First nations will blockade roads as part of 'Idle No More' protest

[Slava]

And today she is unavailable for comment and not willing to meet with the media.

[FlamesAddiction]

The Grand Chief's comments are correct though. It is very difficult to do business in remote communities. If you are hiring locals, you often have to put up with their scamming, gouging, and shoddy work. If you mobilize contractors from larger centres, the costs mount up quickly too. It's also difficult to get outsiders to go there because of threats they will get from the local contractors.

I have no doubt that there is corruption on all levels involved here.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The Grand Chief's comments are correct though. It is very difficult to do business in remote communities. If you are hiring locals, you often have to put up with their scamming, gouging, and shoddy work. If you mobilize contractors from larger centres, the costs mount up quickly too. It's also difficult to get outsiders to go there because of threats they will get from the local contractors.

I have no doubt that there is corruption on all levels involved here.

I can buy the arguement that 'The actual costs of doing things in a remote community are multipliers higher.' But I have no way of actually verifying that because apparently their 'accounting system' involves taking in donations for Spence's cause to her boyfriend's personal bank account and 81% of payment disbursements having no supporting documentation. If this was a case of everything being accounted for with proper documentation and we were only arguing the percieved high sticker price of things, then I would dismiss all the criticism.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The Grand Chief's comments are correct though. It is very difficult to do business in remote communities. If you are hiring locals, you often have to put up with their scamming, gouging, and shoddy work. If you mobilize contractors from larger centres, the costs mount up quickly too. It's also difficult to get outsiders to go there because of threats they will get from the local contractors.

I have no doubt that there is corruption on all levels involved here.

Um they're paying the band manager $850 a day tax free plus expenses which apparently aren't supported by documentation and they can't afford to bring somebody in by offering equivalent money? I call bull.

I remember when this whole thing blew up that the CBC confronted Spence with a receipt for a private jet rental at a stupid amount of money that was booked to take her family to Toronto for what basically accounted for a shopping trip and Spence lost her mind, I wonder if those supporting documents made its way into the books?

Even if we just looked at the $90 million the governement gave them and the $35 million provided directly by Deboers for 1600 people thats $78,135 per person spent by a band government over the past what 5 years or about $15625.00 per person per year. If that was translated to a city like Calgary of a million people that would mean that the budget for this city would be something like $16 billion dollars a year in spending. I think our spending budget in the city is far less then that.

And the city of Calgary is far more complex then that little reservation. While we don't provide housing for every person in the city. The reserve doesn't supply anywhere near the infrasturcture that Calgary provides.

If the city of Calgary had the spending budget per person that Spence had then every person in Calgary would be receiving limo service to and from work basically.

And I'm not even adding in other revenue from other sources, just the government stuff and Deboers money.

[Slava]

I totally agree. The issues are separate though and that's part of the problem with the whole reserve/treaty situation as well. We all know that the conditions on many, but not all, of the reserves are deplorable. There seems to be an unwillingness to address this adequately though because there is obviously corruption and conniving taking place.

Idle no more has attempted to distance themselves from Chief Spence, but you still see the two lumped together. I'm not sure what the fix is here either because I know that if I were in a position to re-negotiate treaties or anything like that I would prefer not to have the other side represented by someone who A) doesn't appear to speak for everyone, or at the very least has no authority to do so and (B) appears to be shady in their prior dealings.

At the same time though, something has to be done. Maybe that is through the AFN? I don't think that you can go along and throw money at the situation while continuing to let people live in poverty and poor conditions.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Um they're paying the band manager $850 a day tax free plus expenses which apparently aren't supported by documentation and they can't afford to bring somebody in by offering equivalent money? I call bull.

I remember when this whole thing blew up that the CBC confronted Spence with a receipt for a private jet rental at a stupid amount of money that was booked to take her family to Toronto for what basically accounted for a shopping trip and Spence lost her mind, I wonder if those supporting documents made its way into the books?

