Introduction by Roger Annis, December 8, 2011
The chronic housing and shelter crisis on many of the Indigenous peoples’ territories in Canada has once again exploded into national news and politics, this time prompted by revelations of the housing conditions at Attawapiskat, a Cree Nation community of some 1,800 people located on the western shore of James Bay in northern Ontario. People in Canada are reacting with shock, anger and solidarity to the wretched poverty and conditions of life that have been brought to national and international attention by the residents of the community and their allies in the world of social justice.
The people of Attawapiskat have been struggling for years to obtain decent social services and meaningful economic investment. The latest scandal over housing came to light in late October when the Attawapiskat First Nation declared a state of emergency over the community’s deplorable housing, health care and public education conditions. These gained further attention following a visit to the community by the member of Parliament for the area, Charlie Angus of the New Democratic Party on November 21. Angus made a statement and posted a video of the conditions that he observed (enclosed below, item #1, including a link to his 13-minute video and to a news report on the declaration of the state of emergency).
According to Angus, an estimated 350 families at Attawapiskat are living in very harsh conditions. He writes, “There’s a need for 268 houses just to deal with the immediate backlog of homelessness.”
Claims of ignorance by the federal government of the crisis at Attawapiskat are belied by countless media reports, including an interview of former Minister of Indian Affairs Chuck Strahl on CBC Radio One’s weekly The House on Dec. 3. He said the chronic housing, potable water, health care and education problems on Indigenous territories are long-standing and well known to the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In June of this year, a landmark report on the failure of federal government policy towards Indigenous peoples was published by Canada’s outgoing auditor general Sheila Fraser (see a report on that here).
Federal government shucks its responsibilities The Canadian and Ontario governments have reacted to the latest scandal by going into damage control mode. The federal response has been threefold. One, it has denied knowledge of problems on the Attawapiskat First Nation (AFN). Two, it insists it has been providing adequate funding for housing, and therefore local leaders must have squandered the funds. (Stephen Harper upped the rhetorical display in recent days, flatly accusing the AFN of “mismanagement.”) And three, it moved quickly to place the operations of the AFN governing council under trusteeship. It has given sweeping powers to a businessman, Jacques Marion. He will be paid $1300 per day out of the AFN’s own budget for at least the next six months.
AFN Chief Theresa Spence says trusteeship is punishment for speaking out. “I guess, as First Nations, when we do ask for assistance and make a lot of noise, we get penalized for it,” she told CBC News on Nov. 30. She calls the trustee appointment, “a modern day Indian agent.”
CBC News reports there are a dozen Indigenous territories currently under direct federal trusteeship (a harsher version of the permanent state of trusteeship imposed by the Indian Act). In all these cases, the extraordinary measure has failed to bring any improvement in governance or delivery of services.
According to Canada’s constitution, the federal government shares responsibility with provincial governments for the financing and establishing of standards for health care, education and other social services to Canadians. Responsibility for delivery rests largely with provincial governments. However, Canada’s neo-colonial regime accords to the federal government exclusive responsibility for delivery of services to Indigenous peoples. But the federal government has no equivalent to the departments of health, education and social housing of each provincial government. Federal dominance over Indigenous peoples is wielded through the Indian Act, a colonial-era relic that dates from 1876.
Both levels of government conspire to prevent the estimated 1.3 million Indigenous people (four percent of the Canadian population, including some 500,000 living on the 634 Indigenous territories) from asserting their sovereign right to control the destiny of their territories and share the wealth of the entire country.
Below is the response to the federal government issued by the Attawapiskat First Nation on December 1 (item #2). Four days after that statement, Jacques Marion showed up unannounced at Attawaspiskat to take over his new duties. This affront to the community’s sovereignty was made worse by the fact that Chief Theresa Spence was in Ottawa for the week-long conference of the Assembly of First Nations (the umbrella organization of the governing councils of Indigenous territories in Canada). The First Nation promptly ordered the Indian agent to leave the territory, significantly escalating the political confrontation with Ottawa.
Further below, item #6, is an effective rebuttal to the slander and misrepresentation of the crisis at Attawapiskat, written by a Metis woman and blogger in Montreal.
