One of the bigger news stories in Canada of late is the ongoing hunger strike of a First Nations chief, ostensibly being carried out to force a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss conditions on the remote northern Ontario Attawapiskat reservation.
The legacy of the “discovery” and settlement of North America by Europeans and their subsequent relationship with natives is a topic far too complex for this blog, but the story took on an element of particular interest with the “leak” of a Deloitte audit report on the administration of the community.
That report has been posted online in its entirety.
Deloitte sampled 400 transactions from the G/L across the 6â…” years in scope. Sixty per year and 40 for the eight month period ending November 30, 2011. Slightly less than 20% of the 400 had no issues. No supporting documentation was available for just over 60% of the sample, and the other 20% was either incomplete or the occurrence of the underlying event was questionable. It should be noted though that in the most recent 20 months reviewed, only for 31 of the 100 samples was there no supporting documentation.
What the audit didn’t do (and wasn’t designed to) was determine whether $104M over that time period is adequate for the population on the reserve. It’d be an interesting analysis to look at the number of households, average people per household, repairs and maintenance funding per household and per person, and figure out whether there is enough funding to support their needs or not. That’s the heart of the issue.
ALso, were they expected to retain those files for future audits?