Reported by Sun News: “…There’s no money mismanaged. There’s no money missing.” – Carolyn Bennett MP, Liberal Aboriginal Affairs critic on the Attawapiskat audit.
Carolyn Bennett is supposed to be looking out for Canadian taxpayers as well as looking out for the best interests of the First Nations people of Canada. By taking the stance that she has, she has FAILED BOTH constituencies! And it doesn’t seem to bother her at all.
Update: Ms. Bennett appears in Ezra Levant’s latest exposé on the corruption @ 5:25.
The Global story doesn’t surprise me. I grew up next to a reserve that had the band council office suffer mysterious fires twice, destroying all records. Both times during audits. Fortunately they had learned better by the third audit and only wiped the hard drive(s). So much easier on us taxpayers, you know.
All systems are only as good as the people who will use them. In a society of angels you need neither police, nor military, nor lawyers. In a society of real people one must consider what the incentives promote. The Chief in question failed at an audit, and is trying to keep the spotlight from finding out where tens of millions of dollars of public funds went. I don’t blame the Chief. She’s human. How on earth did a system that expects that those who get “public funds for the good of your people” get passed without any expected public accountancy? Any normal person who faces no threat of sanction over how funds are spent will do whatever is best for themselves. If they have never faced personal responsibility for their actions then of course they would try to take shortcuts: they’re human. What I can’t get over is the “you can’t hold them to the same standards, they’re just Indians.” viewpoint that seems to be the basis for so much of the reporting.
The government (and associated political parties) have a question to decide: are the Native Indians equal citizens to everyone else, or are they somehow different? If different standards apply then those who grow up on reservations will forever hold the stigma of “cannot be held to common societal standards”. If the same standards apply, then the government should apply the same criminal sanctions to this Chief that any other racketeer would face. It’s not an easy choice. No group that has held a preferred position within society (and seen the financial benefits that can be gained) wants to be average citizens. Similarly, no group wants to be seen as incapable of handling their own futures. The “idle no more” group has a tough choice in their future: will they no longer be idle because they don’t want to live as parasites, or will they instead trumpet “we’re incompetent members of society, and need perpetual subsidies because we’re useless”? I fear it’s the latter, because those making the choice haven’t considered the former.
@ C_Miner
Agree, and even if they have considered the former they will take the path of least resistance which is the latter. No special status in the former and that would mean giving up the “victim” status which has served them so well. When incompetence is applauded by a sympathetic white liberal majority there is no incentive for change.
C_Miner:
“To be, or not to be: that is the question…”
“The government (and associated political parties) have a question to decide: are the Native Indians equal citizens to everyone else, or are they somehow different?”
That is the essence of the matter, isn’t it? Nothing can be resolved until your question is answered, IMO.
Go back to dmorris’s December 30, 2012 reference to John Ivison’s “agenda column”. All of that says — and contributes — a lot to the discussion, actually. Which is why I think dmorris brought it up.
As a further recommendation, I would re-read Margaret Thatcher, “The Downing Street Years”, and the discussion of the coal miners’ strike in the early 80s (Chapter XIII, Mr. Scargill’s Insurrection, p. 339); as a model, only, for what’s happening now).
Peterj, I suspect that the sympathetic white liberal majority will get substantially smaller in the coming weeks. The Lieberal party has never recovered from Adscam and people are feeling overtaxed. While many people feel that it’s inappropriate for native Indians to be living in squalor, they’re not at all in favor of seeing their tax dollars ensuring that the chief of a tiny reserve owns an Escalade and that the chief’s relatives are compensated with salaries that the mayor of a major city could only dream of.
One of the things that people like the least is being taken advantage of. When it’s done in as blatant a manner as chief Spence has done the backlash is going to be tremendous. Maybe this was PMSH’s plan all along; give her enough rope and she’d metaphorically hang herself. Now the bill requiring audits of how government money is spent on reserves will have easy passage and I expect the next major government expenditure that’s going to happen in the near future is the construction of new prisons to hold all of the criminals that currently infest the corrupt mess known as native government.
Kicking the MSM off the reserve will likely turn out to be the stupidest decision that Spence has made in a long history of making idiotic decisions that would have put any white person in jail years ago. The MSM will start playing catchup with Sun TV and I expect there will be a sudden deluge of stories about mismanagement of funds by incompetent and nepotistic Indian chiefs. It’s telling that people on her reserve were quite ready to talk to the Global reporters about what kind of thievery they’ve seen in the past by the band kelptocracy. All of the Lieberals that visited her during her “hunger strike” will be seen for the fools they are.
It will take longer to deal with the double legal standard that ensures Indians can do no wrong since they’ve been so “traumatized” by the white man. They will get little sympathy from the hard working recent immigrants to Canada who are likely appalled by the blatant corruption that they’ve seen. There are a lot of hard working Indians who are as pissed off as the average Canadian about the situation and this may be the start of the end of the reserve system. Where I live, the native Indians work for the most part and the last place most of them want to go live is on a reserve. The primary reason they visit the reserve is for cheap smokes and cheap gas (unfortunately my one patient who would give me the “Indian rate” for gas died recently).
