From the Globe and Mail, a case of the pot calling the kettle black:

Vowing to better represent aboriginals who live off reserve, about 60 natives from groups across the country met quietly in Gatineau, Que., over the weekend to launch a new national native group.

The man who brought them together -- and whom they elected grand chief -- is Guillaume Carle, a controversial figure with a varied background that includes modelling for Eaton's, military police work, computer science and country singing.

He said the goal of the new organization is simple: to replace the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the main national group representing natives who live outside of reserves. The new group will have the same acronym and a very similar name: the Confederation of Aboriginal Peoples.

Of course, this isn't going down well with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples:

But Patrick Brazeau, the national chief of the congress, is fighting back. He accused Mr. Carle of appealing to people with questionable native lineage who simply want a card that may let them hunt and fish without a licence.

"It's difficult to ascertain if these people are actually aboriginal," Mr. Brazeau said in an interview. "We're not paying too much attention to this organization because we saw first-hand how Guillaume operated as president of the [Native Alliance of Quebec], which almost led to his suspension," he said.

Mr. Brazeau said the congress and the native alliance asked the RCMP and the Sûrete de Quebec this spring to investigate allegations that Mr. Carle used his position as chief of the congress's Quebec wing to direct contracts to his private technology company.

This is all fascinating, because Patrick Brazeau is Frank Brazeau's brother. Frank Brazeau is the bureaucrat who was at the centre of the Abotech affair. Essentially, the allegation was that Frank Brazeau and former Liberal MP David Smith, who is a close cousin to brothers Frank and Patrick, were engaged in a conspiracy to direct contracts from within the Ministry of Public Works and Government Services (where Frank Brazeau worked) to Smith's computer consulting firm, Abotech. Abotech was a middleman, passing contracts on to others, and taking a cut.

Frank Brazeau lost his job, and David Smith's company had all the contracts cancelled.

David Smith lost his bid at re-election for the riding of Pontiac, which includes Gatineau, in the January election. The riding went to Laurence Cannon of the Conservatives, one of the ten Quebec seats picked up by the Tories in January.

Not only is it interesting that Patrick is accusing Carle of doing what Patrick's own brother and cousin were punished for doing, it is also funny that Patrick should bring up the question of legitimate aboriginal status.

You see, David Smith was a member of Patrick's Congress of Aboriginal Peoples through the Quebec affiliate, the Native Aliiance of Quebec.

The "Abo" in Abotech is a reference to aboriginal, and Abotech was listed as an aboriginal company and so was eligible for set-asides. Is David Smith an aboriginal, putting aside his membership in the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples? His claims is based on having one great grandmother was an aboriginal. Chief Jean-Guy Whiteduck is the chief of the Kitigan Zibi Band in Maniwaki, Quebec. Maniwaki is David Smith's hometown, and the farm on which Smith was raised was surrounded by the reserve. Chief Whiteduck was adamant -- David Smith did not deserve to be designated as an aboriginal, and the Chief had little time for the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. He saw it as filled with people like David Smith, who used the most tenuous claim of aboriginal status as a way of gaining access to special privileges. An abuse of status that Patrick Brazeau says would be systemic in Carle's organization.

But Abotech is in the past. Right now, there is an ongoing lawsuit about native housing linked to Carle, Brazeau, and these competing organizations:

A lawsuit filed by a Quebec native leader has exposed allegations of death threats and financial mismanagement at a social housing company linked to a national aboriginal group.

Guillaume Carle, former president of the Quebec Native Alliance, filed the suit in Quebec Superior Court. The alliance is the Quebec affiliate of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, which represents aboriginals living outside of reserves.

Mr. Carle alleges there are widespread problems with the alliance and the company it uses to deliver social housing programs, Corporation Waskahegen. His suit, filed in February, claims the president and nine directors orchestrated a defamatory campaign to remove him from office so he would not expose financial mismanagement, such as loans to directors that violated company rules.

The corporation, which has a $21-million annual budget, is mandated to build and repair more than 2,000 social housing apartments for low-income aboriginals off reserves. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. contributed $9.4-million to Waskahegen and its subsidiary in 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available. Another $3.2-million came from the Quebec government.

Carle says when he was elected president of the Alliance in 2003, he tried to break to cozy relationship between Weskahegan and the Alliance leadership. Patrick Brazeau claims that Carle never raised the issue with the national office. Carle has responded by alleging that death threats were made against him. The president of Waskahegan and his brother have been arrested on charges of issuing death threats and will appear in court in August.

In 2005, Carle lost his position when his company Nighthawk Technologies was caught in some sort of conflict of interest. But what is weird is that the conflict of interest involved a contract with Waskahegan, the same corporation Carle said he was in a fight with because he felt that it was too close to the Congress leadership:

Another letter, said to be in the possession of the Alliance and purportedly from the administration of the Waskahegen Corporation, addressed to each director of the Alliance, contains allegations of improprieties committed by Mr. Carle; he is accused of attempted fraud by submitting an invoice from his company, Night Hawk Technologies for $56,937.38 under a program administered by the Waskahegen Corp for the members of the Native Alliance. The letter is purported to contain five other complaints.

The directors then go on to list nineteen complaints including misapprobation of public funds for personal use, unilaterally changing the logo and insignia, issuing contracts, failure to release financial statements or other operational documents such as minutes of meetings and so on.

Where is the federal government in all this?

The federal Indian Affairs Department has also questioned financial practices at the congress. Department funding to the group was recently restored after being frozen for five months because of an audit of its national office in Ottawa. The department is now auditing the provincial affiliates of the congress, including the Quebec wing.

According to a March 14 letter to the congress from Fred Caron, an assistant deputy minister at Indian Affairs, the federal audit was meant to look into how the organization spent funds to study Metis rights, as well as "allegations raised by the [congress's] board of possible financial mismanagement by a board member."

Patrick Brazeau of the Congress is as dismissive of the audit as he is of Carle's Confederation.

Bottom line is that there seems to be plenty of reason to worry that Canada's off-reserve natives (the legitimate ones) are not likely to be well-served by either group, regardless of who comes out on top, and that all Canadian taxpayers should be concerned about how their tax money is being spent.