enough obstacles to success in this society, without their leaders taking advantage of them with outrageous wages that would not be tolerated anywhere else in this entire country. The time is overdue for INAC to clean up this mess! Noll Derriksan is Grand Chief of Westbank First Nation Lands, Grand Chief of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and owner of NC Derriksan and Son Enterprises, which, among other business pursuits, is a development company.
NATIVE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2010 5
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