The True North Not So Strong

Image via WikipediaI have previously written about the plight of Somalians and the lack of real concern by the west to find long term solutions to the standards of living in Africa.  Today I am writing about the plight of Canada's northern most Native Tribes and the lack of political spine of our politicians to deal fairly, honestly and respectfully with our partners in Canadian society.

I am sure most of you are aware of the plight of the most recent reservation to have control of their administration taken over by the federal government.  A lot has been made of the $90 million that was "given" to the band.  What gets lost in the governments statements is the fact that this is money was given out over 6 years amounting to $15 million/year, which still seems like a lot of money at face value.  Now, determining the exact population of Attawapiskat  is a little difficult due to apathy and incompetence of the federal government.  Statistics Canada even admits that the most recent census data from 2001 (really?!) is nothing more than a guesstimate.  It seems it is just too difficult to go there and spend one day counting less than 2000 people.  But, the registered number of band members claiming Attawapiskat as home is 1929 and that is the number I will use.  This gives us a net disbursement of funds of $7776.05 per resident per year.  The federal government, over the same period gave an average of $13,180,666,666 to 12,160,282 persons living in Ontario  for an average of $1083/person in just health, education and social assistance  payments (other provinces are worse Manitoba $2599, Newfoundland $2632, PEI and New Brunswick over $3000 each) and does not include infrastructure payments and revenue from the harmonized sales tax nor the province's own revenues from taxation, a luxury the reservations lack.  The discrepancy of over $6000 does look alarming until you consider that the band has no stable source of revenue with unemployment levels at nearly 50% of the population, no ability to charge income taxes, no revenue from natural resources, and responsibility for all infrastructure of the community.

Here are the areas that Attawapiskat band must administer: education, fire, police, EMS, emergency medical clinic, airport and air transport for goods, ice road in winter, electrical generation, environmental maintenance, road maintenance and emergency social assistance where federal assistance is inadequate.  The logistics of simply bringing in the basics of life that those of us who live in large urban areas take for granted are enormous.  Food, clothing, household supplies must all be flown in for 7 months of the year until an ice road can be built in January.  Maintaining these two links is the responsibility of the band.  Electrical generation alone accounts for an estimated $1 million dollars a year and fuel costs, on average, are $4500 per household from November 01 to April 30 each year for an estimated 260 households.  That, alone amounts to an additional $1 million plus per year.

Little has been said about the education of the residents but, I am sure it is not band members who are holding the teaching jobs.  Those teachers coming from the south are not doing it for free and their pay must come from band revenues as does medical, police and fire services payroll. ( Read my friend Amanda's blog for some idea of the education standards and life on a reservation). The cost of building adequate housing for those employees is estimated at $250, 000 per house and must be built by federal government contractors, meaning more money leaving the community.

They build the homes at a rate of about 2 a year.  Some have suggested that they could house everyone in a single large apartment complex for far less but, this simply shows a lack of understanding of the challenges associated with building housing that far north.  Buildings are lower because foundations can not be dug into the frozen rock which makes up the area.  Additionally, what would be a walkout apartment at ground level in summer would be a basement apartment the rest of the year, as would the second floor some years.  Allowances have to made for wood burning heating methods as the cost of fuel (diesel is the only fossil fuel available) is prohibitive to say the least.

Food costs in Attawapiskat might possibly be the single biggest cause of poverty in the community.  Because of the need to fly in basic supplies, the average cost of food is 86% higher than any other part of the province.  It is estimated that a typical family of four in Southern Ontario would spend, on an ideal diet, $1174 per month.  That same family would pay $2183 per month in Attawapiskat.  A typical assistance cheque might be in the area of $1500 per month and needs to go to more than just food, so imagine the diets of most.  Traditionally they would have supplemented with food they hunted or fished for, but these resources are becoming scarcer due to several issues, global warming and international bans on seal pelts  come to mind.   And these costs are just for food, not cleaning supplies, clothing, personal grooming etc.

So, with the everyday running of the reservation the responsibility of the band, we can see that it may not take long to blow through a few million dollars.  But, in 1979 the largest diesel spill in Northern Ontario occurred around the Attawapiskat lands.  The federal government, and subsequent governments, have never even acknowledged the issue and have refused to assist in the clean up, maintaining it is the band council's responsibility.  This spill resulted in the only school building being shut down in 2000 and portables erected to replace it and the cost absorbed by the band.  Add to this, the cost of the backing up of the reservation's sewage system resulting in the evacuation of many of the residents and the band's need to pay for and clean up the damage.  These two incidents were paid for through loans which only added to the operational costs of the reservation.

The government would like us all to believe that they have been charitably donating money to a corrupt band council for 6 years but, what they refuse to tell you is, this band has been co-managed for the last decade and their own appointed manager has been signing off on all spending since then.  They also have not explained real well that in the last 10 years 43% of reservations in Canada are in some form of intervention and there are now a total of 11 reservations in Third Party Management.  They also have not explained very well that their own audits show little or no benefit from being in TPM or intervention of any kind.

I will be awaiting, impatiently, the final report of the audit that is being conducted on where the $90 million was spent.  But, I'm sure it will take months, if not years, in hopes that some other crisis or distraction might come along to make everyone forget the plight of these people, as has happened so often in the past (hey, with any luck the Leafs will win the Stanley Cup and all of Harper's problems will disappear over night).  I have a feeling that the audit will show what the Auditor General has reported several times in the past: that Canadian governments of all stripes have plenty of shame to share.

If you have studied Canadian history you might recall that Canada might have been a whole lot different if not for the valiant efforts of the Native tribes and the French Canadians who seemed a whole lot more concerned with fighting the Americans in 1812 than did the British.  We, as a nation, owe both those peoples.  When the first Europeans set foot on this land they made a claim on in it in the name of their Sovereigns with no legal right to do so and no consideration for the people that were already making use of it.  The fact that most natives were migratory is irrelevant; it would be the equivalent of me going to your unused cottage in winter and laying claim to it because you were not there at the time.  I understand that we can't simply go back in history and change things, but we can make up for the legacy of our ancestors and ALL Canadians, regardless of origin or length of ancestry here, owe it to the first nations to do so.

Canada is a signatory to human rights treaties (something it brags about when telling other nations how to treat people) which guarantee the right to minimum standards of housing, food and medicine (art. 25).  It is time we lived up to the standards of these treaties and provided opportunities for our First Nations to manage their own lives and we could start by allowing them an equal share in this countries many natural resources, the right to free movement around the country, protection of their customs and languages and the right to all the things the people of Ontario receive: health care, education and clean living conditions. Simply enforcing the letter of a treaty as it stood 160 years ago is not good enough.  The First Nations taught our ancestors how to survive off the land, what foods to eat, where the best hunting was, the best fishing, where we could find gold, what plants were poisonous and in return we gave them small pox, alcoholism and the right to be confined to small parcels of land in the middle of nowhere. Of course, some Natives have qualified for closer monitoring.

Further reading:  http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/dec10/attawapiskat4.asp