Reserve Compensation

"When the money doesn't come from the pockets of people on the reserve, when it instead comes from other taxpayers via Ottawa, there's really no reason to rein in salaries." Mike Milke, director, Fraser Institute's Alberta office, author of Incomplete, Iliberal and Expensive: 15 Years of Treaty Negotiations in B.C.

People on the reserve don't pay taxes to begin with. And the people of Canada who do pay taxes are generally in agreement that their tax dollars should go to reserves as the preferred traditional places of abode for First Nations who insist that reserve life is the only one they will consider, unlike their peers who take their opportunities for advancement in education and the professions living in urban areas, and who do pay taxes.

And the Canadian taxpayer foots the almost-$8-billion annual hand-over in support of the operation of the country's reserves. Canadian taxpayers feel themselves morally obligated to do this without question. On the other hand, they reserve the right to feel that this funding be spent wisely and allocated to benefit the infrastructure and social needs of Canada's aboriginal populations.

Psst! Those assurances have been lacking.

A politician is a politician is a politician. Regardless of their constituency. And traditions must be upheld; above all the traditions that insist the Assembly of First Nations has a distinct and deliberate purpose beyond which no one should question their utility. Chief of the Assembly, Shawn Atleo, presents himself no differently than his predecessors. Brooking no interference in the work of the Assembly, and certainly no criticism of the traditions of First Nations reserves.

Access to information requests have lately informed the Canadian public through the research done by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that far too much of those yearly allocations are being applied to cross-purposes; benefiting the few at the expense of the many. The ordinary reserve aboriginal is getting short shrift; the services they anticipate due them are not forthcoming.

There is nothing particularly new about this. It has always been assumed that reserve chiefs and their band councils generously apportion to themselves the lions' share of funding meant to improve the lives of their bands. Perhaps it's the extent to which the band councils and the chiefs have improved their lives and those of their immediate families at the expense of those whose interests they are presumed to represent that is so hard to fathom.

The Assembly of First Nations is invested in keeping the reserves intact. They persuade their members, the country's aboriginal populations, that this is the best way to honour their ancestors, by living as they did, on the land in the traditional time-honoured way. This is a monumental hoax, but a profitable one for band councils.

The reserves may be squalid, life boring, unemployment rife, education and health poor, but it is traditional.

And in the meanwhile, there are First Nations chiefs whose tax-free salaries exceed the after-tax income paid to the country's provincial premiers. The records released at the request of the Canadian Taxpayer Federation, while not naming names, show individual salaries can be sky-high. Sixty of the 577 chiefs across the country were remunerated at an annual $90,000 tax-free.

More than 700 reserve politicians earned over $100,000. On one reserve of 304 souls the chief 'earned' a total tax-free salary of $243,000; the councillors on that same reserve each took home a handsome $200,000 in salaries, travel per diems and honoraria. One council member really stood out, hauling home $322,103 in "other" remunerations.

This is not particularly pleasing to band members themselves who don't particularly dote on their band councils, and find much fault with them. Principally their princely remunerations. While reserve infrastructure crumbles into decay and services are too costly to maintain adequately. They are, understandably, resentful, and feel they deserve better. And they do.

As for National Chief Shawn Atleo? He is incensed with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, characterizing its campaign to release data "an insult that paints First Nations leadership as overpaid, unaccountable local bosses, uninterested in the challenges faced by First Nations citizens."

And aren't they?