Fifty-nine percent of First Nations in fiscal 2024-2025 failed to comply with financial transparency legislation, despite Ottawa spending more than $32 billion on indigenous issues across the country that year, a new Fraser Institute report has found.
First Nations are required under the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA), passed by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2013, to publicly disclose their audited consolidated financial statements and a schedule of the remuneration and expenses paid to their chiefs and councillors.
The legislation was enacted to help ensure federal taxpayer money is used for its intended purposes by First Nations. It gave Ottawa the legal right to withhold or terminate payments to non-compliant bands. …