Turn the comparison around

Canada has claimed a leading development role in Afghanistan and Haiti. But if Canada can't even provide water and homes to Attawapiskat...

This whole sick, fraudulent

This whole sick, fraudulent economic system we live under is built on dependency on ruling sectors, enslaving the world.

Wait what will happen when some disaster cuts supplies and services to Vancouver or other mega cities, while governments and their big business bosses demand more rural depopulation and the jamming of more people into human zoos to "raise the GDP".

If political parties had any sense, they would plan and develop the highest degree of self sufficiency from the family level to communities and nations.

That's how we survived the depression, by our parents making, growing things and our families surviving on pennies. We learned our lesson, have built our own self sufficient system and now, in our old age, live very well on our pensions many people in cities are starving on.

But that wouldn't be profitable for the Lords of the Universe, so they're doing everything with their "conservative" , bought politicians to force people to "consume", so they can report "growth".

There are a thousand things people in isolated communities could do and make, but nobody ever showed them how and what to do, because we're now a "consumer society" that doesn't make, but imports and buys things from our "trading partners".

Ed Deak.

Move away

There is 90% unemployment and no hope of work. When a mine closes down the workers move away. You can pour money into this place forever and there is no way it will improve. Give these people a choice. STay there and make their own way or we will help them move to where they can be self supporting. However they will have to work and not be dependent of government money. Why are we building houses and keeping these people where there is no hope of improving their situation.
By their own history, when the food was scarce they migrated to where there was food. Keep that tradition.

The whole American continents

The whole American continents also Australia , much of Africa and Asia , etc. have been taken by force from aboriginals and when something is taken , stolen, or bought from anybody, there should be payments.

Even if the claim was that it was God who gave all these lands to us Europeans.

The funny thing is that God never gives anything, owned by corporations or individuals, to anybody without demanding rents and payments .

We've paid cash for our land, given to somebody by the government, under the Homesteader's Act, we have the papers, but not to the original aboriginal owners, so how did the government of the day get it and how did they pay for it, to give it away ?

Ed Deak.

Sometimes the lack of knowledge about the history..

..of First Nations and their treatment by Canada is appalling. It is reflected in some comments. Crawford has put the issue in real terms and still we have the same reactions from those who can't seem to grasp the enormity of what was done to them by moving them off the land they owned and which sustained them onto little reserves and making them wards of the state with all their activities controlled by an agent. It should be classed as a crime against humanity because this is the result.

The idiocy now is the cry that now suddenly we should declare everyone "equal" and go and to fend for themselves while we the privileged, who control their former land base, refuse to deal with the tragedy our system has created. Our knowledge of our history should make is wiser but alas it is so easy to forget.

Thanks Crawford for this article.

Colonial thinking still around

No end to colonialisms's residuals, even in some of the comments above.

"They can follow their traditional nomadic lifestyles", follow the cariboo. Hardly, outside of their small reserves. And woodland cariboo are becoming more scarce.

"They can move to places where the jobs are." If they have the sorely lacking education and skills, can't seem to find enough of that even in Canada's general population.

And examine the paper called "The Roots of Addiction" to see how leaving one's roots, community and loved ones leads to all sorts of abuses including the spread of HIV/AIDS and more. Just look at Fort McCrack or Vancouver's downtown east side.

"They can build their own wood homes." Great with Douglas fir or Red cedar, but the stunted Black spruce and other skimpy tree species up there might provide firewood, disposable Japanese chopsticks or pulping for toilet paper, even tent poles and other struts, but hardly log cabins.

If you don't believe this, watch the video and look carefully in the distance between the house shacks. Go a little further north and even that is rare in the tundra. The lumber you see was brought in.

I must be ignorant, but I don't see how a septic field works in permafrost and long, sometimes ultra cold winters. Digging an outhouse pit would be a considerable feat, although DeBeers has the equipment to dig large, open pit, diamond mines, witha llits tailings and water use.

There may be a combination of ancient and modern technologies to build homes. Pioneers to the prairies built sod houses and modern, thick walled, cob homes provide great insulation, well liked by their inhabitants. If well designed and built, there is no mould and little fire hazzard. Some of the needed materials can be found there.

But the residents on the shores of James Bay, not Ottawa, would have to make well informed decisions, pro and con, if such would be appropriate to meet their needs.

But housing and sanitation are only the first of many problems brought on by colonialism, old and modern, and its concomitant capitalist and land issues.

The various forms of assimilation, as attempted for the past 150 years, to get rid of and forget the problems of cultural contact and exchange, are totally immoral and truly detract from Canadian diversity, except in the narrowest of economic terms.

