About

About the Open Ledgers Project

Plains artists once drew their own histories across the pages of accounting ledgers. The Open Ledgers Project keeps a ledger too: a public, sourced record of how money meant for Indigenous businesses and communities is spent and overseen.

Who we are

Nathan and Michael Rainy Chief

The project is run by Nathan Rainy Chief and his partner, Michael Rainy Chief, in Edmonton, on Treaty 6 territory.

Nathan Rainy Chief (he/him)Nathan is a member of Kainai First Nation and a descendant of Rainy Chief, a signatory of Treaty 7. He grew up hearing his family's stories in his great-grandmother's kitchen. Many were about ancestors who saw leadership as a responsibility to the people, never just a title. That is the lesson he brings to this work: those trusted with resources meant for a community owe that community an honest account. Nathan finds the questions worth asking and the opportunities to ask them.

Michael Rainy Chief (they/them)Michael leads the research, with seven years of post-secondary study in political science, public administration, Indigenous rights, and Canadian and U.S. law. Michael is not a lawyer, and the project does not give legal advice. Michael moved to Canada with Nathan several years ago to be closer to Nathan's family, and became a Canadian citizen in 2024. Coming to the community from the outside, they believe accountability matters at every level of government and wherever public money is spent. Michael does the footwork: filing the requests, reading the records and working through the complexities.

The project's logo comes from Nathan's ledger drawing Charlie Davis. Charlie Davis was Nathan's great-great-grandfather.

Why we started

Unpaid, and hard to get answers

In 2026, Indigenous businesses, Elders and artists who worked with the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, including at its February conference in Edmonton, reported going unpaid for months. When we asked how the public money behind these programs was managed, the answers were hard to get. This site collects what the public record shows, and what is still being withheld.

How we work

Records, not rumour

Records, not rumourAccess-to-information requests, audited statements and published reporting. Every claim links to its source.
No allegations against peopleWhere roles overlap, we describe the structure and ask how it was managed.
Right of replyAnyone named here can respond, and responses are published alongside the record.
CorrectionsFactual errors are corrected promptly and noted with the date.
ConsentWe never publish anyone's experience without their permission.

Independence and our interest

Who pays for this, and what we stand to gain

The Open Ledgers Project is an independent, volunteer project. It takes no money: no donations, sales or advertising.

Nathan and Michael's business, 49 Design, provided cultural tours at the International Indigenous Tourism Conference in Edmonton in February 2026 and waited months to be paid. 49 Design has never received funding from, or been a member of, the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada or Indigenous Tourism Alberta. Nathan spoke publicly about the late payments in April 2026 and is quoted in APTN News' April 22 story. We say this up front so readers can weigh our work with that in mind.

Privacy

What we collect

We collect only what you email us. Messages to info@openledgersproject.ca are forwarded to a private mailbox read by Nathan and Michael, hosted by Google. We use your message only to reply, check facts or follow up with your permission. We never publish your name or experience without your permission, never sell or share it, and delete messages once we no longer need them. The site sets no cookies and uses no analytics, and our host, Cloudflare, keeps standard server logs. To see, correct or delete what we hold about you, write to us.

Contact

Write to us

info@openledgersproject.ca: for corrections, replies, records, or to share your experience.