Congress Of Aboriginal Peoples Under Scrutiny
Monday, June 19, 2006 at 15:08
The Globe and Mail is reporting that Indian Affairs has frozen all funds to the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples over rumours of misspending.
CAP represents off-reserve Native people, including Metis.
A full-scale audit is underway to look into how the organization spent federal money that was to be used for examining the impact of the Supreme Court’s Powley decision on Metis harvesting rights.
The paper says the federal department decided to suspend all funding to the group after hearing allegations of more widespread misspending.
The organization’s leader, Patrick Brazeau, blames federal bureaucrats sympathetic to the previous Liberal government, who Brazeau says prefer to dismiss his group.
CAP was the only national Aboriginal organization to back the Conservatives in the last election.