On Friday, a letter from Indigenous Services Canada was made public informing the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations they had to repay the government $28 million.
The letter came as a result of a forensic audit of the organization in 2025 where $34 million in expenditures from the FSIN over a five-year period was flagged as being questionable.
In the letter, ISC informed the FSIN they to repay $28 million of the spending flagged in the audit.
The FSIN, however says they don’t plan to pay the money back and may take the federal government to court over the issue. This according to Global News.
The FSIN held a news conference on Monday, where they responded to the letter from ISC and brought up the potential legal action against the government. However, it appears, Global News was the only media outlet invited.
Multiple outlets who have covered this story since the beginning were not invited to the press conference.
These included MBC News, CTV, CBC and APTN – who broke the story of the ISC letter this past Friday.
MBC News has always been on the contact list for FSIN, where the organization informs members of the media of upcoming press conferences or events. However, MBC did not receive an invite to this particular press conference and MBC News also confirmed with a representative from APTN that they did not receive one as well.
The FSIN has not provided any explanation as to why several media outlets were not invited to Monday’s press conference.
The FSIN now has until April 2 to respond to the ISC or dispute the demand for repayment.