There is a crisis of confidence surrounding public funding for Aboriginal programs and services in Canada today. That the Government provides significant funding to support programs, services and people through a wide range of transfers to Provincial, Territorial and Municipal Governments, Aboriginal organizations and Band Councils is indisputable. But there is substantial debate about all other aspects of the funding equation. All the parties to these transfers have concerns about the amount of money – is it too much, or not enough? All parties have concerns about accountability – are the measures that govern the administration of these funds adequate, and are these grants and contributions producing the expected results – and if not, why not? And many, including the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, are concerned about whether the funding is being targeted by governments and organizations towards the programs and people who have the greatest need.
The management of grants and contributions is only one piece of the funding puzzle. In addition to grants and contributions, there are national transfers to the Provinces and Territories under the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer, and equalization payments. Significant payments are made to Band Councils and their organizations to provide provincial and municipal programs and services, support negotiations, undertake consultations, and compensate for past wrongs. And, thousands of individual Aboriginal people are also direct recipients of Government of Canada programs such as Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement, Employment Insurance, and Child Tax Benefits. In spite of the fact that successive federal governments continue to claim increasingly higher investments for Aboriginal people, the basic socio-economic conditions of Aboriginal people show minimal improvement. 1.Everyone takes credit for providing or acquiring program funds, but it remains unclear who should accept responsibility for the deficit of results.
As a general rule, significant government program expenditures are developed, delivered and sustained through statutory processes that create a legal obligation on Parliament to fund them, and a further obligation on government to deliver a standard level of service to the public. Furthermore, there are penalties and redress mechanisms in place to ensure that deficiencies which compromise public safety or confidence are identified and addressed.
This is not the case with Aboriginal programs, which are mainly funded by the federal government as a matter of “policy”. Policy based programming is the realm of grants and contributions. It is also an unstable source of funding for essential services - subject to whims of partisan politics, changes in public perception, policy, priorities, and both positive and negative swings in the national economy. Of the $29 billion in grants and contributions that are managed by federal departments, it is clear that approximately one-quarter of these expenditures are for approximately 4% of the Canadian population. 2.The accountability regime that is attached to the management of an individual grant or contribution is onerous, but it is wholly focused on accounting for funding and disregards any substantial evaluation and assessment of results.
In this environment, demands for more funding may be premature. Federal, provincial and territorial governments have not resolved their issues regarding jurisdiction for Aboriginal programs and services. Band councils, tribal councils, and provincial/territorial and national Aboriginal organizations continue to compete for the opportunity to receive public funds while mandates and program and service delivery standards are poorly defined or unenforceable. The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples believes it is presently impossible for anyone, including governments and recipient organizations, to substantiate the amount of money that is required to deliver quality services to all those in need. The current system includes both gaps and duplication, and there has been insufficient effort applied to documenting these before more funding is thrown into the mix in the hope that it actually has the desired impact.
The need to demonstrate accountability has emerged across all sectors of the economy throughout the Western world in this century. The Proactive Disclosure process upon which this report relies and comments emerged at a time when the federal government was itself in the midst of an accountability crisis. Proactive Disclosure was an attempt to provide increased federal government transparency. However, accountability is not just about “the money”. The Auditor General frequently raises concern about the lack of clarity around roles, responsibilities and mandates for Aboriginal programs and services. Allegations of inappropriate conduct or abuse of resources may be issues that the media love to report, but the focus on wrongdoing rarely allows for productive discussion on systemic problems that are barriers to real results for Aboriginal people.
In the world of Aboriginal grants and contributions, requests for increased accountability are often met with allegations that such demands are motivated by racism, paternalism, or politics. For this reason, there is a general reluctance on the part of the government to address any but the most egregious accountability lapses, and only then if the amounts are substantial and the cases can be readily prosecuted. The reluctance to insist on full results orientedprogram accountability prevents any substantial progress towards resolving the real issue – that accountability is ultimately about programs being responsive to genuine need and public priorities. Admitting inadequacies - and resolving them - is the only way to restore public confidence.
Our work in this paper is intended to provide readers with some insight into a single aspect of the accountability issue – how Aboriginal funding is distributed amongst eligible organizations and recipients. The Proactive Disclosure system that we relied upon to provide us with data does not address results, jurisdiction, mandates, roles or responsibilities. It simply reflects who received grant and contribution funds at the time they were reported in the 2006/2007 fiscal year. Recipients will complete the financial reporting for these funds over the summer and fall of 2007.
The Congress anticipates that there will be a number of organizations, including government departments, who will want to challenge this work. We hope they do. It is our expectation that any ensuing debate can ultimately lead to increased transparency and disclosure of how Aboriginal Grant and Contribution funds are being allocated, managed and accounted for. Indeed, the Congress is willing to participate in any process that would answer the question “Where does the money go?”. We consider this report to be an invitation – to the federal, provincial/territorial governments and other Aboriginal organizations – to begin focused and purposeful work on ensuring that we are all working in partnership to improve the lives of the people that we mutually represent and to whom we are all ultimately accountable.
We want to add, finally, that the very limited information that is contained in the Proactive Disclosure system may be the only information that many people can access regarding federal Aboriginal funding for specific purposes or recipients. For this reason, it is important that the Proactive Disclosure reporting system be made as effective and transparent as possible to empower the public, especially Aboriginal people, so they can begin to ask questions and demand answers from their governments about the funding intended to improve their lives.
Patrick Brazeau
National Chief
Congress of Aboriginal Peoples
1. Martin Cooke, Daniel Beavon, and Mindy McHardy, Measuring the Well-Being of Aboriginal People: An Application of the United Nations’ Human Development Index to Registered Indians in Canada, 1981 – 2001. October, 2004
