Cree council divvies up $700,000
Bigstone chief, councillors divvy up $700K
An Alberta First Nation is mired in controversy after its chief and council recently awarded themselves bonuses worth nearly $700,000, apparently unbeknownst to the band membership until after the cheques were cut.
The Bigstone Cree Nation band council’s decision to take a payment from a band-owned company it controls points to problems with the band’s governance and could be unlawful, according to Sean Jones, a Vancouver lawyer practising Indigenous law.
“If the band doesn’t have any bylaws that authorize this, there certainly could be a problem here," he said. “Certainly there’s clearly a risk of conflict of interest.”
The bonus cheques were issued after a plan to nearly double a severance allowance for the First Nation’s elected representatives was abandoned this summer. Chief Gordon Auger had put forward the plan less than a month before he announced his own retirement ahead of the band’s upcoming election, slated for the end of October. After the plan became public, the increase was scrapped — and replaced with bonuses.
Travis Gladue-Beauregard, a band member who opposes the decision, said the issue is part of a larger transparency problem within the First Nation government. “It’s really sad, because we have a lot of members that are living in poverty,” he said.
The Bigstone Cree Nation, which includes the communities of Wabasca, Chipewyan Lake and Calling Lake in northern Alberta, has a population of roughly 8,000 and is governed by a chief and 10 councillors from the three communities.
Auger was first elected in 1992 and has been chief, on and off, since then. In July, he announced his intention to retire. “I truly feel that I contributed to building up the nation from practically nothing to where it is now due to the fact of devoting 24/7 of my time as the chief of the nation,” he wrote in a letter.
One month earlier, according to documents obtained by the National Post, Auger had sent a proposal to the council regarding a new “retirement package” for chief and council, referring to their “countless days and hours of family and personal sacrifices.” The plan would have increased the severance for the chief to $150,000 from $80,000 and to $130,000 from $70,000 for councillors.
Coun. Josie Auger wrote a letter opposing the change. “The history of increasing the transitional allowance without a membership meeting and referendum breed irresponsibility and a lack of accountability to membership,” she wrote. The letter was published on the Facebook page of the Bigstone Empowerment Society, a group co-founded by Gladue-Beauregard in 2016 that aims to improve transparency.
Gladue-Beauregard said there was an outcry about the plan when the community learned about it, and the council backed down.
However, July meeting minutes show that even as the chief and council voted to leave the severance allowance alone, they voted to approach Mistassini Aboriginal Contractors Ltd. (MACL), a band-owned company whose board of directors consists entirely of the chief and councillors, “to request the funds for a onetime dividends payment for chief and council as following: $70,000 for chief and $60,000 for council members.”
With the existing $80,000 severance payment, the $70,000 bonus would appear to bring Auger’s total compensation to $150,000 as he leaves office.
Gladue-Beauregard said news of the bonuses didn’t leak until the cheques were cut in September. Since then, three councillors have published photos of cheques issued to them that they appear to have rejected. Josie Auger, not one of the three, told the Post in an email that she also refused the money.
“It’s nobody’s business but ours,” said the chief in a brief phone interview Wednesday.
The Post was unable to reach most of the councillors, though two, reached by phone, declined to say whether they’d accepted the money. One councillor, Stella Noskiye, said only that the chief and council are “underpaid.”
Financial records provided to the federal government under the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA) show that the chief was paid $90,000 in 2016-17, while each councillor made $82,800.
Mistassini Aboriginal Contractors Ltd. was incorporated in 2015. The entire band council used to sit as its board of directors, though two have since left the board, including Josie Auger. The other, Gloria Anderson, sent a letter to council earlier this year announcing she was resigning from the boards of 27 band-owned businesses she had been sitting on. “I believe that business and politics must be separate,” she wrote. “A review of the current Bigstone Cree Nation business entities corporate structure needs to be conducted.”
In a recent interview with local publication Windspeaker.com, Chief Auger said he had negotiated a “big contract” for MACL to work on a transmission line, and the payout was in recognition of his work. “I said we deserve a goddamn good bonus,” he said.