Many on the political right in Canada are calling for the dismemberment of Attawapiskat and other Indigenous communities that challenge the country’s neo-colonial setup. An editorial to this effect was published in the Dec 1 edition of the National Post, one of two national, English language newspapers in Canada. It was titled, Communities Too Sad to Survive.” Others who hold this view include a former adviser to Prime Minister Harper, Tom Flanagan, and Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson. It was also voiced by Mansbridge in the aforementioned interview with Shawn Atleo.
The New Democratic Party has called for the government to dispatch the Canadian military to Attawapiskat to assist in building shelter. The call was made without consulting the Assembly of First Nations. Shawn Atleo responded very cooly to the proposal in an interview on CBC Television two days ago. (For an article on the ‘exagerated claims’ of the Canadian military’s post-earthquake intervention in Haiti, see my article on that subject here.)
Diamonds for investors, nothing for residents
The neo-colonial status under which the AFN is suffering is underlined by the existence on its territory of a diamond mine owned by the De Beers corporation. It is apparently one of the most lucrative diamond mines in the world. Most taxation revenue from the mine flows into provincial government coffers. According to a December 10 Globe and Mail report, the community receives $2 million in annual revenue from the mine. It employs 500 workers, of whom 100 are from Attawapiskat.
Chief Spence writes of the diamond mine in the aforementioned AFN statement, “While they reap the riches, my people shiver in cold shacks and are becoming increasing ill, while precious diamonds from my land grace the fingers and necklaces of Hollywood celebrities and the mace of the Ontario Legislature.”
One of the neighbouring Cree communities to Attawapiskat is Kashechewan, located on the James Bay coast 100 km south. A national scandal erupted in October 2005 when a long-standing problem with contamination of the water supply caused a health emergency and prompted the evacuation of many residents in order to receive health treatment. You can read the story of that crisis in an article authored by Indigenous activist and writer Mike Krebs and published in Socialist Voice in November 2005.
A political standoff
In a previously arranged meeting, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government will meet with Assembly of First Nations leaders, including National Chief Shawn Atleo, on January 24, 2012 to discuss the crisis. The Assembly is the national umbrella organization of Indigenous governing councils in Canada. It is heavily bureaucratized and heavily dependent on funding by the federal government. Many Indigenous activists consider it to be a pillar of the neo-colonial setup.
National Chief Atleo gave a 30 minute interview on the crisis in Attawapiskat to CBC Television, broadcast on Dec 3 and 4. You can watch or listen to it at the link below ( item #4). In the interview, Atleo made effective arguments describing the failure of the regime governing the lives of Canada’s Indigenous peoples and called for “smashing the status quo,” including abolishing the neo-colonial Indian Act. Notably during the interview, host Peter Mansbridge, the pre-eminent mainstream journalist in English-speaking Canada, repeated the falsified claims by the federal government if its funding to Attawapiskat.
A historical view of Indigenous sovereignty is offered by NDP Member of Parliament Romeo Saganash in an article written last week for Huffington Post Canada (item #5, below). Saganash is of Cree nationality and is the MP for the Cree-majority territory on the Quebec side of James Bay. Summing up the reaction of the federal and provincial governments to the latest crisis, he writes:
“So, there will be no partnership with First Nations to support them in self-government. There will be no co-operation in planning and implementing effective long-term strategies to make reserves liveable. There will be no money to help catch up from decades of neglect and mismanagement by a distant bureaucracy. There will be red tape and catch-22s and bureaucratic inertia. The plan is that the reserves will fail and people will have to move away. Those who don’t die first.”
Saganash frames his analysis of the social crisis of Indigenous peoples and his solutions in the language of reconciliation between Canada and Indigenous peoples, a common theme among many Indigenous leaders that confuses the heart of the crisis.
Indigenous peoples are caught in a profound squeeze by the settler, capitalist regime in Canada. In the urban areas where app. half of Indigenous people reside, deepgoing racial and social discrimination reinforces a harsh poverty and erects enormous barriers to equal participation in economic and social life. The struggle for national self determination must include affirmative action measures in education, housing, health care and employment. Extraordinary measures and resources are needed to heal physical and social wounds such as drug dependency and the degrading conditions of the sex trade.
