Canada's First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, etc. (merged)
- Thread starter UberCree
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http://www.oktlaw.com/blog/taking-a-second-look-at-those-attawapiskat-numbers/ where's that tiny violin smiley...
I need an advil after reading that.
:brickwall: :stars:
All I have to say about Ms. Spence and her lackeys
I need an advil after reading that.
:brickwall: :stars:
All I have to say about Ms. Spence and her lackeys
ArmyGuy99
Member
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Here's my :2c:
I think that we are at a cross roads in our Nation's History. There is still lots of room for a peaceful solution to this. However, if just one person from either side, makes a mistake, whether it is a leader or someone else there could be a tragedy.
Saying this, though, the judge who ruled on the Sarnia Rail blockade was correct. The rule of law must apply to everyone equally regardless of who they are.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/judge-slams-ontario-police-for-not-ending-first-nations-rail-blockade-1.1103669 <---- Here's the link
Still waiting for the response from Spence et al on where over $100M went since 2005. And that audit was only a snap shot. 60 transaction from each year I believe. So that's just the tip of the ice berg.
Well that's MHO for today. Lets see what shenanigans shows up tomorrow.
I think that we are at a cross roads in our Nation's History. There is still lots of room for a peaceful solution to this. However, if just one person from either side, makes a mistake, whether it is a leader or someone else there could be a tragedy.
Saying this, though, the judge who ruled on the Sarnia Rail blockade was correct. The rule of law must apply to everyone equally regardless of who they are.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/judge-slams-ontario-police-for-not-ending-first-nations-rail-blockade-1.1103669 <---- Here's the link
Still waiting for the response from Spence et al on where over $100M went since 2005. And that audit was only a snap shot. 60 transaction from each year I believe. So that's just the tip of the ice berg.
Well that's MHO for today. Lets see what shenanigans shows up tomorrow.
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Bruce Monkhouse said:
Here is the report.
It's hard to imagine a worse PR blunder.
But I agree with MedTech32: this is a tense situation; as Andrew Coyne posited in the National Post it might have more to do with tensions within the First Nations communities than between FNs and the Government of Canada.
We, the Canadian mainstream, want to apply our liberal (individual equality, etc) to a society that still, at some levels, anyway, harbours very illiberal social values ~ collectivism and all that.
If Chief Spence forms part of the AFN delegation then I predict that the forthcoming 'conference' with Prime Minister Harper will be a disastrous failure for all concerned.
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And further, in a report, the Globe and Mail says:
"Governor-General David Johnston announced on Tuesday that he would not be at Mr. Harper’s working meeting with key Assembly of First Nations leaders. As a result, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, who called for the meeting in first place, said she might not go either."
Now that would actually be actually good news because Chief Spence is not, in any way, in this FOR First Nations, she's not even in it for the Attawapiskat First Nation, she's in it for Theresa Spence.
The GG will, very properly, not attend because his government ministers are there on his behalf but Chief Spence and most journalists are too ill educated to understand his role in all this.
The Globe and Mail report is headlined: Hopes fade that talks with PM will end Idle No More protests. The "hopes" are not "fading," there never were any hopes for any useful outcome, other than to pacify the media. This is meaningless media driven pap ~ all of it: Spence, Idle No More and the conference.
"Governor-General David Johnston announced on Tuesday that he would not be at Mr. Harper’s working meeting with key Assembly of First Nations leaders. As a result, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, who called for the meeting in first place, said she might not go either."
Now that would actually be actually good news because Chief Spence is not, in any way, in this FOR First Nations, she's not even in it for the Attawapiskat First Nation, she's in it for Theresa Spence.
The GG will, very properly, not attend because his government ministers are there on his behalf but Chief Spence and most journalists are too ill educated to understand his role in all this.
The Globe and Mail report is headlined: Hopes fade that talks with PM will end Idle No More protests. The "hopes" are not "fading," there never were any hopes for any useful outcome, other than to pacify the media. This is meaningless media driven pap ~ all of it: Spence, Idle No More and the conference.
