All the Gold You Can Eat

This is how AM radio hosts, newspaper columnists, and other pasty white guys think money is distributed to the First Nations:

This is what is being sold to the public. The Chiefs line up, hand over an empty shoe box with "Receipts" scribbled on the top, and go diving for money, with no oversight at all.

Of course, the government of Canada doesn't do that. The monies paid to the First Nations have to be approved by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. They even have a handy workbook which lays out best practices, high-risk (financial) behaviour, and ways to better spend the funding provided. Suffice to say, there is oversight, there is management, and the government can't blame the First Nations if money goes where it shouldn't with no documentation.

In fact, very little government expenditure is done with no oversight. Except on one burgeoning front; online income tax filing. Other than things like your RRSP and T4, you're kind of on the honour system.

According to Canada Revenue Agency spokesperson Philippe Brideau "based on the 20.2 million individuals who had filed by May 1, 2011, the average refund to date is $1,506".

We also know the number of people filing online (Source: StatsCan):

3.7 million — The number of persons aged 16 and older in Canada who filed their income tax returns online from home (otherwise known as netfile) in 2009. This was up from 3.1 million in 2007.
18% — The percentage of home users who used the Internet to file their income tax return in 2009. Online tax filing was most common among experienced Internet users.

In 2011, "Among the 25.4 million returns received as of June 14, 16.8 million were filed using electronic services, which is up from 16.1 million at the same time last year."
 
Filing online means that you produce no documentation unless you get audited. Basically, you stick you hand into the treasury, take out what you say you're owed, and hope to get away with it.  And largely you will as you don't have every racist Sun News columnist and bugfuck crazy right-wing blogger going over your every expense and trying to shame you into staying poor.

I know it's fun to poke the Indians and accuse them of taking money they don't deserve, or of taking money without proper documentation, but we are moving towards a system that pays/will pay out millions (Tens of millions? Who knows?) of dollars with absolutely no corroboration. Maybe a little less hypocrisy is in order?