Maybe I’m being a little over-optimistic but a successful kleptocracy exists only by being discreet. When the self-designated “entitled” are blatant in their thievery, they had better be prepared for the inevitable consequences. It will be interesting if the government response to the inevitable escalation of distractions by the perennially idle will be the same in the next few weeks.
If any of your liberal and/or Liberal friends out there STILL don’t understand why what T. Spend has done is so incredibly heinous, throw this little scenario at them:
Imagine a single mom on the Attawapiskat reserve with 2 – 3 young children. She wants the very best for her children, both in the present and in the future. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, she has grown out of favour with the local powers in the town. Thus, her and her kids are some of those living in squalor.
What is such a person to do? The cards are stacked entirely against her. The regular rules of justice don’t apply to her. She has complained to the lower judicial powers but they’re all in the pay of Spend & Co. so won’t help her. She was all set to talk with the visiting media about her plight but they were just kicked out of town.
So dear liberals/Liberals, why do you refuse to help this destitute single mom and her kids? Why?!?
Its apparent that the liberal party does not have a leader, our that the un official leader is a far left loon whose only motivation is Harper derangement syndrome.
When Carolyn Bennett opens her mouth I hear Patsy Cline.
“I don’t blame the Chief. She’s human”
That’s like saying, “I don’t blame the CEO for ripping off his shareholders, there was insufficient oversight and after all, he’s human. All that money was just… there, for the taking”.
Theft is wrong, whatever controls are in place. Controls are established to control spending, but it’s usually assumed that whomever is in charge will act in a fundamentally honest manner and not steal from the company or organization. It’s even more reprehensible in this case because of the general decay and tragic conditions in which these people live, when there was more than ample funds to raise the people out squalor. But this reprobate, who – in a rational society – would soon be facing criminal charges for this behavior, padded her wallet and those of her pals while others lived in conditions from which the SPA would rescue animals.
But the left’s visceral hatred of Harper, combined with their typical of low expectations for all things aboriginal, gives Spend a free pass on this issue. You were about 95% bang-on in your post, C_m, apart from excusing this woman’s conduct because the system wasn’t rigid or enforced enough to force her to act morally.
mbh – the difference in cases you’re citing is a legal, not a moral one. In both cases the act is morally wrong and seen to be so by all of us. The case of the thieving CEO is also illegal. The laws of Canada don’t apply on reserves (see the hypothetical single mother who’s out of favour, whom I would estimate numbers in the 10s of thousands across the country). I think that they should, but in their absence it makes sense for those that can milk the system to milk the system. Especially if it’s ingrained in their culture to maximize their own resources for the hard times ahead.
As for “… excusing this woman’s conduct because the system wasn’t rigid or enforced enough to force her to act morally.” I’m looking forwards to the abuses of folks like her causing enough outrage that the rules can be changed and “whitey” standards of accountability can be applied. Traditionally chiefs did what they wanted because they were the chief. It makes more sense if you consider the traditional setup as being thug-in-chief. It’s a simple societal setup that is carried through in crony-capitalist societies everywhere. And is less built into the Anglosphere than any other culture that I’m aware of (though I expect that I’ll hear of others as a result of this post).
The difference between legal and moral is, I think, better illustrated with driving. It is illegal to speed. It is immoral to drive dangerously. Driving faster than conditions warrant is driving dangerously, regardless of speed limit. I don’t know of anyone who has driven who hasn’t sped at one time or another (or constantly) because it was of benefit for them, personally, to arrive 5 minutes earlier. Knowing that their driving might be immoral or dangerous to others doesn’t cause them to change their behavior. Over time, speeding tickets and loss of drivers licenses provide the legal backup for the moral behavior that dangerous drivers don’t feel applies to them. In effect, the current Indian Act says that those who live on reserves don’t have to pay attention to speed limits. If she drives sanely then there’s no problem. Instead she’s doing the equivalent of 200 km/hr through school zones with her escalade. I have kids in school, so want her to be subject to the same rules as everyone else. Or have her taken off the road because of a faulty tail-light or whatever pretext is needed to get her to follow the same rules as the rest of us.
She is right, the money wasn’t missing, it was STOLEN!!!
So by your logic everything that has gone wrong with all those involved in applying the tenets of the Indian Act are to be thrown at Harpers feet.?? get real. The Liberals have since A$$holes time (1967), been intent on doing anything that keeps them in power…nothing else. Their whole political life it has been about doing that which will ensure votes – PERIOD. I gaurantee you that this soon to be upturned rotten apple cart will show Liberal complicity/corruption within the transferring of monies here, there and back again…right into Liberal party coffers. This female Liberal sack of $hit is just another in a long line of scammers.
As for T Spence….what can you say..?? mired in a filthy cesspool of her own making and still believing the Febreeze is working.
Guess who our new Indigenous and Northern Affairs cabinet minister is in the new government?