Even if we just looked at the $90 million the governement gave them and the $35 million provided directly by Deboers for 1600 people thats $78,135 per person spent by a band government over the past what 5 years or about $15625.00 per person per year. If that was translated to a city like Calgary of a million people that would mean that the budget for this city would be something like $16 billion dollars a year in spending. I think our spending budget in the city is far less then that.

And the city of Calgary is far more complex then that little reservation. While we don't provide housing for every person in the city. The reserve doesn't supply anywhere near the infrasturcture that Calgary provides.

If the city of Calgary had the spending budget per person that Spence had then every person in Calgary would be receiving limo service to and from work basically.

And I'm not even adding in other revenue from other sources, just the government stuff and Deboers money.

Well aside from the other issues with the numbers, we also don't provide housing for every resident, so we should have a smaller budget!

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Slava

I totally agree. The issues are separate though and that's part of the problem with the whole reserve/treaty situation as well. We all know that the conditions on many, but not all, of the reserves are deplorable. There seems to be an unwillingness to address this adequately though because there is obviously corruption and conniving taking place.

I don't know if the issues are seperate at all. The natives want self government where they simply receive money and they'll handle it and they don't want government oversight, therefore that model has failed and the treaty model has failed because of it.

Unfortunatley the whole argument that there are some reservations that are very well run doesn't over run the fact that a lot of them aren't and the natives don't want to seem to want to fix it.

The solution isn't more money or more funding. The government throws $7.9 billion dollars per year at this problem which is $6740.00 per year per person, that doesn't include the tax free status and other things that they get from the general social net.

If the natives want self government then the change has to come from the first nations without additional funding.



[QUOTE=Slava;3995846Idle no more has attempted to distance themselves from Chief Spence, but you still see the two lumped together. I'm not sure what the fix is here either because I know that if I were in a position to re-negotiate treaties or anything like that I would prefer not to have the other side represented by someone who A) doesn't appear to speak for everyone, or at the very least has no authority to do so and (B) appears to be shady in their prior dealings. [/quote]

Where has Idle no more tried to distance themselves from Spence. If they wanted to distance themselves they should be pushing for Spence and other reservation and band leaders to open up their books or resign. Instead she's viewed as a populist hero by idol no more.

At the end of the day the two biggest things that need to change are 1) educational levels and expectations. First Nations really needs to push for this period. Instead of some 18 year old kid getting a check for $25,000 dollars it should be a scholarship that they can only collect on if they graduate from high school. Maybe the funding needs to be broken down from the government. Instead of giving a crook like Spence a check for $90 million dollars it should be x million for education, please prove that you spent it on that before you get next years check, x for housing please prove that you spent this money on housing or you don't get another check.

I still think that the property ownership is huge, that way if someone wants to sell their home take their money and move to an urban setting they have that option.

I firmly believe that some of these failed reservations need to be shut down, a settlement reached on a per person basis and let them go on their way. Some of these reservations fail because of geography and lack of economic winning conditions, and a lot of these natives don't hunt and fish anymore, so give them options to leave.

Originally Posted by Slava

At the same time though, something has to be done. Maybe that is through the AFN? I don't think that you can go along and throw money at the situation while continuing to let people live in poverty and poor conditions.

The government is at fault not due to spending levels, but due to generally not controlling the situation properly. The natives are at fault because they're allowing abuses to happen and not demanding better of their leaders.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well aside from the other issues with the numbers, we also don't provide housing for every resident, so we should have a smaller budget!

they don't provide public transportation, the same level of infrastructure and other things that make this city expensive. Policing and emergency response and other things, so it more then balances off.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if the issues are seperate at all. The natives want self government where they simply receive money and they'll handle it and they don't want government oversight, therefore that model has failed and the treaty model has failed because of it.

Unfortunatley the whole argument that there are some reservations that are very well run doesn't over run the fact that a lot of them aren't and the natives don't want to seem to want to fix it.

The solution isn't more money or more funding. The government throws $7.9 billion dollars per year at this problem which is $6740.00 per year per person, that doesn't include the tax free status and other things that they get from the general social net.

If the natives want self government then the change has to come from the first nations without additional funding.

