Public Policy Sources #38:
Transparency

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A final matter of great importance is that of transparency. Nothing is more important to a functioning democracy and true accountability than the public right to know precisely what its governments are up to.

In terms of the accountability of Parliament, while taxpayers currently fund almost all of the activities of Indian governments, court decisions (which Parliament could have overturned but has not) have led to the existing practice whereby the actual use of these public funds by Indian bands is unknown to the public. This is wrong in principle. It is unthinkable that some of the waste and corruption reported from various small Indian governments—reports which may only survey the top of the iceberg—could have reached such an advanced stage were there public, Parliamentary scrutiny of all public funds flowing through Indian governments.

More importantly, as the Auditor General has frequently noted, without such details the general public is prevented from properly assessing the success or failure of existing Indian policy.

Treaty settlements will do nothing to remove this issue from the table. Indeed, the almost $500 million Nisga'a Treaty settlement will not reduce the $30 million per year taxpayer support of band government activities. Quite the contrary: funding will increase by almost 10 percent in order to look after the new costs of the bureaucratic structure set up by the treaty, and the treaty provides that less information than ever will be available to the general taxpayer.

Indeed, Section 2-44 of the Nisga'a Treaty provides that "... information that Nisga'a government provides to Canada or British Columbia in confidence is deemed to be information received or obtained in confidence from another government"—i.e., protected from Freedom of Information laws.

All new treaties should contain a provision that so long as external governments provide more than a certain fraction of Indian government revenues, say 10 percent, the full books should be available to the public.20 This is, of course, the case with any municipality in BC, with no minimum limit. A government is not a private society, like a shopping centre. A government is public property, and so should be its information.

With respect to the Nisga'a Treaty which provides no such comfort, it may be possible to build such a requirement into financing agreements, but it also may be that S.2-44 above would preclude even that protection.

Apart from the legitimate concerns of the general taxpayer, there is a concern with respect to internal Indian government democracy. Without knowing how the funds are being used, tribal citizens cannot assess whether they are being properly spent. Indeed, as frequent newspaper stories attest, with respect to existing band practice, even band members often cannot gain access to the detailed books of account, in spite of material claims of abuse.

Section 11-9(l) of the Nisga'a Treaty says that the Nisga'a constitution must "require a system of financial information comparable to standards generally accepted for governments in Canada." The difficulty is, the financial accountability of federal and provincial governments is not very good, and only works at all because of an active Opposition and press—institutions unlikely to be active in very small governments. The "full, true, and plain disclosure" which governments require of corporations is a far higher standard. That, or the municipal standard is more appropriate for treaties.

As an example of how apparently comforting words (such as those about financial accountability consistent with those of other governments) can have little meaning, one need only look at Section 11-9(k) of the Nisga'a Treaty which requires that "... all Nisga'a citizens are eligible to vote." And indeed they are under the Nisga'a constitution. The problem is that off-lands citizens have a vote worth only (roughly) ten percent the value of an on-lands citizen in electing the Nisga'a legislature. Is this right and proper when the Nisga'a government disposes of a patrimony equally owned by all?

The bottom line is this: where treaties establish Indian governments, they should include very strong Freedom of Information provisions, both for citizens of the Indian government, and for general taxpayers as long as they are significantly funding the Indian government.

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Last Modified: Thursday, August 5, 1999.