The following is a letter by Gerald M., sent to the Prime Minister and Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development, making the case for the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. While the CTF disagrees with his suggestions in paragragh 5, the letter still bears reading:

Prime Minister Trudeau,
Minister Bennett,

In your election platform, you pledged that if elected, you would repeal the FNFTA as the Indian Act Chiefs found it offensive and they claimed that it posed an unfair advantage in business negotiations with mainstream businesses. I will state for a fact, that regardless of how badly anyone including myself and your liberal government will villianize and criticize the Conservative government which implemented this legislation, the vast majority of First Nations citizens absolutely love this legislation and are very concerned that you would even contemplate on repealing something which for the first time in well over a hundred years has given the people some form of transparency and financial accountability from the Indian Act Chiefs and Councils.

In the views of most of the silent majority of Indigenous citizens who are band members of the reservations, this was the most positive and significant action any federal government implemented to bring us some forms of transparency and accountability.

I myself know for a fact a chief in Manitoba who was a very frequent flyer to Las Vegas, New York City and other international destination locations under the guise of "band business". But when the FNFTA was given royal assent and proclaimed into force, this chief immediately ceased his frequent flying and has not gone to out of country to so-called business meetings since because he fears being exposed.

The biggest disservice you will be doing to both transparency and accountability for federal funding and for the Indian Act chiefs and councils to be somewhat accountable and transparent to their memberships is to repeal this hugely popular legislation as the chiefs and councils will revert back to the non-transparent and unaccountable behavior they had been accustomed to.

The FNFTA should be amended only to prevent mainstream busineses from knowing the full financial power of the band. You must amend it so the bands do not have to post own source revenues and audits online but they must provide hard copies to all band members immediately upon request, and the FNFTA must be expanded to include all PTO's, tribal councils and all other entities created by the chiefs including all First Nation trust entities as these are the new fronts opening up in the move to evade accountability and transparency. They create shell corporations or entities and shuffle money from entity to entity or to subsiduaries until there is no funding or paper trail to report.

Please do not amend this very popular FNFTA as it would be a major step backward and will inflame alot of anger and animosity from the grassroots citizens. Rememebr, the grassroots citizens vastly outnumber the Indian Act Chiefs and Councils and their inner circles so it is in accordance with good principles of democracy and good government to act in the interests of the majority rather than  follow direction from people who are in truth, an arm of government as they are created by, empowered by and recognized by the government legislation called the Indian Act. 

I would also advise you to have your justice department explore the reality of the lobby groups like the AFN, FSIN, all tribal Councils and other entities created by your modern day indian agents are not mentioned in the treaties or s. 35, constitution act, 1982 and therefore, not mandatory federal funding eligible.

If you feel strongly about doing consultations, please make sure you go directly into all the First Nation communities and consult directly with the people and not the chiefs as they will be in a blatant conflict of interest if they are the only ones being consulted on legislation which oversees them. Remember the trouble with police policing and investigating themselves? This is no different.

Gerald M.