Under the FNFTA, all First Nations must provide financial statements to the federal government. But the legislation doesn’t require detailed information about band-owned businesses, as that could put them at a competitive disadvantage by forcing them to reveal private business information.
Gladue-Beauregard said band members have little information about revenue from band-owned businesses, and don’t even know how many such businesses exist. MACL isn’t listed as a business entity on the band’s website. He said the First Nation desperately needs money to repair roads and improve housing, and profits from band-owned businesses should be put to better use on behalf of the membership.
However, it’s unclear whether the Bigstone Cree Nation chief and council have done anything unlawful. An RCMP spokesperson confirmed to the Post that the local detachment received a complaint from a community member, but an investigation didn’t lead police to believe “that any type of criminal act has been committed.”
Still, Jones said that having the MACL board of directors be comprised entirely of the chief and council “presents a number of opportunities for conflict of interest.” He pointed to a 2015 court decision that ordered a B.C. First Nation’s band councillors to repay bonuses they had granted themselves without consulting band members.
“Generally, good governance would require that there’s kind of a division between the political arm of the First Nation … and the business arm,” he said. And in small communities where overlap between the chief and council and business entities is unavoidable, he said, “there’s a heightened need for there to be transparency and policies to govern conduct.” EDMONTON • When the Supreme Court of Canada hears an appeal on Thursday in the case of an Ontario trucker acquitted in the death of an Indigenous woman in an Edmonton motel room, its decision could make significant changes to the way the courts treat consent and sexual assault.
The justices will determine whether or not Bradley Barton should be retried in the death of Cindy Gladue and, in doing so, they will consider whether or not a sexual partner could be found guilty of sexual assault if both parties agreed to the activity and figured it was harmless. The top court will also consider if there should be different, stricter standards of consent for sex workers.
The pair met at the Yellowhead Inn in Edmonton in June 2011 and Barton paid Gladue for sex. The next night, they met again. The next morning, her body was found in the bathtub after Barton called 911. Gladue died from an 11-centimetre wound in her vagina. Barton argued it was an accident — he testified that both nights he’d put his hand in her vagina — while a medical examiner argued she’d been cut.
A jury found Barton not guilty of manslaughter and murder in 2015. The Crown appealed following nationwide protests and the Alberta Court of Appeal ordered a new trial. Barton appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
As it stands now, consent is negated when someone intends to and causes harm. But the Alberta Crown, as well as attorneys general in other provinces, including Ontario, argues that an “objective likelihood of harm” cancels out sexual consent.
“In effect, it would mean that, although both parties apparently consented to the activity, and although both regarded the conduct as harmless, one of them could nonetheless be found guilty of sexual assault,” said University of Saskatchewan law professor Michael Plaxton in an email.
If the top court orders a new trial, it could be held under these updated definitions of consent, said Lisa Silver, a University of Calgary law professor.
“If the error and order for new trial is based on the meaning of consent, then yes, the legal principles articulated by the court would be the ‘law’ so to speak,” she said. “However, if the court says, ‘yes, there is a need for a new formulation of consent and we leave that to Parliament,’ then Parliament will need to act quickly and make those changes for them to apply.”
Barton’s lawyer, Dino Bottos, argues that consent versus harm arguments were only raised at the Alberta Court of Appeal, not in the initial trial, and therefore shouldn’t affect his client’s case.
It would be akin to double jeopardy, Bottos said. “We’re just trying to hold the line.”
Redefining consent, Plaxton said, would be a fairly significant departure from current law. The Attorney General of Canada is calling for a narrower change, he said.
In its factum, it argues there should be different standards of consent, based on the sort of relationship in question — specifically, when it comes to selling sex.
“In identifying at what point commercialized sexual activity resulting in bodily harm should be criminalized, the focus is not only on whether the conduct causes harm, but on whether that harm is of a degree that is acceptable to society,” the factum states. “Limiting what types of paid sexual activity can be lawfully consented to is necessary to shield a vulnerable group from sexual exploitation and abuse.”