A comment from De Beers (1)

Today The Tyee received an email from Mr. Tom Ormsby, Director, External & Corporate Affairs. Here is an extended excerpt:

I just wanted to touch base for background regarding the reference to
trailers in the Crawford Kilian article "Attawapiskat: Haiti at 40 below
zero" and provide some clarity around those trailers, as they were
donated to the community by our company.

The reference in the article is 'In Attawapiskat, a couple of abandoned
trailers now house over 90 people'.

For the purpose of clarity and future reference, the trailers were not
'abandoned'. The trailers were donated to the community in the winter of 2009 by the De Beers Canada Victor Mine as the community is prone to flooding during ice break up each spring on the Attawapiskat River. The trailers were taken from the numerous trailers we had at the mine site that were brought in during the construction phase of the mine.

These are large, industrial style remote accommodations used commonly at mine sites and other project locations across Canada. We brought these trailers in for the hundreds of workers who were on site during the construction of the Victor Mine and many of those trailers continued to be used at our mine site today - six years after first being brought to our site.

A comment from De Beers (2)

The 'two trailers' are actually multiple units constructed into two large sections, similar to the style used for a number of our employees at the mine. At the mine, the trailers are configured to provide a dorm style room for approximately 49 people and also include a common shower area, a common washroom area and laundry facilities.

In the final days of the 2009 winter road season after discussions with
the community and their review of the trailers, we disassembled the
units, prepared them for shipment over the winter road and reconfigured our back haul program to deliver these trailers to the community before the road closed for the season. Fortunately that year, there was no severe spring flood in the community and the trailers were not needed. The community was at liberty to use the trailers for whatever purpose best suited their needs.

Later that summer, a sewage back up in the community forced the evacuation of ten homes and approximately 100 people. For the rest of the summer and into the fall, those displaced were living in a combination of hotels, with family, wherever they could. By late fall, most had returned to the community and had no permanent place to live as their homes were still not suitable. The situation then was as severe as it is now, perhaps even more so as it appears more people were involved back then.

At our own expense, we flew in project managers and crews to work with local crews in Attawapiskat over a period of 2-3 weeks. We redesigned and re-installed the trailers to make them available for those displaced. Part of the redesign took into account there would be
families and those with mobility issues. Instead of leaving the common
shower areas and common washroom areas that are in use in the trailers at our mine, those areas were modified somewhat to put in some bathtubs and more privacy. Those who stay in the trailers are our mine leave their trailers to eat in the common kitchen/dining room.

A comment from De Beers (3)

The donated trailers were modified to provide some form of kitchen for those needing to use the trailers. We also purchased some furniture for the units.

The combined in-kind and cash cost of the donated trailers totaled
approximately $3 million.

Again, these trailers were meant to be a temporary solution to a similar housing crisis in Attawapiskat in the winter of 2009/2010. I just wanted to provide additional background and context should your publication find the need to refer to these trailers again in the future.
*****
The Tyee is grateful for this explanation.

Well said, Mr. Kilian

Attawapiskat....and The Occupied Movement....Katrina and New Orleans reveal the Western world as it really is, and not as it pretends to be. We are not the free and civilized sanctuary we in the West like to imagine ourselves as.

Two excellent posts by Fiat Lux tell us why.

Is there any greater irony than the irony that those who have allowed corporate corruption and the banksters to recklessly dismantle effective social systems, to poison the natural world and to take the world to the brink of destruction are now self-righteously insisting on third party management of First Nations? What arrogance. What sly buffoonery.

Why not third party management for the sick imbeciles presently in power who want to spend billions on prisons and on F-35 stealth fighters?

Why not third party management for the sick governing forces of BC who cheerleadered for, and chose a new sports arena roof over addressing a decade of the highest child poverty rate in Canada? How crazy cruel is that? Just another example in a long, long winding road of ruling class corruption, fraud... and waste.

Where is the accountability and oversight over the real crooks and greedy pirates that have 'mismanaged' the future of mankind into near extinction?

Skywalker is right, the history of the treatment of First Nations by Canada, clearly defined now by the resulting tragedy in Attawapiskat, IS a crime against humanity.

Our so-called 'government's' refusal to act with any real caring and any real effectiveness is not only immensely negligent, but immensely criminal.

Not surprising though.

Knowing that substandard wood was shipped from BC for the building of homes in First Nations communities in northern Manitoba, knowing that third party management is an intentional trumping of First Nations own governing autonomy, one can clearly understand why Attawapaskit is now refusing to accept more of the same trickery that the duplicitous Harper government now offers in the guise of aid.

I wouldn't call the Harper

I wouldn't call the Harper government dubious.

They just don't have the brains to be.

The court just shot down the destruction of the Wheat Board, because the farmers weren't asked, therefore it is illegal, but they're going ahead with it anyway. So much for their love of laws and crime Bill.

