Editor: I’m a small-c-conservative, and since the Conservative Party doesn’t practise true conservatism, there are no good options for me in the upcoming federal election.
I must accept the prospect of a left-of-centre government and, not one to be a sore loser, (I smiled for my NDP-loving friends this past May), I’ll not grumble about the outcome on Oct. 19.
But one issue has me sufficiently troubled to make my concern public. Justin Trudeau has declared that a Liberal government would scrap the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA) — not revise it, but abolish it entirely. Since the good people of the Stoney First Nation are our neighbours, this issue is worth the attention of Bow Valley voters.
When the Schedule Of Remuneration And Expenses for the Stoney First Nation was first made public in 2014, (as required by the FNFTA, which had been passed in 2013), the Outlook did not report this news. No article was published about the chiefs and councillors who collected six figure salaries (tax-free), plus six figure expense claims. (For comparison, the median annual reported income for chiefs in 2014 was just under $65,000). I will not speculate on the Outlook’s reasons for ignoring the story.
But my Stoney friends did not ignore the arrival of the FNFTA; you bet they looked up the numbers online. Indeed, they were interested (and subsequently appalled) to see what their elected leaders are collecting (and who wouldn’t be)? You see, the people I know from the reserve are not part of the ruling oligarchy; they are regular people, with little political influence. They don’t get invited to meetings with politicians like Trudeau. They don’t get to participate in panel discussions with self-appointed experts like John Ralston Saul.
So the crux of my concern is this: if you value your right to know the salary of your elected leaders, can you stomach the idea of removing that right from your Stoney neighbours?
It’s worth mentioning that the 2015 numbers are now online; one chief’s salary and expense claim increased by over 50 per cent to a total of $338,664. The combined monies paid to all the chiefs and councillors increased by 20 per cent, to $3.25 million. Meanwhile, far too many Stoney families remain in flood-damaged (i.e., mould-infested) homes. If you can recall the stress of June 2013 — we all experienced it in some way — consider that many Stoney families continue to live daily with that stress. For them, the flood remains an ongoing disaster. So it’s a fair question to ask: is the Stoney leadership providing good value-for-money to the people they represent?
If only the Outlook would run a story on this; it would be truly breathtaking to learn from the chief who claimed it, just how does one incur expenses of $108,000 in a single year?
What is happening on the reserve next-door is alarming … and it troubles me that the Liberal Party doesn’t want you to know about it.
Michelle Eve,
Exshaw