Valerie Scott, one of the plaintiffs in the Bedford case that took the fight against Canada’s prostitution laws to the Supreme Court, said she “intensely dislikes” the idea that there should be a twotier system of consent.
“It’s yet another way of infantilizing sex workers. We don’t need these special protections, which will be used against us,” Scott said. “But, no, I don’t think people can consent, or be able to consent, to something that causes serious bodily harm, or death. Whether sex is involved or not. Whether money is involved or not. We don’t need this other tier against sex workers.”
The Supreme Court could also decide not to weigh in on these arguments, and instead stick with the strict legal questions about errors — or not — in the Alberta Court of Appeals ruling.
“They can certainly stick to the grounds, or they can really open this up to a bigger conversation or they can say ‘we’re only going this far, and the rest of the way is up to Parliament,’ ” Silver said.
In addition to questions of consent, the Supreme Court may consider how Gladue was described during the original trial. She was referred to, repeatedly, as both “Native” and a sex worker.
While Gladue’s employment may have been relevant in this particular case, previous sexual history is generally disallowed in courts on the basis it supports the “twin myths”: that the person was more likely to have consented because of her previous sexual history and that she’s less believable because of that sexual history.
Calling Gladue “Native” only made things worse, says the Assembly of First Nations in its factum.
“The labelling of Cindy Gladue as a ‘Native’ gave the jury implicit permission to determine that she was less worthy of protection under the law ... It is a striking acknowledgement of longheld racist and dangerous stereotypes that Indigenous women and girls are sexually ‘available for the taking.’”
“I’m worried about my daughter and grandbaby. I don’t know where they are. You know, that’s hard,” she said, choking back tears.
Hurricane-force winds extended up to 75 kilometres from Michael’s centre. Forecasters said rainfall could reach up to a 30 centimetres, and the life-threatening storm surge could swell to four metres.
A water-level station in Apalachicola, close to where Michael came ashore, reported a surge of nearly 2.5 metres.
Based on its internal barometric pressure, Michael was the third most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland, behind the unnamed Labour Day storm of 1935 and Camille in 1969. Based on wind speed, it was the fourth-strongest, behind the Labour Day storm (296 km/h), Camille and Andrew in 1992.
It appeared to be so powerful that it was expected to remain a hurricane as it moved into Alabama and Georgia early Thursday. Forecasters said it will unleash damaging wind and rain all the way into the Carolinas, which are still recovering from Hurricane Florence’s epic flooding.
At the White House, President Donald Trump said the government is “absolutely ready for the storm.”
“God bless everyone because it’s going to be a rough one,” he said. “A very dangerous one.”
In Mexico Beach, population 1,000, the storm shattered homes, leaving floating piles of lumber. The lead-grey water was so high that roofs were about all that could be seen of many homes.
In Panama City, plywood and metal flew off the front of a Holiday Inn Express. Part of the awning fell and shattered the glass front door of the hotel, and the rest of the awning wound up on vehicles parked below it.
“Oh my God, what are we seeing?” said evacuee Rachel Franklin.
The hotel swimming pool had whitecaps, and people’s ears popped because of the drop in barometric pressure. The roar from the hurricane sounded like an airplane taking off.
Meteorologists watched satellite imagery in complete awe as the storm intensified.
“We are in new territory,” National Hurricane Center Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen wrote on Facebook. “The historical record, going back to 1851, finds no Category 4 hurricane ever hitting the Florida panhandle.”
As winds started to topple trees in Tallahassee, one of them landed on Joe Marino’s chimney.
“It was like an earthquake. The bookshelf shook and a frame fell down,” he said. “It was weird. We went outside and you could smell the pine, and there it was, laying on the chimney.”
Marino, who lives with his girlfriend and her grandmother, said they feared the wind would send the tree crashing through the roof. They planned to stay on the first floor.
“Upstairs is a no-go zone,” he said.
GOOD GOVERNANCE WOULD REQUIRE ... A DIVISION BETWEEN THE POLITICAL ARM … AND THE BUSINESS ARM.