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E.R. Campbell said:
Indeed. Shades of a Third World Dictatorship, where the "great leader" decides everyone's fate in community. Act against her, and you lose your job, your house and may even be asked to leave the community (maybe the only community that you have ever known) forever- assuming that you don't end up dead in the bush first.
Of course, doing detailed investigative journalism about that type of scandal (a real human rights tragedy- not a trumped up one in Vancouver or Ottawa or Toronto) would take a type courage noticeably absent amongst Canadian journalist. Shame.
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This is the latest one making the rounds on Facebook. I really hope this one gets exposed as a photoshop job most rikki tik.who would be stupid enough to make a sign like that in the iphone age?
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Pathetic. Obviously they don't have any 15 year old's working for them; pretty much any kid can navigate a computer program better than that. :not-again:Kat Stevens said:
The latest news update says that Chief Spence will definitely not attend the 'working group.' For someone who was "willing to die" to meet with Harper, this sounds like "was told not to attend (ie - you're an embarrassment/you've done the cause enough damage)"
OK, the latest latest news update says that Chief Spence will attend the 'working group'...."provided her health is not an issue that day." :
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I am still trying to fathom how there can be any meaningful consensus among 630 "Chiefs", or how people actually believe that is even remotely possible. Hell the 10 Premeirs can barely agree on most things when making demands from the Feds
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I could do a better job than that, in MS Paint.
OY :facepalm:
OY :facepalm:
Christie Blatchford provides sone background on the audit story which indicates the band had a less than stellar record of poor accounting procedures and that Chief Spence's boyfriend seems to be an accomplished spinmeister. The story, which is on the front page of today's National Post, is reproduced under the fair dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.
Attawapiskat audit reveals reserve finances in complete disarray
Christie Blatchford | Jan 8, 2013 6:39 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 8, 2013 7:09 PM ET
Reading the newly released Attawapiskat audit, coupled with the affidavit sworn last year by Clayton Kennedy, Chief Theresa Spence’s boyfriend and co-manager of the beleaguered reserve, I am reminded of one of my favourite episodes of the old Seinfeld series.
Kramer is pitching a scam to Jerry, whereby he wants Jerry to claim his broken stereo, which Kramer has conveniently insured, was damaged in transit, and thus get the post office to pay for it.
Jerry objects, albeit feebly, and Kramer protests that “It’s a write-off for them.”
“How is it a write-off?” Jerry asks.
“They just write it off,” Kramer replies.
“Write off what?” Jerry says, then snorts, “You don’t even know what a write-off is, do you?”
“Do you?” Kramer asks.
“No, I don’t,” says Jerry.
“But they do,” Kramer explains slowly. “And they’re the ones writing it off.”
I was put to mind of this by a couple of the regularly occurring “account descriptions” in the Deloitte and Touche audit so much in the news — “write-offs,” to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars in some cases, and “writedowns” — all with the regularly occurring descriptors, vendor “unknown” and “incomplete documentation” or “No supporting documentation.”
In these instances, the auditors could find little or nothing to support the expenditures, apparently not even the name of the firm or person who was paid.
At bottom, the auditors found completely inadequate policies and practices in place and poor oversight of the $104-million in taxpayer funding that has flowed to Attawapiskat between April of 2005 and November of 2011.
And yet, in the affidavit he swore in December of 2011 — this in support of the band’s successful fight to overturn Ottawa’s moving it from co-management status to third-party management — Mr. Kennedy modestly sang his own praises as the steady financial hand.
He was in charge for the last two years the auditors examined, as was Chief Spence for most of the same time. She was elected Aug. 27, 2010, but for the previous three years, was deputy chief.
As Attawapiskat’s chief financial guy, Mr. Kennedy told the court, he’d brought in bank reconciliation procedures, reformed sketchy accounting practices and generally done a bang-up job.
