Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
I first of all would like to say thank you to the Creator for allowing me the opportunity to be here and to speak with you as per your invitation.
I guess I found it somewhat difficult at the beginning to try to answer questions on the default policy, the reason being that the policy, as much as it may be meant to help our communities, doesn't necessarily address all of the issues that I think the community is dealing with. Although I'm not a policy-maker and not a politician—I'm just a normal working girl who works for my community—my personal opinion is that it seems to be a policy that deals more with crisis management. In our case, as some people may be aware, the Alexander First Nation has been in the news and there are some controversial issues going on.
We are now dealing with a number of issues in our finance department in terms of accountability and transparency. This is the second time. It's my understanding that we've been under co-management. If I'm not mistaken, I think the first time was in 2009. With co-management coming in again in 2017, it got me thinking about what the reason is that we're back here again dealing with co-management.
I've had some very sleepless nights in the last few days—in fact, since I got the email to attend for the presentation. I tried again to sum it up as to what I thought could help and what could be improved and those sorts of things. I found it really difficult to put all of that into a 10-minute opening statement, so what I decided to do was delete my 10-minute opening statement. I thought that I would just speak to you directly and try to give you an idea of the things we deal with on a day-to-day basis on my reserve.
I also want to mention, as a member of my band, that I'm here speaking on behalf of many people, particularly the homeless people, the people who are poor in my community, the children who are in care, the sick, the elderly, and even some of our people who are in the prison population. I wanted to make special mention of them because what happens on our reserves obviously has a direct impact, and we're supposed to be there to help all of our people who are struggling. From what I have seen, and since returning to my reserve and working in my community, the system really does not allow for that to happen as best it can.
I tried to sum it up when I first got back home and was dealing with all of the issues there. I was so overwhelmed that the word I came up with was that it's a “mess”. There are so many variables to deal with, and the default prevention policy doesn't do that. The co-manager comes in and deals with the finances of the band as best he can.
A number of other issues contribute to why we end up in default management. The list is long, but I'll try to speak on some of the things I've seen that contribute to that.
One, we have no policies in place that are enforceable. Let me rephrase that. We have a number of policies that have been drafted, that are in the office, but have never been passed as law; therefore, they're not enforceable.
I just want to make mention of a previous incident that I had back in 2008. My intent here is not to make my community look like we're terrible. We do have some positive things. However, back in 2008, I was a summer student, and I was instructed to do some summer student work in the finance department in our economic development office. I want to touch on an issue, I guess, rather than dance around it, as to what I feel plays a contributing factor as to why we end up in default management. They're obviously not nice words, and nobody wants to talk about not-so-nice things, but it seems to be one of the pink elephants in the room in meetings in my community and sometimes in other meetings. That is the issue of corruption and mismanagement.
The reason I bring that up is that I've seen and I've been involved in witnessing the effects of it. I'll go back to 2008 when I was a summer student. At the time I was employed by the late Raymond Arcand, who was the chief. During my employment, I was concerned with some of the spending practices and the lack of accountability and transparency in that department. At that time, I brought it to his attention. As an ex-RCMP member, he instructed me to take my concerns to K division in Edmonton.
Well, I did that. What happened a year later was that I got a letter back from the RCMP saying that there was nothing they could do. Needless to say, I felt defeated and I felt helpless, and it bothered me to no end because I thought of all those people who were still struggling in my community, who were living in poor housing, and whose children were ending up in care because they had no support. The list just goes on, and on, and on, again, of all the needs in my community.
I was fired from my position. I was locked out of my office. I left the community because I had to find work.
It's 2017, and we are still going through the same thing that I witnessed back in 2008. Having said that, it seems like not a whole lot has changed.
There's a saying in the community. When people come into the band office—and this is an organization that is supposed to improve the lives of our people in our community—the saying is, because of corruption and mismanagement, “In the real world, these things wouldn't happen.”
I don't want to get into too many specifics because, again, there are many examples. We have people who are still living with mould in their homes. We have a lack of housing. We have children, again, who are still being taken into care because we don't have the resources to look after them in our own communities.
When I look at the opportunities lost because of corruption and mismanagement, it's heartbreaking. I know that money is not everything, but sound financial management, strong governance, and laws and policies that are enforceable are needed in order to make things run more smoothly in our communities.
I grew up in a time that I call “the Indian Act times”—