On the territories, the struggle for sovereignty is first and foremost a struggle for land, to retake what was lost or stolen in the past. Meaningful economic development and social rights are needed, made all the more difficult by the physical remoteness of many communities and the exploitative and assimilationist dynamic of capitalism. Preservation of the cultural values and practices of the pre-capitalist, communal society of Indigenous peoples is a key element of the national self-determination struggle.
It is the indigenous people themselves who will overcome the obstacles and contradictions they confront. They require and deserve the full support of their class allies in the non-Indigenous population.
Some parts of Latin America, notably in Bolivia, offer rich lessons for how an anticapitalist political strategy can incorporate Indigenous autonomy and self-determination. Meanwhile, we see in Haiti striking parallels to the social crisis in Northern Canada. In both cases, the Canadian government is proving unwilling and incapable of mobilizing the vast resources at its disposal to assist in delivering meaningful social improvements to the victims of neo-colonial policies. The rest of us have a responsibility to take action that can bring relief to those in dire need and do so in a way that strengthens the struggle for national self-determination.
(With thanks to Richard Fidler for suggestions and assistance)
Updates:
* On December 9, the federal government announced it would provide 15 construction module trailers to Attawapiskat for emergency housing. It did not answer whether or not it intended to bill the community for the gift. The trailers cannot be delivered until January, when low temperatures will open up winter road conditions. The government has since increased the number of modules offered by seven, to 22.
* On December 10, the Globe and Mail newspaper published an informative background article on the economic conditions at Attawapiskat, including the opening of the De Beers diamond mine in 2008. Read it here.
* As of December 11, the government says the acceptance by the Attawapiskat First Nation of emergency assistance signals its acceptance of the federal-appointed trustee (‘Indian agent’) over the AFN’s finances (see below). The AFN denies this and says the trustee remains barrred from Attawapiskat territory. As always, says the AFN, its financial records are open to government and public scrutiny.
1. What if They Declared an Emergency and No One Came?
By NDP MP Charlie Angus Published on Huffington Post Canada, Nov 21, 2011
It’s been three weeks since Attawapiskat First Nation took the extraordinary step of declaring a state of emergency (background here: Ottawa Citizen, Nov 19, 2011). Since then, not a single federal or provincial official has even bothered to visit the community. No aid agencies have stepped forward. No disaster management teams have offered help. (Note: Since this statement was issued, the Canadian Red Cross has mounted an emergency relief operation in Attawapiskat.)
Meanwhile temperatures have dropped 20 degrees and will likely drop another 20 or 25 degrees further in the coming weeks. For families living in uninsulated tents, makeshift cabins and sheds, the worsening weather poses serious risk.
Two weeks ago, I travelled to this community on the James Bay coast to see why conditions had become so extreme that local leaders felt compelled to declare a state of emergency. It was like stepping into a fourth world.
I spoke with one family of six who had been living in a tiny tent for two years. I visited elderly people living in sheds without water or electricity. I met children whose idea of a toilet was a plastic bucket that was dumped into the ditch in front of their shack.
Dr. John Waddell from the Weeneebayko Health Authority was in the community during this tour. He was emphatic that conditions had deteriorated to the point that an emergency situation was unfolding. Families are facing “immediate risk” of infection, disease and possible fire from their increasingly precarious conditions. Dr. Elizabeth Blackmore repeated this message of immediate risk just this past Friday at a press conference at Queen’s Park.
You’d think that a medical warning from a provincial health authority would move government into action. Think again. When it comes to the misery, suffering and even the death of First Nations people, the federal and provincial governments have developed a staggering capacity for indifference.
Try to imagine this situation happening in anywhere else in this country. We all remember how the army was sent into Toronto when the mayor felt that citizens were being discomforted by a snowstorm. Compare that massive mobilization of resources with the disregard being shown for the families in Attawapiskat.
The indifference speaks volumes about the underlying reasons for this crisis. Such a state of affairs doesn’t just happen. The collapse in Attawapiskat can’t be blamed on bad local leadership, misplaced monies or the possibility that such communities are simply unsustainable. Attawapiskat is a community that has done its best to work with the meagre resources provided by Aboriginal Affairs.
What we are witnessing is the inevitable result of chronic under-funding, poor bureaucratic planning and a discriminatory black hole that has allowed First Nations people to be left behind as the rest of the country moves forward.
