National Post View: Respect aboriginal rights — keep the First Nations fiscal transparency act – National Post

September 2, 2015

About a third of Canada’s aboriginal communities, it was revealed this week, are due to have funding for non-essential services suspended for failing to report their financial books on the federal government’s website. This is a requirement of the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, passed in 2013, which requires aboriginal bands to publish this information, including the salaries and covered expenses of chiefs and counsellors, online.

It is a critical and overdue measure of accountability: in common with other politicians in Canada, aboriginal chiefs cannot properly be accountable to the people they represent if their finances are not open to scrutiny. At the same time, given the funding bands receive out of federal revenues, it is reasonable that the broader Canadian public should be able to see where their money is going, and for what.

Read More: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/national-post-view-respect-aboriginal-rights-keep-the-first-nations-fiscal-transparency-act