Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm just going to make a brief statement. I wasn't really prepared. I only got the invitation five days ago If you have a chance, I'd like to suggest that all of you read this research paper. It's very interesting. It was done as a research paper for the National Centre for First Nations Governance.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  —and in the community, yes. That's all I have to say for now. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I am Phyllis Sutherland from the Peguis Accountability Coalition.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No relationship whatsoever. If I go to a band meeting and ask questions, there are people who are put in place to get up and shout me down. I was at a meeting, standing at a podium, when a band member came up. I literally thought he was going to assault me. Those are the kinds of things we put up with.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The information on the website should be laid out in a simple format that people can understand. They can understand, say, that education got $14 million in funding, or the band used $2 million to pay the band deficit—stuff like that. The band got $4 million in housing. Where is that $4 million?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, because right now—somebody alluded to it already—there's the use of own-source funding for slush funds for favours for supporters.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a big job. You have to start with the election; it goes right back to that. The very act of allowing somebody who lives 2,000 miles away or in another country to vote, when they haven't a clue what living on a reserve is like....

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and another thing that's closely related to that is who has access to all this information. Let's say Joe wanted to run for council; he doesn't know who lives where. The chief and council have access to all that information.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I sure hope so because as an ordinary band member I see a real struggle on the reserve. I can just speak about my own experience and my own reserve. When people found out the salaries of some chief and council members they were pretty outraged. It's pretty hard to live on social assistance, which many people have to live on, which is $111 every two weeks.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, I do.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, it is, and I think it's going to be important to the members. I can see them even taking it a step further and the members naming what the chief and council should be making.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. The process has to be clearer for people, and I don't know how you're going to do it. The fear of talking and the fear of backlash is all real if you live in a community, because you're treated like an outcast.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll answer that one. Being a band member, I've applied numerous times. I have a stack of requests from me and other band members, and I've never had a response on one of my requests. Sometimes I went to Aboriginal Affairs. Sometimes they were helpful. They gave it to me if they had it, but I had to go through the process of proving I was a band member and that I had requested it from the band first.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, I believe in a relationship, with a lot of work still going on.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for having me here today. I am here to talk about financial accountability and transparency. I would like to start by looking at the issue of access to financial information and our experiences. First, we support the legislation, Bill C-27, based on the fact that every first nations band member has a right to access financial information and it should be given in a reasonable timeframe.