City Hall wide open compared to TIB

Just suppose you wanted to attend a Kamloops City council meeting — not a lot of people do, but work with me.

Now suppose you called City Hall to find out the date and time for the meeting. What if the voice on the other end of the line said:

“Do you have permission, sir?”

“Well, uh, no. Do I need it?”

“We don’t let just anybody attend council meetings, Mr. Blotz. But it’s easy to apply, as long as you can prove you’re a citizen of Kamloops. Just submit an application and we’ll let you know. But if you’re turned down, don’t worry about it — you can read one of our reports later to find out what’s been decided.”

That, of course, would be ludicrous, but it’s not far from the situation at the Tk’emlups Indian Band.

Monday, the Band and City councils and appropriate phalanxes of administrators got together in a meeting room at Hoodoos, the Sun Rivers restaurant and club house.

After 40 minutes or so of introductions, they got down to talking about economic development, the City’s bus plan and the Band’s ongoing mission to get a CN-paid walkway across the rail bridge.

Then they went in camera to do some “group work to explore common goals and path forward.”

Maybe they compared notes on transparency in government, though it wasn’t written down on the agenda.

While City council has been a little sensitive lately on the issue of in-camera meetings, it is ablaze with luminosity compared to the TIB.

City council likes to hold its strategic-planning workshops in secret, but at least it follows up with some discussion in public, does its best to attract ratepayers to budget sessions, and holds weekly open business meetings.

While the issue with the City narrows down to those strategic-planning sessions, the TIB cuts a much wider swath with its no-go zone.

A few weeks ago, this paper’s request to attend Band council and band-member meetings was turned down despite Chief Shane Gottfriedson’s assurance that anyone could attend if a request was made in writing.

After we so requested, Gottfriedson said the TIB council was against the idea. “Council felt at this time it wouldn’t be appropriate to have media attend meetings…. We deal with way too many sensitive issues.”

John O’Fee, the TIB’s chief executive officer, and a former Kamloops City councillor, defended the exclusion based on those “sensitive issues” and the issuance of “regular updates related to our operations and events.”

In front of our federal lawmakers right now is Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act. It would require Indian bands to disclose audited consolidated financial statements, and salaries and expenses of band corporations as well as elected officials.

The bill came after a Canadian Taxpayers Federation investigation that showed 82 First Nations chiefs and band councillors were being paid more than Stephen Harper.

Gottffriedson has referred to the bill as “regressive” and “paternalistic.”

Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Carolyn Bennett does Gottfriedson one better, calling Bill C-27 “racist.”

In fairness to the TIB, it does issue a comprehensive annual report that includes financial statements, though I don’t see salaries listed there.

Regardless, there’s a lot more to transparency than issuing reports and “updates.”