Where has Idle no more tried to distance themselves from Spence. If they wanted to distance themselves they should be pushing for Spence and other reservation and band leaders to open up their books or resign. Instead she's viewed as a populist hero by idol no more.

At the end of the day the two biggest things that need to change are 1) educational levels and expectations. First Nations really needs to push for this period. Instead of some 18 year old kid getting a check for $25,000 dollars it should be a scholarship that they can only collect on if they graduate from high school. Maybe the funding needs to be broken down from the government. Instead of giving a crook like Spence a check for $90 million dollars it should be x million for education, please prove that you spent it on that before you get next years check, x for housing please prove that you spent this money on housing or you don't get another check.

I still think that the property ownership is huge, that way if someone wants to sell their home take their money and move to an urban setting they have that option.

I firmly believe that some of these failed reservations need to be shut down, a settlement reached on a per person basis and let them go on their way. Some of these reservations fail because of geography and lack of economic winning conditions, and a lot of these natives don't hunt and fish anymore, so give them options to leave.

The government is at fault not due to spending levels, but due to generally not controlling the situation properly. The natives are at fault because they're allowing abuses to happen and not demanding better of their leaders.

Well here is one article saying that they are trying to distance themselves and frankly there are many more. The "leaders" of INM seem to have a similar feeling about the chiefs and corruption though; there are also other articles where Spence has tried to get INM to unite with the chiefs, so clearly there is a division there. Unfortunately guys like Ezra Levant prefer to lump them all together and ramble on about the movement and the hunger strike as if they are one and the same.

I agree about the property rights and we've seen this in action in China in the fairly recent past. Thing is, you can't blame the rank and file natives for this behaviour; no one washes a rental car. Only a fool would be renting a house and do a major reno or landscaping. How many small business owners outside the reserve were able to get rolling because of the equity in their property? Its a major factor, without question.

I also agree that there are major systematic changes that need to take place, and that its not a situation that is all about money. I think that the whole system should be torn apart and re-negotiated. The problem is that there are so many factions and bands that this is a long and arduous task.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

they don't provide public transportation, the same level of infrastructure and other things that make this city expensive. Policing and emergency response and other things, so it more then balances off.

Well neither does a town like say, Claresholm. Point is that its not as simple as saying they have 300 homes so the budget should be this extrapolated from Calgary at 1.1M people. They provide a lot more services (at least theoretically) than we do in some cases.

As usual, discussing money out in the open is impossible. Again, commentators like Levant throw out the $9M figure and run that up the flagpole as a symbol of how corrupt the reserve is. I agree that the $9M stock portfolio is terrible...but its terrible because their entire savings account is only $9M dollars.

EDIT: Here is the link: http://www.canada.com/Idle+More+foun...260/story.html

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well here is one article saying that they are trying to distance themselves and frankly there are many more. The "leaders" of INM seem to have a similar feeling about the chiefs and corruption though; there are also other articles where Spence has tried to get INM to unite with the chiefs, so clearly there is a division there. Unfortunately guys like Ezra Levant prefer to lump them all together and ramble on about the movement and the hunger strike as if they are one and the same.

Honestly I'm not using Levant to back up my arguments here, its easy enough to find my own information on line, and while at time he does a decent job of compiling information, his presentation of those ideas and interpretations make me uncomfortable. He's on the same idiotic level as Warren Kinsella.

I didn't see the link to the article that you provided, sorry, but going through the news stories and a lot of interviews "Idle No More" seems to be taking inspiration from Spences "hunger strike"

Originally Posted by Slava

I agree about the property rights and we've seen this in action in China in the fairly recent past. Thing is, you can't blame the rank and file natives for this behaviour; no one washes a rental car. Only a fool would be renting a house and do a major reno or landscaping. How many small business owners outside the reserve were able to get rolling because of the equity in their property? Its a major factor, without question.

On top of that if you decide to move, you can sell your property and have a nice nest egg to start a new life elsewhere. Right now you really don't get anything.

Originally Posted by Slava

I also agree that there are major systematic changes that need to take place, and that its not a situation that is all about money. I think that the whole system should be torn apart and re-negotiated. The problem is that there are so many factions and bands that this is a long and arduous task.