Take education for example. Not only are First Nations children systemically denied access to comparable levels of funding and resources available to non-Aboriginal students but, in the case of Attawapiskat, they don’t even have access to a school. It’s been 12 years since the community’s grade school was shut down because children were being exposed to dangerous levels of benzene from the badly contaminated ground. Frustrated grade school children finally took matters into their own hands. They were led by 13-year-old Shannen Koostachin who launched a national campaign to shame the government into action. This fight for equal education has gone all the way to the United Nations. What other Canadian kid has to fight, organize and beg for access to clean and equitable schools?
The province of Ontario has the responsibility to ensure equitable standards for education, as well as water, fire safety and building codes citizens in Ontario. And yet, when the families of Attawapiskat look to the province for help, they are continually told that they are a federal “responsibility.”
Ironically, the province doesn’t take the same attitude when it comes to the immense wealth coming out of Attawapiskat’s back yard. The De Beers Victor Mine is the richest diamond mine in the Western world. Just recently, the province upped the royalty tax at the mine from nine per cent to 11 per cent to ensure an even higher return for the provincial coffers. Not a dime of provincial royalty money comes back to help the community with infrastructure or development.
As for the mine itself, De Beers has signed an IBA (Impact Benefit Agreement) providing for training and job opportunities. Thanks to the provisions of the Indian Act, workers who may want to build their own house in Attawapiskat are unable to do so because they can’t get a mortgage on a reserve. Even if there was a possibility of new housing for the densely overcrowded shantytown, the province hasn’t bothered to turn over any land for new development. No wonder that people with jobs are leaving and heading south — they can’t stay in their home communities.
And then there’s the federal government; over the last number of years, they have consistently turned a blind eye to the growing infrastructure crisis. In fairness to the new Minister John Duncan, he has committed $500,000 as an emergency measure. But given the scope of the problem, this is little more than a Band-Aid.
Presently there are five families living in tents; 19 families living in sheds without running water; 35 families living in houses needing serious repair; 128 families living in houses condemned from black mould and failing infrastructure; 118 families living with relatives (often 20 people in a small home); there are 90 people living in a construction trailer. There’s a need for 268 houses just to deal with the immediate backlog of homelessness.
The $500,000 commitment from the federal government will, at most, help repair three or four abandoned and derelict buildings that would otherwise be torn down.
Fortunately, average Canadians don’t share this level of bureaucratic indifference. Since the state of emergency was declared, my office has been inundated with people wanting to help. I have been contacted by school kids trying to raise money for supplies; trades people who want to come north to help in a rebuilding project; average Canadians who simply ask — what can I do?
As inspiring as this is, it’s clear that nothing will really change until there is action from the officials whose job it is to ensure that these citizens of Ontario and Canada are treated with a basic level of respect and dignity. The cold winter winds are hitting James Bay. People may die if nothing is done. In a country as rich and as just as Canada this is simple unacceptable.
Charlie Angus is the member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay.
UPDATE: The Canadian Red Cross will provide support to the Attawapiskat reserve, where a state of emergency has been declared due to poor living conditions. Red Cross Director of Provincial Disaster Management John Saunders announced that the organization will address the community’s short-term needs and co-ordinate donation management in the region.
NDP MP Charlie Angus and NDP MPP Gilles Bisson, elected officials for the James Bay region, expressed their gratitude to the Red Cross, but remain disappointed in federal and provincial governments. “We remain deeply concerned about the lack of movement by both levels of government. It is essential that the federal government ensure there is appropriate funding to address the huge backlog in housing. We want them to work in a proactive and positive way with the community to find long-term solutions,” they wrote in a statement.
2. Harper, First Nations reps to discuss remote reserves
By Teresa Smith and Robert Hiltz, Postmedia News, December 1, 2011
Just after the federal government was raked over the coals by the opposition for its handling of the housing crisis on Ontario’s Attawapiskat First Nation, the prime minister announced Thursday that a meeting between First Nations and federal leadership will take place in late January. Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement alongside the national president of the Assembly of First Nations, Shawn Atleo, on Parliament Hill.
The Jan. 24 meeting will bring together Harper, Atleo, Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan and a delegation of aboriginal leaders to discuss ways the government can improve the social and economic lot of remote reserves.
