Pinehouse Business North. Photo courtesy of Village of Pinehouse.
The tiny northern village of Pinehouse Lake is one of the most secretive in the province when it comes to divulging information about its finances.
It was cited seven times by the privacy commissioner for refusing to comply with freedom of information requests.
The privacy commissioner says his own office often couldn’t get responses from the village, leaving him no choice but to write up the complaints and urge it to comply, even offering assistance from his office.
This does not sit well with a group called, Pinehouse Info. Spokesman, D’Arcy Hande, says it looks like someone has got something to hide.
“Where the money is going?” he asked. “We can’t get financial statements, especially from Pinehouse business north, and we just don’t understand what is going on here.”
Hande is also a freelance writer, who did a number of stories on the community and its collaboration agreement with Cameco. He says a lot of corporate money went into the community, but it’s not clear how the administration spent it.
“We are trying to get answers as to where this money is going because some people in Pinehouse are saying, well our streets aren’t in any better shape,” he said.
Hande would like to see tougher freedom of information laws, including giving the privacy commissioner the power to initiate legal action against groups and individuals that basically ignore requests for public information.
Pinehouse Mayor, Mike Natomagan, has been contacted and said he will provide comment this week.