MORGAN: Mark Carney must restore indigenous financial accountability

On June 2, 2022, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau gave the Siksika reserve in Alberta $1.3 billion as a land claim settlement. In March 2025, I toured the reserve and shot a video showing appalling housing conditions, rampant garbage, wild dogs, and general disorder on what should have been one of the wealthiest reserves in Canada. In response to the video, the reserve charged me with two counts of trespassing. That case is still before the courts today.How is it that a relatively small community that just received a payment nearing $200,000 for every resident looks like a third-world country only three years later? The chief and council certainly don’t want that kind of question being asked. So they have been going to incredible lengths to have people charged for exposing the conditions there.The band itself hasn’t filed its audited consolidated financial statements and Schedule of Remuneration and Expenses since 2021. So there really is no way to know what the administration and leadership of the band are doing with the finances.How is it that a band responsible for the well-being of thousands of citizens with over a billion tax dollars in its hands doesn’t have to file its finances?Well, you see, Trudeau’s gifts to indigenous chiefs and councils didn’t just comprise cash and land. He also directed then-minister Carolyn Bennett to have her department stop applying the First Nations Financial Transparency Act’s compliance measures, reinstate any previously withheld funding, and suspend related court actions. Chiefs and councils despised the Transparency Act that the Harper government created, and they gladly offered their electoral love to Justin Trudeau in return for his defanging of it..What good is a transparency act if there is no compliance requirement? As can be seen on the Siksika reserve and on other reserves across the country, the act has become pointless.Trudeau’s way to end fiscal transparency on reserves wasn’t terribly transparent. Rather than take the flak for repealing the act, he simply ensured the compliance measures would never be enforced. Financial filings on the part of indigenous bands are based on the honour system, and unfortunately, honour is often lacking in the management of indigenous bands.More than half of Canada’s bands failed to submit audited financial statements for 2024 — 2025 by the March deadline. Why should they bother?Whether the rationale is simply sloth, ineptitude, or corruption, bands are feeling less and less inclined to disclose what they do with their finances.Pretty much every type of organization or institution has some form of financial filing requirement attached to it — whether it’s a small charity, a corporation, or a level of government — and for good reason. While most people are inherently honest by nature, there will always be a proportion of people who aren’t. Checks and balances have evolved over time to ensure that corruption can be held to a minimum and, if it is discovered, the people behind it can be held accountable..If indigenous bands aren’t required to file audited financials, corruption isn’t simply likely. It’s inevitable. The people paying the price for the ineptitude and corruption in the management of indigenous bands are taxpayers up front and the indigenous citizens of reserves themselves who live in appalling conditions. It’s not just fiscally irresponsible not to enforce compliance with financial reporting on indigenous reserves; it’s inhumane.Mark Carney hasn’t been afraid to reverse many policies of his predecessor, and he should add Trudeau’s ridiculous lifting of financial reporting compliance measures to his list. With more than $30 billion flowing annually and growing own-source revenues and trust funds on many reserves, basic public financial disclosure is a reasonable condition of large-scale transfers. Enforcement tools, such as funding holds for persistent non-compliance, should be restored so the rules have practical effect. These indigenous governments can and should be accountable to their own citizens as well as to the taxpayers footing the bill, and the absence of enforceable disclosure has not advanced that principle.Many indigenous chiefs and councils are spending more time trying to prevent outside exposure of the conditions on their reserves than they are trying to correct the conditions. Spending more on indigenous affairs while not requiring financial responsibility among those given the funds is just throwing good money after bad.Some chiefs and councils might be upset if compliance requirements were reinstated, but indigenous citizens on the ground would see the benefits of such a move quickly. It’s long past time to demand rather than ask what the indigenous leaders have been doing with the billions of dollars they have been entrusted with over the last ten years.

MORGAN: Mark Carney must restore indigenous financial accountability

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