Earlier in the House of Commons, the government faced allegations that it is incompetent and unwilling to address the human face of a housing crisis in Attawapiskat, in northern Ontario.
Harper told reporters he looked forward to the summit because it would allow for a dialogue about not just the challenges facing First Nations, but their opportunities as well. He said the meeting would be “something that I think will be historic, and I hope proves to be useful.”
Atleo said recent events offered an opportunity to move forward for both the government and First Nations, a “chance to reset the relationship between First Nations and the federal Crown.”
“This is perhaps a moment that we grasp, we seize this opportunity and that this government can grasp this moment to work with First Nations and we can begin to look forward to supporting the unleashing of potential of our young people,” Atleo said.
Earlier, debate was heated in question period, following an admission the previous day by Duncan that, despite repeated visits to the reserve by officials in his department, he did not know of the crisis until last week. Wednesday, in a Commons Committee meeting, Duncan said his colleagues had visited Attawapiskat — a Cree reserve on James Bay — “for months and months dealing with the school construction and other things.” He said there were 10 visits between March 15 and Oct. 31, 2011.
This revelation pushed interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel to demand to know why, after so many visits to a community on the verge of crisis, federal officials had not sounded alarm bells. “No red flags were raised. Why? We need an answer,” she said.
She slammed the government for focusing on the bottom line, instead of the living conditions of residents, after the government announced Wednesday that it was placing the reserve’s finances under a third-party manager who will directly administer the band’s funding from Aboriginal Affairs, which is usually managed by the First Nation itself.
In response, Liberal leader Bob Rae said Attawapiskat is not the only First Nations that is in dire circumstances. “What the people (in Attawapiskat) need is heating, housing and running water,” said Turmel. “But, instead, the prime minister is sending accountants and auditors. Does the prime minister realize that with this third-party management, the message that he is sending is that, if you need help, shut your mouth, or you’ll be punished.”
Harper said his government responded immediately to the community’s call for help, but that, in Attawapiskat the “needs are twofold: there is a need obviously for more services and infrastructure. There is also clearly a need for better management. The government will ensure both of those needs are met.”
Neither the prime minister nor Duncan addressed repeated questions about a long-term plan for the community.
The area’s NDP MP, Charlie Angus, asked: “Now that he has deposed the elected council, blamed the community for years of chronic underfunding, where is his long-term plan to get this community out of this disgraceful level of poverty?”
“We will be doing a comprehensive audit over spending from the department over the last five years in order to see why our results have been so poor,” said Duncan who earlier came under fire from the commons standing committee on aboriginal affairs and northern development.
On Wednesday in committee, Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett asked Duncan when he found out about the crisis in Attawapiskat. “After a painful 20 second pause, he answered ‘last week . . . about Thursday,’ ” Bennett said. Bennett then asked how the minister could have become aware only last week about the housing shortage, and deplorable living conditions, since the community itself had called a state of emergency a month ago.
On Thursday in the House of Commons, Duncan read a chronology of the crisis from a prepared statement. He said there is a process through which First Nations should contact the department if they want to declare a state of emergency and that process was not followed. However, he also said, the government is moving quickly since sending officials to the reserve on Monday, and instituting third-party management on Wednesday.
“Our priority is to address the urgent health and safety needs of the people of Attawapiskat,” said Duncan. “Our people came back and they said there was an urgent health and safety issue, and that’s certainly the consensus in the media coverage.”
“We are working with the community and the province of Ontario to quickly implement the community’s existing emergency management plan.”
“The minister really doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Bennett. Thursday afternoon, in the House of Commons, Bennett asked when Harper knew about the crisis “and what is he doing about this incompetent minister?” The prime minister did not address the question.
3. Statement by Attawapiskat Chief and Council on notice of Third Party intervention
ATTAWAPISKAT, ON, December 1, 2011. On November 30, 2011, an official acting on behalf of Joanne Wilkinson, Regional Director General for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, hand delivered to Chief Theresa Spence a letter indicating that the Department was exercising its authority under the terms of the signed funding agreement with the First Nation to appoint a Third Party Manager to handle the affairs of the First Nation, citing the health and safety of the community members.
This rationale is mere political deflection as the conditions cited by the Department are present in numerous other First Nations communities and this rational has been used by the Department to silence us when we brought these conditions to the attention of Canadian society. There are examples across Canada where Third Party Managers are allowing similar conditions to exist while offering little or no aide to their appointed First Nation communities.
