FSIN trial hears of misspending, bullying

Former top executive testifies how she was let go for trying to do `what was right'

The former top administrator at the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations alleged in court that the organization's chiefs misspent money, demeaned a colleague and removed her from the job after she tried to intervene.

Danette Starblanket, the plaintiff, testified this week as part of a years-long civil court battle over her 2016 departure from the organization, which is the top political body for 74 Saskatchewan First Nations. The trial centres on whether Starblanket unfairly lost the job and was later pushed out of the organization.

Testimony has delved beyond that, highlighting stories of two women — Starblanket and Kim Jonathan, a former FSIN vicechief — alleging spurious spending and bullying at the FSIN.

“I hadn't been complying … I wasn't allowing them to violate those policies and procedures, and I wasn't acting in a corrupt and crooked manner. I was trying to do what was right … and I don't regret that,” Starblanket testified.

Starblanket, an academic, worked intermittently at the FSIN for more than a decade before becoming the chief operating officer — the right hand, essentially, to the FSIN'S elected chief.

She first filled that role under Jonathan while Jonathan served as interim chief in late 2014. Later, Starblanket said FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron offered her the job after he was first elected in 2015.

Starblanket said tensions mounted because of her support for Jonathan, who was facing mental health issues at the time and was the brunt of bullying from her fellow elected chiefs. “She needed support, and instead they attacked her,” Starblanket testified.

During cross-examination, the FSIN'S lawyers questioned Starblanket's recollection, saying FSIN chiefs had in fact encouraged Jonathan to take time off.

Starblanket testified she began to be left out of key communications. Later, her signing authority was suspended. She said Cameron informed her in March 2016 that her contract would not be renewed.

FSIN lawyers noted the annual contracts allow the FSIN to terminate employment without cause any point after a probationary period if appropriate notice is given.

Starblanket said Cameron had given her the impression she would remain his EOO for a considerably longer period of time.

She testified Cameron told her she was “blocking too much” when it came to expenses submitted by other elected vice-chiefs.

She said those included money taken from an early childcare program to hire a political staffer; travel expenses and $200,000 that was meant for treaty education but instead went to two staffers' pay, benefits and travel stays, including accommodation in Saskatoon that Starblanket said should have been paid by those employees out of their own salaries.

She wept on the witness stand when recalling a meeting when she asked chiefs to approve that funding, part of a larger $2.1 million fund she said came from casino revenues.

“(The chiefs) told me, `Danette, we're going to grant this to you, this $2.1 million, and you're going to promise us that it's spent properly.' I made that promise to the chiefs, and I was violating that promise by allowing that and signing off in that binder for that kind of spending deviations,” Starblanket said.

Jonathan testified that frivolous spending — including what she called “bogus contracts” — was tolerated and even encouraged by Cameron.

That clashed with stories she'd heard about early FSIN chiefs packing baloney sandwiches to save cash and scraping together gas money to travel to Ottawa, Jonathan said.

Cameron and FSIN vice-chief Heather Bear are expected to testify on Thursday.