Three of the five land and water boards in the territory were scrambling Tuesday to post financial statements to their websites after SA国际影视传媒 began looking into why they have not been made publicly available for the past several years.
Land and water boards are responsible for issuing water licences and land permits in the territory.
According to the (MVRMA), "a board shall, within three months after the end of each fiscal year, submit to the federal Minister, in such form as the Minister may specify, a report on the activities of the board in that year including its financial statements for the year."
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree is required to make the financial statements public. SA国际影视传媒 reached out to Anandasangaree's office, however, it declined to comment by press time.
According a spokesperson for Anandasangaree, his department needed more time to come up with answers.
The boards that have not been posting their financial statements are the WekSA国际影视传媒檈ezhii, Sahtu and GwichSA国际影视传媒檌n land and water boards. These boards all represent regions of the territory with settled land claims. The territories' two other land and water boards, the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, which represents areas of the territory without settled land claims, and the Inuvialuit Land and Water Board, all have up-to-date financial statements on their websites.
Ryan Fequet, executive director of the WekSA国际影视传媒檈ezhii Land and Water Board, initially told SA国际影视传媒 on Friday, Oct. 4, that he didn't think media was privy to any financial statements. On Tuesday, Oct. 8, however, he said those statements are available upon request, and that they're now working to make their financial statements public. When SA国际影视传媒 again asked to see the financial statements Tuesday he said they weren't yet available.
He added that this is the first time anyone has requested to see board financial statements, so they have never spent the time getting them onto their websites.
"No one has ever cared about this before," said Fequet.
He said it's the minister's responsibility to make the financial statements available to the public, adding he didn't think they needed to be on his board's website nor has he received any direction from the minister on posting the statements. "They're supposed to be made public. The minister is responsible for that."
"We're happy to oblige and it's something we haven't done, so guess what? We have to do the work to post them properly, so that we can do this moving forward," said Fequet.
Kathy Racher, executive director of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, said it is mandatory for all land and water boards under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act to ensure their financial statements are publicly available.
Financial statements from the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board are available on its website dating as far back as 2010.
Financial statements for the Gwich'in Land and Water Board began appearing on its website Monday, Oct. 7, after NNSL asked about their whereabouts last Friday. They are now up to date.
The Wek'eezhi Land and Water Board's financial statements began appearing on its website Tuesday afternoon, although initially they were not hyperlinked so they could not be read. They were made clickable about an hour later but they only go back three years.
The Sahtu Land and Water Board did not have its financial statements posted publicly by press time Tuesday. Paul Dixon, their executive director, said Monday, that he doesn't know what their obligation is at the moment, but he and other executive directors will start working on their absence soon.
"That has been identified as an endeavour to do," said Dixon.
