Feds troubled by reports of waste at Kanesatake

Criminal investigation possible, Day says. Alleged $9 million for policing funding mismanaged

By Jeff Heinrich
The Gazette

Canada's public safety minister said yesterday he's "very disturbed" by alleged mismanagement of an estimated $9 million in public funds used between 2003 and 2005 to pay for policing in Kanesatake, a troubled Mohawk community west of Montreal.

"We won't tolerate waste like that," Stockwell Day told reporters in Ottawa.

"It's hard to say if there will be a criminal investigation - it's possible," Day said in a scrum after question period in the House of Commons.

He was commenting on a draft audit prepared for his department of money spent to police Kanesatake before and after the violent January 2004 crisis that engulfed the village of 1,900 people after the community's grand chief at the time, James Gabriel, pledged to get tough on organized crime.

A final audit of the costs, also prepared by the Gatineau firm Samson and Associates, isn't expected for another two weeks, Day spokesperson Melisa Leclerc said.

With that final report, "we'll decide just what type of (charges) should follow," Day told reporters.

"We're very upset with this, very disturbed by this misappropriation that seems to have been going on, and, unlike the former Liberal regime, we won't be quiet about this," Day said.

Alluding to possible criminal charges, he added later: "We don't believe in this kind of waste going unattended, and we're going to take a very harsh look at it."

Detailed by Radio-Canada and CBC News on Monday night, the report sketches cases of double-billing of police officers' salaries, excessive overtime claims, dubiously cheap sales of used police vehicles to officers, expensive and unusual weapons purchases and other practices in Kanesatake connected to the January 2004 crisis and its aftermath.

According to Radio-Canada's investigation, the Quebec and federal governments have spent close to $34 million on policing in Kanesatake since the crisis. Most of that - close to $25 million - has been spent by the Surete du Quebec, which patrols the community from its station in neighbouring Oka. The remaining $9 million is the sum now under contention.

The crisis began Jan. 12, 2004. With a federally approved $900,000 budget, Gabriel brought in a special force of 67 heavily armed aboriginal police officers and special constables that day to patrol the village and investigate suspected drug-related criminal activity.

Besieged by local residents, they were forced out two days later, but continued to patrol on the village's outskirts.

Gabriel's house was burned down in the crisis. People involved in the siege were later convicted of rioting and forcible confinement of the native police. One of the accused also pleaded guilty to arson; he is to be sentenced in December.

Kanesatake has been run for years by a fractious Mohawk band whose spending has left the community bankrupt. But the Samson report also blames financial irregularities on PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada, the federally appointed firm that independently manages its finances.

The firm's "activities mainly consisted in the posting of financial data and the issuance of cheques without any questioning," according to the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Gazette.

"We noted the third-party manager exercised constant mingling between accounts to avoid bank account overdrafts."

Yesterday, a spokesperson for PricewaterhouseCoopers told Presse Canadienne its executives have not yet seen the audit and have no comment.

Gabriel told the CBC that though policing expenses were high in Kanesatake during his tenure, all spending was approved by the federal and provincial governments. And in an interview with Radio-Canada, current Grand Chief Steven Bonspille called the Jan. 14 operation a "coup d'etat" and asked: "Where is the money?"

The controversy now threatens to derail federally mediated peace negotiations between factions in Kanesatake, Ottawa' s chief negotiator Guy Dufort told Presse Canadienne yesterday.