Despite recent reports of corruption and fraud on several Indian reserves in the Maritimes, the federal department responsible says it is not handing out blank checks to band councils.

This April, Eskasoni band members revolted when they heard reports that their chief, Alison Bernard, earned more than $400,000 tax-free in the last 14 months. This, while the reserve has been plagued by chronic housing shortages and poverty.

This summer Colleen Sappier of Tobique went on a hunger strike to protest the disparity between the livelihoods of band members and the poverty of much of the rest of the reserve.

Last week, three Big Cove social workers appeared in court charged with Breach of Trust and Welfare Fraud totalling more than $1 million.

In each case, dissidents accused the federal government of creating a system that is totally unaccountable.

Gov't can't defend itself

Gordon Shanks, the assistant deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, says his department is accountable. The problem, he says, is that laws like Access to Information and the Privacy Act make it difficult to prove it.

Shanks says 75 per cent of native communities are well managed and his department is trying to work with the rest to weed out policies that encourage the misuse of public money.

"We're trying to work with those communities to build capacity," says Shanks, "to replace the kinds of policies they need so that issues like nepotism, conflict of interest, those kinds of things are not possible."

Legislation needs change

Another problem Shanks says the department must deal with is the Indian Act itself, the only law that applies to native management on reserves. He says it's an archaic and often racist piece of legislation written long before the days of modern democratic government.

The Minister of Indian Affairs is considering new legislation that would set out tougher guidelines to enforce financial accountability, good governance and a structure for redress if band members have concerns about how their money is being handled.