Sask. First Nation says crackdown on unauthorized renting of reserve land behind recent protest

A recent occupation of the Carry the Kettle First Nation's (CTK) band office south of Indian Head, Sask., was related to accountability, according to one of the lead demonstrators — but the band says it was about a land management bylaw.

The Oct. 13 protest lasted less than a day after a Regina judge granted an injunction requested by chief and council.

Connie Gray Bellegarde, one of the protesters and a member of the First Nation's elders group, said the protesters held the demonstration because they want to know where band money has been spent.

She said they want any transaction over $5,000 considered by the chief and council to be brought to band members and passed by the membership.

"That is all we want," she said.

CTK Chief Brady O'Watch said the band posts its audited financial statements on its website — and the audits have been unqualified "for a long time."

An unqualified opinion means that no material misstatements have been identified by auditors in the statements.

O'Watch said the issue was a new land management bylaw, which came into effect this year and relates to the band's on-reserve agricultural lands.

Gray Bellegarde denies that but said the bylaw is an example of the band council implementing laws without formal ratification from the band's membership.

In a letter sent to band members last year, CTK said the main aim of the new bylaw would be to return the benefits of the First Nation's agricultural reserve land to all members as opposed to "those few who actually ranch, farm and cut hay."

"The current practice of informal buckshee agreements between individual members and non-members to rent agricultural reserve land will stop," the letter said.

Buckshee agreements are informal arrangements for use of land by third parties that are not legally enforceable.

Instead, users of the First Nation's agricultural lands, both members and non-members, will be required to pay a permit fee equivalent to fair market value rent, the band said.

It estimated the new permit fees could bring in $1 million to the First Nation each year — on top of the higher rent it could charge and the "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in additional federal funding it would receive to manage the land.