This is a real doozy

How can this be possible?!  Three natives -- chief, ex-wife and son -- have received more than $4.1 million in remuneration in the past four years.  And over how many on-reserve natives of the Shuswap people do they preside?  Eight-seven.  Eighty-seven!!! 

That's it, folks.  Eighty-seven.  Did I say it one or two too many times?  Sorry about that, but it's absolutely scandalous.  How many times have I used that word in relation to the natives of this country?  Many.  Happily, thanks to the Harper government's requirement of full financial disclosure -- to which many bands have not complied --  their own people are now finally having the blinders lifted.

The Shuswap people are in Invermere, B.C., where I have done my open-water swim for the past couple of years.  Is it a thriving community?  No, the reserve is a dump.  Plain, simple and sad.   

"We had no idea," said one band councillor (who herself earns a non-paltry $57,700 annually, by the way).  "We are absolutely disgusted, Barbara Cote told Post Media.  Running for chief, she vows to reform band finances, if elected.  We'll see about that, Barb.   

"Some community members have gone without water and electricity in the winter, but were unable to get help from the band," said Cote.  Whaaaat!!  But their son says -- incredulously -- that he and his parents were entitled to their booty.  "I don't think they (the Conservatives) have been in power for 34 straight years," said Dean Martin, chief executive of Finbasket Development Corporation.  "To be a leader of a nation, and we're not just a band, we are a nation, and to lead it for 34 years is something totally unheard of, I don't care in what political field you're in," he irrationally and inarticulately continued.

Yeah, 34 years is unheard of because, by the way, it's un-democratic.  Buddy, get a grip.

No, you are not a "nation".  To be a "nation" a country has to have an army, collect taxes -- not just receive them -- and provide all health, welfare, security and infrastructure services of all kinds to its people.  

How we have misled regional bands into thinking they are "nations" is beyond me.  Did I say, "scandalous?"