He even referred to the band’s last regular audit, dated July 31, 2011, noting it was filed on time and complied with various policies, a claim that seems on a par with those hotels which brag of “high-speed elevators.”
It doesn’t appear, alas, that Mr. Kennedy mentioned the standard “management letter” the band’s Timmins-based accountants, Ross, Pope and Company, sent along with that audit, or the big fat red flag the local firm raised in the audit itself.
In the letter, the accountants identified “matters that may be of interest to management,” which is putting it kindly.
What they told Mr. Kennedy, who by then had been on the job for a year, was that the records were still in terrible shape — invoices weren’t being properly recorded; band assets such as the water plant and healing lodge had no insurance; rent arrears and welfare payments weren’t being respectively collected or documented; accounts payable records were out of whack and “many general journal entries had no supporting documents. When asked for explanations of the entries, often, none could be provided.”
Oh, and the Timmins auditors said, — the band had done no, ah, budget.
“We believe that the First Nation has an urgent need for a budget,” the letter said, with masterful understatement.
But apparently, in auditor-world, what was much more unusual and a much more important warning bell was what’s called the “going concern” note the Timmins firm included in its notes to the band’s consolidated financial statements.
This note pointed out that Attawapiskat’s objectives “are to continue as a going concern,” pointed out that at year end it had both a working capital deficiency of almost $4-million and a net debt of $11-million, and concluded that “the ability of the First Nation to continue as a going concern” was rather up in the air.
In other words, if the band wasn’t careful, it was going to be bankrupt — surely prima facie evidence of lousy financial management at the very least.
This, and of course the larger, multi-year audit done by Deloitte and Touche, surely cast a different light on Ottawa’s efforts last year — after the reserve’s desperate housing situation first came to light and Chief Spence declared an emergency and the story was all over the news — to put the band under independent third-party management, the most severe remedy available to the government.
Ottawa did that — managing to appoint as the third party a company that had earlier been fired by council — in November of 2011. The First Nation went to Federal Court and had the takeover ruled “unreasonable” in August of 2012, by which point Ottawa already had removed the designation.
Given what both the local auditors had found before the case was heard, and what Deloitte and Touche found afterwards, it is nothing short of astonishing that, as the Federal Court judge noted, the government didn’t produce “evidence of mismanagement or incorrect spending.”
It was as part of that court case that Mr. Kennedy and Chief Spence both swore affidavits, available online on the Attawapiskat website.
Mr. Kennedy thoughtfully included a copy of his latest contract between Attawapiskat and his company, Moo Shum Enterprises Inc., which pays him $850 a day plus expenses.
The document, dated July of 2011, begins with a preamble that incudes a statement of principles, one of which reads as follows: “Both parties [the band and Mr. Kennedy] are not aware of any past or present relationship between the First Nation and the Co-Manager that may be thought to be a conflict of interest.”
Gee: The Chief and Mr. Kennedy were already common-law partners, or life partners as they prefer, and presumably sleeping together. But no one was aware that could “be thought to be a conflict of interest”?
To borrow from Kramer, well, they know what it is, and they’re the ones agreeing it isn’t, or something.
Attawapiskat audit reveals reserve finances in complete disarray
Christie Blatchford | Jan 8, 2013 6:39 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 8, 2013 7:09 PM ET
Reading the newly released Attawapiskat audit, coupled with the affidavit sworn last year by Clayton Kennedy, Chief Theresa Spence’s boyfriend and co-manager of the beleaguered reserve, I am reminded of one of my favourite episodes of the old Seinfeld series.
Kramer is pitching a scam to Jerry, whereby he wants Jerry to claim his broken stereo, which Kramer has conveniently insured, was damaged in transit, and thus get the post office to pay for it.
Jerry objects, albeit feebly, and Kramer protests that “It’s a write-off for them.”
“How is it a write-off?” Jerry asks.
“They just write it off,” Kramer replies.
“Write off what?” Jerry says, then snorts, “You don’t even know what a write-off is, do you?”