As far the natives are concerned, they're not foreign investors from communist China, the new heroes for all good capitalists, don't jack up the GDP, so Harper just doesn't give a damn.

Ed Deak.

stimulus program?

This housing issue sure seems like a basis for one hell of a stimulus package-Canadian supplies, Canadian workforce. Maybe even better than jets, prisons or gazebos!

Thanks Crawford & Mr. Ormsby, for this info

Thanks Crawford & Mr. Tom Ormsby of De Beers. One correction for my part, one observation and two questions here.

Building on flood plain or other areas prone to flooding is likely not suitable for sod or cob construction (although its been done many times in Canadian history-think Saskatchewan & Red river). It requires building on stilts, again not suitable in such arctic conditions, building on earth and stone mounds to raise the foundations above flood levels, building with expensive waterproof foundations, or moving to higher ground, of which there isn't much in that region. Ouch. Need a combination of traditional knowledge and creative genius here. I don't know, but it was likely not inhabited during spring thaw in previous eras.

"By late fall, most had returned to the community and had no permanent place to live as their homes were still not suitable." This surely shows these people's attachment to the land, despite all obstacles.

"approximately $3 million". Sounds generous and compassionate, compared to $0. But how much profit has De Beers extracted from the Victor diamond mine and what percentage of the profis did these folks receive?

Finally, after most of "the hundreds of workers who were on site during the construction" left for other destinations, what did De Beers intend to do with those now mostly unneeded trailers, "six years after first being brought to our site" and how much would it cost to remove these used products elsewhere?

Altruism, maybe, PR, surely, win-win, ask the people who live there.

high speed internet

Does anyone remember CBC radio school broadcasts? Their main purpose was probably to reach remote communities. I loved listening when I was little in the 40s and early 50s. Attawapiskat has high speed internet, with amazing potential for educational opportunities for all ages.

Someone somewhere must have video of how people, living at equivalent latitudes and on similar terrain, build suitable homes that last. Enough of the southern dogma and misuse of vapour barriers. Consult with Sami experts. Last year there was also talk of imminent telemedicine service.

http://wawataynews.ca/archive/all/2010/3/4/Highspeed-Internet-arrives-on-James-Bay_19291

A circumpolar network seems a very exciting idea: sharing of meetings, music, dance, simultaneous feasts of healthy food. Skills, wildlife, sporting celebrations. Any enthusiast at either end would be better than google translate. Northern youtube would have to be more fun than dancing cats. I'd certainly stray from my late night jukebox of my wandering youth and all those long speeches to watch people thousands of miles apart cook similar fish five different ways.

Interesting how the high speed got up there soon after the mine was established. "Western James Bay Telecom Network leases the fibre optic cable from Five Nations Energy Inc., which installed the fibre optic cable during construction of the new transmission line to the De Beers Victor diamond mine 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat."

It was pricey. "The $8 million fibre optic and wireless network was launched through $1.5 million in funding from Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, $500,000 from FedNor, $165,000 from Health Canada, $100,000 from Mushkegowuk Council and more than $150,000 from Attawapiskat, Kashechewan and Fort Albany."

the extension cords

De Beers did a dance for a power supply at the Victor Mine, with transmission lines from the south passing through Attawapiskat and several other communities en route. The plan fell through, and the mine runs on trucked in petro.

http://www.hydroone.com/RegulatoryAffairs/Documents/Archives/EB-2004-0545/EB-04-545_English_NOA-NOWH.pdf

We see extension cords and elsewhere black insulation, the floor is cold, and the children have bare feet. Might this not be how investors view the mining conditions? Ah, the galling expense of fuel for generators, imagine the fuel just to get it there, ah the carbon footprint of it all.

There's a kaleidoscope of things to point at. Let's keep track of what gets done when.

Gas Duncan

Great comments on this story but the first thing that needs to be done is FIRE the minister in "charge". John Duncan needs to be sent packing NOW! He sat as opposition critic to the very portfolio he now holds, he must have known all about conditions on reserves all over Canada. The crap has risen to the top, now its time to flush it.

What, when, who gets $1300/day

hot off the CBC:

The federal government is forcing the troubled Attawapiskat First Nation to pay a private-sector consultant about $1,300 a day to run its finances — even though the government's own assessments say the third-party management system is not cost-effective.

Aboriginal Affairs officials told The Canadian Press they have an agreement to pay Jacques Marion of BDO Canada LLP a total of $180,000 to look after the reserve's accounts from now until June 30.

The money comes from the Attawapiskat First Nation's budget.

That rate over the course of a year would run up to $300,000 and easily pay for at least one nice, solid house, notes Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Stan Louttit.