Two members of the First Nations National Accountability Coalition will be talking about on how bands are not ready for self-government at a special presentation here Friday.
Speaking at the United Native Friendship Centre starting at 7 p.m., Leona Freed and Jo Ann Longclaws will discuss corruption on reserves as well as voting rights for on- and off-reserve band members.
A question-and-answer period will follow.
“This is very important for First Nations, and especially every tax-paying citizen, to know about–it’s their money being abused,” stressed Conrad Morrisseau, president of the National Aboriginal Peoples Accountability Coalition of Thunder Bay.
Freed first addressed the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Self-Government in Ottawa last March 2, bringing up points such as electoral irregularities, mismanagement of funds by “corrupt chiefs and councillors,” and lack of accountability, democracy, and equality at the band level and the Department of Indian Affairs.
Freed also will discuss Bill C-222, the Native Ombudsman bill, which she proposed but was never passed.
“It would have taken our matters straight to Parliament without having to go through our First Nation bureaucracy,” Morrisseau noted.
Morrisseau’s personal stance on self-government, which he said will be reflected by Freed and Longclaws, is that it simply will shift more power into the hands of those already abusing it.
“The aboriginal people have no power. Nobody voted to have Phil Fontaine in power,” he noted. “And now the federal representatives are selling us down the river with our land rights, hunting rights, fishing rights . . . .”
Morrisseau said he felt matters also must change at the band level.
Similar accountability coalitions exist in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
