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Chief Kirby Constant is welcoming news of a forensic audit for James Smith Cree Nation (JSCN).
Formal notice received on Friday from Indigenous Services Canada confirmed the audit will be conducted by KPMG and overseen by the Assessment and Investigation Services Branch of ISC.
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“When I first started my campaign for chief, I said we need to do an audit just to find out what happened and where everything is at and see if there’s been discrepancies, because you hear stories,” he said.
The audit will begin shortly and take a few months to complete. All expenditures from April 1, 2018, to the present day will be reviewed, including Jordan’s Principle and child, family and prevention services.
Jordan’s Principle is funding intended to assure that Indigenous children can access government-funded health, social or educational services regardless of where they live and without seeing their cases bogged down in jurisdictional disputes.
“If there’s misdoings, there’s misdoings, and then we will deal with it appropriately but if there’s nothing then our members can at least know our previous leadership did not do any misappropriation or any of our admin staff or anyone like that,” Constant said.
Through a statement on Facebook, Constant encouraged all members to cooperate fully with the audit, and noted he has been working with the other two JSCN chiefs to make sure requests sent to administration to support ongoing accountability are completed in a timely manner.
“This cooperation is essential because our shared goal is to act in the best interests of you, the members,” he said in the posting.
In addition to initiating this forensic audit, Constant also confirmed he has been working to lay the groundwork for new processes that strengthen financial oversight and improve how they govern and deliver services.
“From governance to finance, every effort is being made to ensure that the structures we put in place truly serve our people, and that outdated or ineffective approaches are replaced with ones that reflect accountability, transparency and community well-being.”
James Smith Cree Nation, which is made up of three individual bands, is located about 45 minutes southeast of Prince Albert.
The company running the JSCN audit is the same one that conducted the audit of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN). Preliminary findings, which were not publicly released, and Constant said he has not heard any update.
“It’s just troubling that it’s almost a month after the audit was done and then nothing … crickets,” he said.
— By Nigel Maxwell
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