A University of Victoria professor has misgivings about the federal government's requirement that First Nations submit financial statements and chief and council member salaries for posting on the Aboriginal and Northern Development Canada website.
"The principle is good, the implementation has been very poor," said John Borrows, Law Foundation Chair in Aboriginal Justice and Governance at UVic.
He said Ottawa failed to get "buy-in and willingness" from First Nations prior to passing the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA), which came into effect last year.
There are other ways to meet the goal, Borrows added, noting much of the information was already available although it was not as easily accessed prior to the FNFTA.
Particularly troublesome for Borrows is that First Nations are required to disclose numbers related to funding from the federal government that might be intermingled with private investment.
He said that raises the risk of business secrets being inadvertently unveiled which could a chill on attracting outside money.
Chief and council members' pay is often not strictly for their political work.
"It depends on the community, but they could be running four or five different investment branches," Borrows said.
"There could be a timber company, a mining company, there could be a convenience store or a gas station and these various activities are just not accurately reflected when you get a one lump sum reporting of a figure on a website."
First Nations are extensively audited in terms of how they spend federal funding.
"Every year First Nations are audited on how they're doing with the money that's extended to them," Borrows said.
"Those audits sometimes take you into the next fiscal year and the money's not released... it puts many First Nations communities in a financial crunch where they're having to borrow from Paul to pay Peter.
"There's not a stable, long-term measured funding mechanism in place because of continual auditing."
Ottawa should take a look to the United States for a better system, Borrows suggested.
"Because they've got them on a schedule with a longer time horizon and measured milestones in the interim period, it's much smoother running their civil services in their communities," Borrows said.
First Nations had until midnight Tuesday to submit the documentation or risk losing funding from the federal government for non-essential services.
The Lheidli T'enneh were among the 182 First Nations who missed the deadline but it intends to have everything ready by Sept. 16.
