Legacy of Corruption

Ineptitude can be excused. There is always the hope that expertise can be acquired, with good will and determination, to function properly, to do the job at hand. But outright corruption? Another story altogether. That some elite members of Canada's aboriginal communities feel a sense of entitlement to whatever they can grasp, any funds they can make off with for their own enrichment at the expense of the larger native community is beyond contempt.

It's been known for quite a while that the Winnipeg-based Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin, initiated in 1996 with great expectations that it would represent a model for First Nations health care failed miserably. In that millions of dollars funnelled into the network was used for personal vacations and visits to spas, none of which had anything whatever to do with health care services for the people they represented, but rather a lavish spending spree for administrators.

Trips to Norway, Hawaii, Israel and New Zealand; pedicures, massages, facials; all high-living "extras" for those on the inside. While aboriginal communities they were meant to serve faced ongoing deficits in struggling to pay for dental benefits and other health-related procedures for their people. Instead of functioning as it was set up to do, overseeing community nursing stations and providing pharmacare and vision care to 7,500 Aboriginal residents living on and off reserve in Manitoba's Interlake region, millions slipped into the wrong hands.

It was revealed by a Health Canada audit that former CEO of the AMA Daryl Cote, somehow swifted $2-million in unrecorded payments to Manitoba chiefs and band councils. Spending habits of the AMA first came under federal suspicion following a 1998 audit. The Virginia Fontaine Addictions Foundation erupted into a scandal in 2000 when it was discovered that millions were spent on trips, cars and jewellery. Address the problem of addiction in native communities? Trips, cars and jewellery took precedence, had infinitely more appeal.

Later investigations by Health Canada revealed that Paul Cochrane, head of the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch had accepted over $200,000 in bribes. For his help in permitting millions of dollars to enrich the Virginia Fontaine Centre. Does this make Phil Fontaine wince?

The RCMP is investigating. Health care funding is now going directly to Interlake native communities. Let's all hope their administrators care to care.