Unless they get less militant and more moderate the system will never be opened, plus for the select few in power the system works well for them, but more money pumping into the shredder would be more beneficial. The agents of change or the people who should be the agents of change simply have no voice.

Originally Posted by Slava

Well neither does a town like say, Claresholm. Point is that its not as simple as saying they have 300 homes so the budget should be this extrapolated from Calgary at 1.1M people. They provide a lot more services (at least theoretically) than we do in some cases.

It would look far worse if you compared a equivalent sized town like a Clareholm to Spence's reservation, where the spending would probably be something like 10x per person higher. And as much as you can argue that the city isn't providing housing, Spence really hasn't benn providing housing out of her budget either, if she had been the government wouldn't have had to emergency ship 20 heated trailers up there.

Originally Posted by Slava

As usual, discussing money out in the open is impossible. Again, commentators like Levant throw out the $9M figure and run that up the flagpole as a symbol of how corrupt the reserve is. I agree that the $9M stock portfolio is terrible...but its terrible because their entire savings account is only $9M dollars.

EDIT: Here is the link: http://www.canada.com/Idle+More+foun...260/story.html

I'm pretty much ignoring Levant, if I do see figures such as the $850 per day tax free to the band manager who lives with Spence I'm trying to verify it through other sources, but its kind of irrelevant if you look at the raw numbers coming into the band versus the value of services being provided by the band.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Um they're paying the band manager $850 a day tax free plus expenses which apparently aren't supported by documentation and they can't afford to bring somebody in by offering equivalent money? I call bull.

I remember when this whole thing blew up that the CBC confronted Spence with a receipt for a private jet rental at a stupid amount of money that was booked to take her family to Toronto for what basically accounted for a shopping trip and Spence lost her mind, I wonder if those supporting documents made its way into the books?

I'm not defending her. I am sure she is part of problem as well.

I'm just saying, I have experienced some of the problems first hand. I recall one particular job up near Fort Ware, BC where I was the prime contractor and had to hire subs. The funding for job required that we hired local contractors from the reserve where at all possible. Most of these guys did not use proper accounting procedures. There were also severe motivation issues. On two occasions, our excavator operator didn't show up and we had to go to his house and wake him up. We ended up being allowed to hire someone from out of town, only to have him get his truck vandalized and tools stolen. The damages and stand-by time was all charged to the job and the reserve paid it all. Quite a few people got paid for standing around. But if they ever did an audit, I am sure the paper trail would be thin.

Our company even had to put a few locals on the payroll. When I was doing my billing, I saw names on there of people I never met. As sad as it is, a lot of companies enable the situation. I don't work for that company anymore, but I doubt they were alone.

I'm not saying it should be acceptable, but it's the reality.

[Slava]

In case anyone wants to look at the audit report: http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/135.../1350995589197

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I'm not defending her. I am sure she is part of problem as well.

I'm just saying, I have experienced some of the problems first hand. I recall one particular job up near Fort Ware, BC where I was the prime contractor and had to hire subs. The funding for job required that we hired local contractors from the reserve where at all possible. Most of these guys did not use proper accounting procedures. There were also severe motivation issues. On two occasions, our excavator operator didn't show up and we had to go to his house and wake him up. We ended up being allowed to hire someone from out of town, only to have him get his truck vandalized and tools stolen. The damages and stand-by time was all charged to the job and the reserve paid it all. Quite a few people got paid for standing around. But if they ever did an audit, I am sure the paper trail would be thin.

Our company even had to put a few locals on the payroll. When I was doing my billing, I saw names on there of people I never met. As sad as it is, a lot of companies enable the situation. I don't work for that company anymore, but I doubt they were alone.

I'm not saying it should be acceptable, but it's the reality.

I think it goes way further then that though, and I get what your saying.

$850 dollars per day plus expenses (That don't look like they're being documented) is obsene when you consider that the $850 per day is tax free.

Buying a high end zamboni while your people freeze in tents and crappy un heated housing is ridiculous.

