The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) says that its current management “discovered serious and significant financial irregularities” that its Board was not aware, since it silences the companies and sells a property worth millions of dollars.
The outstanding National Defense Group has been involved in agitation during the last year, but now he says he wants to return to collective defense, saying in a statement without signing on Tuesday that he cooperates fully with a federal audit that covers the fiscal years 2018-2024 while performing a internal review of his own.
“We are committed to reconstructing NWAC as an organization of truth and transparency,” said the statement.
However, a base defender is skeptical. Bridget Tolley is an activism and defense accessory in Ottawa, organizing manifestations and vigils through group families in spirit based on volunteers, including an annual vigil on October 4.
She has been looking for justice for more than two decades after her mother, Gladys Tolley, was beaten and killed by a Cruise of the Provincial Police of Quebec in front of her home in Kitigan Zibi Anishinabebg in Quebec.
“I don’t care about any of those organizations. They mean nothing to me,” said Tolley.
“I think that the work we have been doing is due to the base. National organizations are only there from 9 to 5. Things happen at night and on weekends with disappeared and killed. [Indigenous women] And there is no one around to help us, but these guys get all the funds. “
Tolley participated for the first time with NWAC in 2004. A year later, NWAC obtained funds for Sisters In Spirit, a five -year research, education and policy initiative on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. But the financing was exhausted in 2010 and was not renewed.
“This is when everything went downhill. We never listened to anything from them. They never invited families to meet them. Nothing,” said Tolley.
That is why Tolley said she was surprised to receive a NWAC email last week asking if the organization could help with the vigil of October 4 this year. Tolley hesitated to respond, NWAC in question may be trying to use the bases to increase your own credibility.
“I was surprised,” he said.
“I don’t want them to really get involved because they used us last time, and it was very painful and the pain is still there. It is triggered.”
Headquarters for sale for $ 8 million
CBC Indigenous asked NWAC for an interview on Monday, after reviewing Quebec properties records for real estate holdings in the organization. Nwac’s statement said it will not give interviews and that it did not provide details about the alleged financial irregularities.
Public records show that the recently renewed headquarters of NWAC in the Gatineau helmet sector, which is sold for a sale price of $ 8 million, was re -re -re -re -re -was in recent years for several million dollars more than the initial purchase price. The group was making renovations that included a cafeteria, a gift shop and an art gallery during that time.
NWAC bought the property in 2018, obtaining a mortgage for $ 1.8 million, according to the records. The organization obtained another mortgage in 2020 for $ 5.9 million, and the records show that NWAC obtained another mortgage worth $ 7.5 million in 2022, just around the top of the real estate boom of the pandemic era.
A lawyer who reviewed the Scriptures said that this is not unusual, since each new loan probably paid the remaining balance of the previous one, and the cash may have been used to finance construction or property may have been used as a guarantee to pay other companies.
“Some real estate, especially in the area in which they were investing, were not, how we can say, very updated,” said Nicolas Vinette, a Gatineau headquarters with Duclos Soci Eté d’Avocats.
The organization is now trying to sell a multimillion -dollar investment in an area surrounded mainly by federal buildings, he said, which was hard due to the start of remote work during the pandemic, and which is now sought more for residential real estate instead of commercials.
“For commercial purposes, it is not the easiest market,” said Vinette.
But there is still an opportunity to succeed with the investment, he added.
“It will simply be a matter of: Is anyone willing to pay that amount of money for this building?”
Mi’kmaq’s lawyer, Pam Palmater, says that the Native Women’s Association of Canada should not be planning a boutique hotel.
The NWAC pivot towards real estate development was part of a plan to give more freedom by generating their own code income, a movement that some critics described as elitists and disconnected.
The NWAC Routine Audit by 2023 indicates that the organization had two mortgages that year, one with a value of $ 5.8 million paid in monthly installments of approximately $ 37,000. The other mortgage was worth approximately $ 610,000.
NWAC also has a property, its resilience shelter, in Chelsea, which, about 15 kilometers north of Ottawa, which is also on sale. Public records show that NWAC bought the property in 2019 for $ 880,000, with an associated mortgage of $ 850,000.
In his statement, NWAC said that the income of the sale of their assets will be re -investigated in the promotion of social, economic, cultural and political well -being of indigenous women.
