{"id":99530,"date":"2025-12-09T03:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T08:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=99530"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:20:17","slug":"auditing-where-the-money-goes-first-nations-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/12\/09\/auditing-where-the-money-goes-first-nations-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Auditing where the money goes, First Nations edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t think many Canadians would argue with the government providing funding to First Nations groups in remote areas so they have access to services and amenities that most of us take for granted. But the government has been giving so much money for so long with very little evidence that the money is actually making a difference. Surely, a regular system of audits would show what happens to the money after the feds cut a cheque and why conditions in First Nations communities aren’t improving? Well, on the social media site formerly known as Twitter<\/em>, @The Reclamare<\/a> shares a thread detailing some of the findings of a recent audit of a First Nations NGO and it’s kind of disturbing:<\/p>\n

Where our taxes go, First Nations Edition<\/p>\n

KPMG audited the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) representing 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan<\/p>\n

They analyzed spending between April 2019 and March 2024<\/p>\n

Hang on\ud83e\uddf5<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

#1 – COVID Funding <\/p>\n

$26 million was audited
\nKPMG found $23.5 million was questionable
\n** an 89% failure rate**<\/p>\n

– no records
\n– missing contracts
\n– missing invoices<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

# 2 – Travel expenditures<\/p>\n

$800K of travel spending was audited
\n$316K was flagged by auditors, a 39% failure rate<\/p>\n

Half the travel bookings couldn’t be justified, either policy violations or they couldn’t explain the purpose. And one Vice Chief was billing personal trips<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

# 3 – Executive Pay Raises during Covid<\/p>\n

On November 5, 2020, a briefing note went to FSIN’s Treasury Board recommending:<\/p>\n

$60,000 pay raise for the Chief
\n$40,000 pay raise for each Vice Chief<\/p>\n

Retroactive 8 months prior<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

# 4 – Fleet Vehicles
\n$1.4 million in fleet purchases examined
\n$427,966 flagged as questionable, a 29% failure rate<\/p>\n

Executives purchased new trucks every couple of years, but couldn’t prove it was necessary, and then sold the old vehicles to themselves at a loss<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

# 5 – Payments to former employee
\n$530,136 was audited
\n$246,524 was flagged, a 46% failure rate<\/p>\n

One person had a side company billing for work they were being paid to do as an employee.
\nThey also resigned to obtain severance, only to be rehired a week later<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

#6 – Procurement
\n$1.5M audited
\n$300,000 flagged, a 19% failure rate<\/p>\n

9 vendors used the same invoice template paid out of a Vice Chief’s program, where the “deliverable is unknown”<\/p>\n

49 transactions totalling $492,332 didn’t have proper approval for the purchase<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

#7 – Administration
\n$11 million audited
\n$8 million flagged, a 72% failure rate<\/p>\n

$5.2 million went to “executive offices”
\n$2.3 million went to new vehicles and a building<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

# 8 – New Office Building
\n$1.2 million audited
\n$962,000 flagged, a 75% failure rate<\/p>\n

FSIN used grant money to pay for the building. Then claimed rent payments for repayment by Ottawa<\/p>\n

As well, they doubled billed taxpayers for utility and maintenance costs<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

# 9 – Fees and Charges for Services
\n$630,000 audited
\n$410,000 flagged , a 65% failure rate<\/p>\n

– took ineligible payments
\n– over charged $74,000 for photo copies
\n– over billed $98,000 for vehicle expenses
\n– double billed $20K in rental fees<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

FSIN is not an Indian Band but a First Nations middle man
\nThey are an Indigenous NGO receiving tax dollars to administer government programs, like Covid relief<\/p>\n

They cheat their own people, and taxpayers
\nAnd nothing will come of this audit, cause it would be “RaCiSt” \/Fin<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Last one – the FSIN @fsinations
\n is the same as Coastal First Nations @CFNGBI
\n and Union of BC Indian Chiefs @UBCIC<\/p>\n

NGO’s taking money away from other First Nations, its people, and CDN tax payers<\/p>\n

\n

The FSIN is an independent NGO, comprised of Indigenous from various bands.<\/p>\n

The audit is not of the spending of 74 different bands, but the single NGO who works on there behalf to administer government programs<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t think many Canadians would argue with the government providing funding to First Nations groups in remote areas so they have access to services and amenities that most of us take for granted. But the government has been giving so much money for so long with very little evidence that the money is actually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,25,84],"tags":[697,1456,438,194,442,539,91,753],"class_list":["post-99530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-cancon","category-economics","category-government","tag-budget","tag-competence","tag-firstnations","tag-fraud","tag-ngos","tag-pandemic","tag-poverty","tag-saskatchewan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pTk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99545,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99530\/revisions\/99545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}