“Do you?” Kramer asks.
“No, I don’t,” says Jerry.
“But they do,” Kramer explains slowly. “And they’re the ones writing it off.”
I was put to mind of this by a couple of the regularly occurring “account descriptions” in the Deloitte and Touche audit so much in the news — “write-offs,” to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars in some cases, and “writedowns” — all with the regularly occurring descriptors, vendor “unknown” and “incomplete documentation” or “No supporting documentation.”
In these instances, the auditors could find little or nothing to support the expenditures, apparently not even the name of the firm or person who was paid.
At bottom, the auditors found completely inadequate policies and practices in place and poor oversight of the $104-million in taxpayer funding that has flowed to Attawapiskat between April of 2005 and November of 2011.
And yet, in the affidavit he swore in December of 2011 — this in support of the band’s successful fight to overturn Ottawa’s moving it from co-management status to third-party management — Mr. Kennedy modestly sang his own praises as the steady financial hand.
He was in charge for the last two years the auditors examined, as was Chief Spence for most of the same time. She was elected Aug. 27, 2010, but for the previous three years, was deputy chief.
As Attawapiskat’s chief financial guy, Mr. Kennedy told the court, he’d brought in bank reconciliation procedures, reformed sketchy accounting practices and generally done a bang-up job.
He even referred to the band’s last regular audit, dated July 31, 2011, noting it was filed on time and complied with various policies, a claim that seems on a par with those hotels which brag of “high-speed elevators.”
It doesn’t appear, alas, that Mr. Kennedy mentioned the standard “management letter” the band’s Timmins-based accountants, Ross, Pope and Company, sent along with that audit, or the big fat red flag the local firm raised in the audit itself.
In the letter, the accountants identified “matters that may be of interest to management,” which is putting it kindly.
What they told Mr. Kennedy, who by then had been on the job for a year, was that the records were still in terrible shape — invoices weren’t being properly recorded; band assets such as the water plant and healing lodge had no insurance; rent arrears and welfare payments weren’t being respectively collected or documented; accounts payable records were out of whack and “many general journal entries had no supporting documents. When asked for explanations of the entries, often, none could be provided.”
Oh, and the Timmins auditors said, — the band had done no, ah, budget.
“We believe that the First Nation has an urgent need for a budget,” the letter said, with masterful understatement.
But apparently, in auditor-world, what was much more unusual and a much more important warning bell was what’s called the “going concern” note the Timmins firm included in its notes to the band’s consolidated financial statements.
This note pointed out that Attawapiskat’s objectives “are to continue as a going concern,” pointed out that at year end it had both a working capital deficiency of almost $4-million and a net debt of $11-million, and concluded that “the ability of the First Nation to continue as a going concern” was rather up in the air.
In other words, if the band wasn’t careful, it was going to be bankrupt — surely prima facie evidence of lousy financial management at the very least.
This, and of course the larger, multi-year audit done by Deloitte and Touche, surely cast a different light on Ottawa’s efforts last year — after the reserve’s desperate housing situation first came to light and Chief Spence declared an emergency and the story was all over the news — to put the band under independent third-party management, the most severe remedy available to the government.
Ottawa did that — managing to appoint as the third party a company that had earlier been fired by council — in November of 2011. The First Nation went to Federal Court and had the takeover ruled “unreasonable” in August of 2012, by which point Ottawa already had removed the designation.
Given what both the local auditors had found before the case was heard, and what Deloitte and Touche found afterwards, it is nothing short of astonishing that, as the Federal Court judge noted, the government didn’t produce “evidence of mismanagement or incorrect spending.”
It was as part of that court case that Mr. Kennedy and Chief Spence both swore affidavits, available online on the Attawapiskat website.
Mr. Kennedy thoughtfully included a copy of his latest contract between Attawapiskat and his company, Moo Shum Enterprises Inc., which pays him $850 a day plus expenses.