Renting private jets to go shopping

Building a school on contaminated ground using relatives as the contracters, then upon being ordered to tearing down the school and building it on the same ground.

There are more problems then the whole "good help is hard to find"

A native chief in Newfoundland (going off of memory here) running a band of 300 people and paying himself a 7 figure tax free income is taking advantage and robbing your own people.

There's a reason why there's such a big fight to opening the books globally with these bands, because they've been screwing their people over for years, and this Idle No More is not addressing the key problems in the native community in that they have to do more inward relection and less its the big bad governments fault for everything.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Ducay

That audit report was dated in September, so she started the hunger strike and all this publicity knowing full well the results would come out, so she mustn't be too concerned about it, which I understand. Essentially the auditor (Deloitte) couldn't formulate an opinion on whether or not they used their funding correctly since so many documents were missing. That doesn't necessarily mean there were issues in the spending, but it sure isn't a good sign of how things are run.

If someone isn't doing a good job at keeping track of $17 million dollars on paper, you can almost certainly assume that the incompetence spreads even further than just not doing the paperwork.

[Vulcan]

From Slava's linked article.

“(Idle No More) seems to be a rejection of aboriginal leadership, a rejection of local chiefs and chiefs on the national stage,” said Daniel Salee, a professor at Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs. “People seem to feel as though their leaders aren’t working in their best interest or that they simply aren’t getting the job done.

From my way of looking at it, the INM demonstrations are a way to get the community more involved in their local and federal politics and so make the band leaders and federal leaders more accountable. This is good, no?

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

From Slava's linked article.
From my way of looking at it, the INM demonstrations are a way to get the community more involved in their local and federal politics and so make the band leaders and federal leaders more accountable. This is good, no?

It is a good thing at heart, but the problem is that existing band leadership and politicians are attaching themselves as part of the movement, so it is being diluted from an "against existing band leadership / status-quo" to a "against federal governement status quo" movement. Which is why you have had the INM people coming against band/national leaders who associate themselves with the movement.

[Northendzone]

Wonder how many more days of being on a hunger strike until ms. Spence gets back to a single chin?

Anyways, I'd sure like to hear her side of all of this, but until then, I think she looks pretty foolish and she should go back to the drawing board........

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Wonder how many more days of being on a hunger strike until ms. Spence gets back to a single chin?

Anyways, I'd sure like to hear her side of all of this, but until then, I think she looks pretty foolish and she should go back to the drawing board........

The first part aside, I would suggest that she has been looking rather foolish from the start/this entire time.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Wonder how many more days of being on a hunger strike until ms. Spence gets back to a single chin?

Anyways, I'd sure like to hear her side of all of this, but until then, I think she looks pretty foolish and she should go back to the drawing board........

She must have the constitution of a horse, and the metabolism of an iceberg.

I mean look at how much weight Ghandi lost during his 21 day hunger strike.

Even if she was only drinking soup and drinking tea and water she would have shown some weight loss around her face.

If she wants to prove that she's actually on a hunger strike then string up a web cam in her Teepee.

As it stands based around her reputation of honesty and integrity I have no doubt that someone is sneaking her big macs.

Her lack of physical change tells me that some B.S. is in the air.

Her before the strike



Her in the last two days



She's not living on broth and tea for the last 3 1/2 weeks. Notice how she's always wearing a heavy coat or a blanket so that she can hid her bulbous man gut.


I'll give her credit, she's slick she's as good as any con man out there.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

She must have the constitution of a horse, and the metabolism of an iceberg.

I mean look at how much weight Ghandi lost during his 21 day hunger strike.

Even if she was only drinking soup and drinking tea and water she would have shown some weight loss around her face.

If she wants to prove that she's actually on a hunger strike then string up a web cam in her Teepee.

As it stands based around her reputation of honesty and integrity I have no doubt that someone is sneaking her big macs.

Her lack of physical change tells me that some B.S. is in the air.

But she doesn't stay in the teepee 24/7. She goes to a hotel regularly to "refresh" and "relax".