Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) Grand Chief David Harper survived a non-confidence vote by his fellow chiefs Sept. 10 at the organization’s 33rd annual general assembly at Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN) adjacent to The Pas. Sixteen chiefs voted against the non-confidence motion, nine supported it and one abstained. MKO still faces two forensic audits amid allegations of misspending by the grand chief, which Harper denies.
In July, chiefs had voted to ask Harper to take a voluntary leave pending the outcome of the two forensic audit investigations, but he refused. That refusal triggered Wednesday’s vote at OCN.
MKO, a non-profit, political advocacy organization founded in 1981, represents 30 First Nation communities in Northern Manitoba, many of which are remote and economically impoverished. MKO First Nations are signatories to Treaties 4, 5, 6 and 10.
Harper, then chief of Garden Hill First Nation, was first elected as MKO grand chief at the 28th annual general assembly at Opaskwayak Cree Nation on Sept. 2, 2009. Harper succeeded Sydney Garrioch of Cross Lake, who served two terms as MKO grand chief between 2003 and 2009, but stepped down to seek the federal Liberal nomination for Churchill riding, which he got, but later ran unsuccessfully against NDP incumbent Niki Ashton in the May 2011 federal election.
Harper beat out three other candidates for the grand chief’s job in 2009 and was re-elected for a second three-year term after winning on the second ballot Aug. 29, 2012 at the 31st MKO annual general assembly on Norway House Cree Nation. Garden Hill First Nation is situated on Island Lake and adheres to Treaty No. 5. The reserve covers about 18,180 acres and is only accessible by winter road or air. The language in the community is Oji-Cree, often referred to as the Island Lake dialect. Garden Hill has more than 4,000 band members.
Harper was raised in Garden Hill First Nation by his grandparents and attended school there. He later obtained his commercial pilot’s licence and worked as both a corporate pilot and public relations manager for a regional airline before returning to Garden Hill in the mid-1990s.
The push to removed Harper was led by Chief Arlen Dumas of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation at Pukatawagan. Dumas has been one of the leading local players in Idle No More – Northern Manitoba since early last year, and squared off with Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co., Ltd. over mining issues in Northern Manitoba.
More than two-thirds of the current MKO chiefs have been in office less than two years.
MKO’s executive council called in Winnipeg-based forensic auditor Lazer Grant in August 2013 to look at $1.1 million paid to former director of finance Glen Buchko from 2005 to 2011 and and contracts issued by the organization. Buchko was paid about $250,000 annually. The chiefs on the executive council later asked the auditor to expand the investigation to include Harper’s expenses. They questioned a number of items, such as guitars purchased as gifts at a Christmas party, payments for Harper’s girlfriend to travel and repairs to his car. Harper has said he paid back all his personal expenses.
Last month, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada’s assessment and investigations branch, in an Aug. 12 letter, signed by Sylvie Lecompte, director of the branch, told MKO that it had hired KPMG to audit the books in a separate investigation of its own. KPMG was formed in 1987 with the merger of Peat Marwick International (PMI) and Klynveld Main Goerdeler (KMG) and their individual member firms. The auditors want to looking at how MKO used funds from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada. The organization received around $25 million from the federal government between 2009 and 2012, the latest financial documents available on the AANDC website show.
Harper has said auditors will find no problems with the books.
MKO is awash in red ink. Just in the last year, MKO’s accumulated deficit has increased by more than 30 per cent to about $1.298 million, according to its consolidated financial statement for the fiscal year ending March 31, from about $965,000 the previous fiscal year. MKO had also accumulated an operating deficit of $609,058 by March 31, 2013, which was a 71 per cent increase over the previous year’s operating deficit of $356,108.
Winnipeg-based accountant Bernie Shore, who recently reviewed MKO’s books, told the organization in an Aug. 24 letter he could not audit the organization’s consolidated financial statements for the 2014 and 2013 fiscal years. “I have not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion,” wrote Shore. “I do not express an opinion on these consolidated statements.”
Shore also said in the letter he could not review MKO’s federally-funded aboriginal skills and employment training program (ASETS) for the 2013-2014 fiscal year because the money lacked a paper trail. “I was unable to verify recorded or unrecorded amounts related to assets, liabilities, net debt, accumulated deficit and expenditure.”
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