The document, dated July of 2011, begins with a preamble that incudes a statement of principles, one of which reads as follows: “Both parties [the band and Mr. Kennedy] are not aware of any past or present relationship between the First Nation and the Co-Manager that may be thought to be a conflict of interest.”
Gee: The Chief and Mr. Kennedy were already common-law partners, or life partners as they prefer, and presumably sleeping together. But no one was aware that could “be thought to be a conflict of interest”?
To borrow from Kramer, well, they know what it is, and they’re the ones agreeing it isn’t, or something.
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Heres the original sign:
http://www.firstnations.eu/img/06-3-2-no-indians.jpg
Youll note it isnt a mountie holding it. And its written in the same style and font as this one:
http://www.firstnations.eu/img/06-3-2-centre.jpg
Also from the same protest
From 2004:
http://www.firstnations.eu/development/secwepemc-skwelkwekwelt.htm
Youll note the same people and video cameras recording the serving of the injunctions etc.
http://www.firstnations.eu/img/06-3-2-no-indians.jpg
Youll note it isnt a mountie holding it. And its written in the same style and font as this one:
http://www.firstnations.eu/img/06-3-2-centre.jpg
Also from the same protest
From 2004:
http://www.firstnations.eu/development/secwepemc-skwelkwekwelt.htm
Youll note the same people and video cameras recording the serving of the injunctions etc.
Bluebulldog
Full Member
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/01/08/pol-governor-general-first-nations-friday-meeting.html
So Spence, being faced with what she asked for, indicates that she wont attend unless the GG is there, as he's integral to the process.
Sounds to me like she has no clue what she wants, and / or how to go about extricating herself from the quagmire she has created. She of course should have been told by her more educated "handlers" that the GG is pretty well a ceremonial position, and bears no impact whatsoever on any policy in this Country.
In a laughable show, they say that she'll attend, then wont. And then indicate that they've sent a letter to Buckingham Palace asking the Queen to send her representative.
I don't know whether it's sheer gall that Spence has, or abject ignorance, either way, it's making her show on the Rideau look more ridiculous with each passing hour.
Still waiting for Scott's prediction to come true........sadly she is probably now, more than ever trying to avoid going home......where the other sh!tstorm awaits......
So Spence, being faced with what she asked for, indicates that she wont attend unless the GG is there, as he's integral to the process.
Sounds to me like she has no clue what she wants, and / or how to go about extricating herself from the quagmire she has created. She of course should have been told by her more educated "handlers" that the GG is pretty well a ceremonial position, and bears no impact whatsoever on any policy in this Country.
In a laughable show, they say that she'll attend, then wont. And then indicate that they've sent a letter to Buckingham Palace asking the Queen to send her representative.
I don't know whether it's sheer gall that Spence has, or abject ignorance, either way, it's making her show on the Rideau look more ridiculous with each passing hour.
Still waiting for Scott's prediction to come true........sadly she is probably now, more than ever trying to avoid going home......where the other sh!tstorm awaits......
- Reaction score
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Like many third world dictators, she could get on a plane to exile in a "friendly" country. Iran apparently expressed support for the First Nations causes, and would certainly extend an invitation for Spence, her boyfriend and their bank accounts to take up residence, at least so long as they could supply embarrassing shows of support for Iran against the actions of the Canadian Government....
Bluebulldog
Full Member
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Really? Good grief......
I wonder how long they'd be allowed to remain when the bank account ran dry, and the 15 minutes of fame were up.........
I wonder how long they'd be allowed to remain when the bank account ran dry, and the 15 minutes of fame were up.........
Bluebulldog
Full Member
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Thucydides said:Not my problem at that point. Perhaps Al Jezeera could hire them on as financial affairs correspondents.... >
...perfect......
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Bluebulldog said:
Anyone else catch this part "The key demand of Spence, who has been declining solid food since Dec.11 as a form of protest, ", sifted through the rest of the article and their is only one mention of the phrase "hunger strike". That's what actually impressed me the most about this article considering its length and its from the CBC.
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