Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Annual Party Financial Reports

Could someone help me understand this?

Elections Canada has just released the annual financial reports of the various parties for 2005. Giving them a REALLY brief look, I noticed something that I'd like people to interpret for me. (because I honestly am not sure what it means) I found this on page 7 of the Liberal report...

Did you catch it? This is the line that caught my attention...Anyone care to help me understand what that little item is all about? An "Aboriginal Election Endowment Fund"? And just what sort of "Endowments" might that entail? I've heard rumors for years about "beer for votes" on various remote reserves, but there's never been anything substaniated.

Anyone have any thoughts?

posted by Christian Conservative @ 10:47 a.m.  

6 Comments:

  • At Fri Jul 07, 04:38:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Well, I did find THIS interesting on that website...

    http://www.apc-cpa.ca/iav_e.aspx

    7. Elections are about choices, and a vote for a Liberal candidate will ensure that the Conservatives, who carry the ideological baggage of the old Alliance party and who demonstrate contempt for the historic Aboriginal rights and agreements entrenched in Canada’s Constitution, will not have a chance to carry out their destructive and assimilationist policies for Aboriginal peoples.

    Huh? What about the Liberal's contempt for Native peoples? All they do is throw money at the problems, and that money gets siphoned off to a select few, while the rest wallow in poverty.

    GIVE YOUR HEAD A SHAKE! We, the Conservatives, want to ensure that the money spent gets TO THE PEOPLE, and that their standard of living is dramtically increased, SOONER, not later.

     

  • At Fri Jul 07, 05:05:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Somena Woman said…

    That's a really interesting statement to make CC. I wrote a letter to the New Minister Jim Prentice in January asking for a full accounting of my band's expenses, and an explanation as to why it was, that I was being denied the ability to speak to the DIA finance officer overseeing my band's expenses. I asked Mr.Prentice to look at the Credit Card useage of the Chief of our band, who I know for a fact used it to take himself and his girlfriend to Taiwan for a vacation.

    I recieved NO response from Mr.Prentice - but instead 6 months later, the same people at the DIA who refuse to allow me to ask questions, and demand that I submit all my queries in writing, and who act in violation of the Comprehensive Funding Agreement of my band which declares that I am entitled as a band member to ask questions of the DIA finance officer of my band, responded on behalf of Mr.Prentice, basically telling me to go pound rocks.

    So... sorry - I don't believe that the CPC is any different than the Liberals when it comes to helping Aboriginals achieve accountability from their elected Indian Act leaders OR the DIA. Same song and Dance - just a different figurehead and party in power.

    If you visit my blog, and do a search for "DIA FOLLIES" you will see this all laid out.

    M

     

  • At Fri Jul 07, 09:09:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    For Meagan- the opposition parties including the Liberals voted against allowing the government to follow the money for Aboriginals as was proposed in the initial draft of the accountability act.

    This was shocking to many. However, you must know how powerful many aboriginal leaders are. The trip to Taiwan with the girlfriend? This can't be audited by the Feds. Only by the band and only by auditors they choose.

    Don't you think the rest of the Canadian taxpayers also want to know just where nearly $9 BILLION is going every year while your people live in 3rd world poverty in some places?

    It is ugly but the only way it will change is for your own leaders to open the books. They won't. You lose as do we all.

    As in Liberal-land - the many give so the few live large.

     

  • At Fri Jul 07, 10:40:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Meghan - Firstly, thank you for putting your concerns to "paper".

    I truly believe that until aboriginals stand up in droves and demand that things change, they will not. Interesting that all the opposition parties voted AGAINST making the cheifs accountable. Did they do this to screw the Conservatives? Probably. Are there other reasons behind the scenes? Probably.

    My suggestion is rather than contacting Jim Prentice, contact the Liberals, NDP and Bloc and tell them that they might have the Cheif's votes but they will not have the Woman's votes until they vote to make the Cheif's accountable.

    Taking one's girlfriend to Taiwan? Sounds like another Liberal scam to me. No wonder there is an "aboriginal election endowment fund"

    Keep up the fight Meghan and if there is anything we can do to help - email, write letters, just let us know.

     

  • At Sat Jul 08, 02:33:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Somena Woman said…

    I am lucky in that most of my family are employed at work that has nothing to do with the band office, and as such are not reliant upon the Band for anything. However, others (and there are many many many others out here across Canada who are trying to force our leaders to be accountable to us) are not as fortunate. As such the band couldnt use it's regular intimidation practices that it does on most reserves to keep "troublemakers" like myself in-line.

    See -- on most reserves, If you stand up at a meeting and ask a question about the books, your cousin, aunt, grandmother might just find out that her welfare cheque is going to be a little late next month. Or that they will deny some discretionary funding from health to provide a vital service, like say transportation to the city to get your thrice weekly Kidney Dialysis!. This will be obviously communicated with a comment about "boy, your niece/nephew/granddaughter sure had a lot of questions at the AGM didn't she?" -- the subtle message being, get your relative to SHUT THE F UP!

    The votes on reserve are a farce, when the Chief can run around and literally give away free fridges, stoves and appliances, cars, and in some cases even HOUSES to people to secure votes. They have it down to a science.
    And if that's not bad enough... well take a look at the following:

    http://tinyurl.com/aagst

    We have clear cut evidence of the band Chief and Council breaking the law. The RCMP do nothing. The DIA does nothing, and from Jane Stewart, To Robert Nault, To Andy Scott, to Jim Prentice - nothing has changed.

    oh... wait - under Paul Martin they established a 1-800 number on the DIA website in Ottawa for people to call if they had allegations about corruption, malfeasance or missapropriation of funds etc on their reserve. The only problem is, when you call - it just rings and rings and rings, and nobody ever picks up the phone - not even voice mail.

    Like I said - check out the DIA Follies - and just look at the one case involving Abner Thorne's House - to see what it took for the Band and the DIA to deal with the complaints.. complaints being made for over 1 year.

    It's a joke and a half.

    You could also review the following

    http://cowichantribeslegal.blogspot.com/

    After 6-7 years of doing this, and finally getting sued, and my editor, and CanWest --- I had to give up.

    what should really curl your toes is that what I have archived on my blog are only the stories that I COULD write about, that I could verify with documentary evidence and eyewitness statements. There's far worse stories of thuggary and worse that I don't think Canadians even understand is going on - on Indian reserves against people who try to stop the corruption.

    Just writing this out... I feel bone-weary tired.

    Every time the Minister Changed, I got my hopes up that this time things would be different. It never changes.
    It never will.

    BTW as for the issue of the use of the band credit card - it was 2 counsellors who asked for this info from the DIA and who were denied the information.

    Now, you all should put on your thinking caps and try and tell me why THAT would be the case.
    Surely TWO elected members of Council should be able to get access to this information right?

    Not so.
    Not unless the DIA approves it first.

    Chiefs trip to Taiwain with Girlfriend... no - Not a Liberal Scam. Liberals had nothing to do with it. The Chief just wanted to go. He used band money to do it.

     

  • At Sat Jul 08, 09:47:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Well Meaghan, you've certainly got my attention.

    This is something that I'll be asking about during our next EDA meeting... and discussing in the context of our upcoming policy meetings, to see what sort of proposals we can start moving forward.

    Any ideas you want to send my way will indeed be examined, and I'll do my best to move them forward. I don't think that my Party has done too well on Native issues thus far, so here and now is as good a place to start as any.

    I'm presently formulating another policy resolution regarding Youth Justice... I'll gladly present them both at our EDA Board policy meeting in the fall.

    Feel free to use my e-mail, if you prefer.

     

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