The communication of the decision to appoint a modern day Indian Agent was done by a departmental official who interrupted a planning meeting of the communities’ emergency planning team that was in the midst of implementing a strategy to assist the people living in tent frames and shacks.
Chief Spence, upon receiving the notification, was incensed by actions of Aboriginal Affairs Canada, not only by interrupting a meeting of the communities’ emergency team but also by the cited reasons for the imposition of an Indian Agent.
Chief Spence expressed surprise that after over a month of inaction, the Harper government has elected to blame the poorest of Canadian society rather than to offer assistance. Chief Spence said, “It is incredible that the Harper Government’s decision is that instead of offering aide and assistance to Canada’s First Peoples, its solution is to blame the victim, and that the community is guilty and deserving of its fate.”
Chief Spence also expressed concern about comments recently made in the House of Commons, regarding the funding levels claimed to be received by the Attawapiskat First Nation. Based on an analysis of the funding received by the First Nation from the Department (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada) the amount received by the First Nation is in the range of $10,000 per capita on an annual basis for each on Reserve member, not the $50,000 as stated in the House and media. We have tabulated figures from 2005 to 2011 that clearly indicates the funding received is well below the poverty line in Ontario. Housing and minor capital is a mere 6.5% ($6 million over 6 years) of the $94 million received over the 6 year period. The funding received by the First Nation is not distributed to on-Reserve members as individuals. It is used to provide specific services and programs for the benefit and use of on-Reserve members. This is based on statistics maintained by the Indian Registry maintained by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
The First Nation has completed all of the necessary reporting requirements of the Department, including receiving unqualified annual audits for the funds received from the Department for the past six years. All of these have been reviewed and accepted by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. If the Government of Canada wishes to re-examine the audits previously accepted by the Department, the First Nation will welcome and cooperate fully with the exercise, and the true costs to operate in a remote, northern environment will be quantified.
The taxpayers of Ontario and Canada should be made aware that the majority of the $94 million received to support the Attawapiskat First Nation over that past six years from Aboriginal Affairs does not remain or circulate in our community. The majority of these funds go to support the greater economy of Northern Ontario and Canada for goods, materials, services, contractors, legal advice and auditing services, to mention a few. These support urban northern communities such as Timmins, Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, Thunder Bay, North Bay, Toronto, Kenora and Winnipeg to name a few. The majority of these firms are non Aboriginal tax-payers.
These are the very issues facing the community of Attawapiskat and many other First Nation communities in Canada’s hinterland. Chief Spence has said, “On our traditional lands that we once shared in the past with the visitors to our land, our lands have proven to be bountiful in natural resources and have been a benefit to all of Ontario, and Canada, but we were left behind. In our territory, we have a world class diamond mine, the pride of the Canadian and Ontario governments, as well as De Beers Canada. They have every right to be proud of that mine, but each party has failed to acknowledge the First Nation peoples who continue to use the land as our grandparents did.
“While they reap the riches, my people shiver in cold shacks, and are becoming increasing ill, while precious diamonds from my land grace the fingers, and necklaces of Hollywood celebrities and the mace of the Ontario Legislature.
“My people deserve dignity, humane living conditions, for that our community asked for the assistance from my fellow citizens, for our simple request for human dignity, the governmentfs decision was to impose a colonial Indian Agent. Minister John Duncan has missed an opportunity to alter the relationships with First Nations across this country, and to renew the positive values of being a member of Canadian society.
“Prime Minister Harper has forgone another opportunity to build upon the good will developed from Canadafs National Apology for the abuses of the residential school system, a once in a generation opportunity, Governments of the past respected our Peoples by negotiating and honouring Treaty Agreements, this government does not have the same perspective. The United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, of which Canada is a signatory, outlines the obligations to maintain, and ensure the position of my people.
“My First Nation has received generous support from the Canadian public, and many corporate sponsors who wish to address the concerns of my community, for which we are grateful.
“We have reached out to other First Nations in Ontario, and Canada, who share our concerns about the broken promises of Treaties, and lack of resource sharing for the wealth taken from our traditional Homelands. The era of not listening to the concerns of our people is at an end. This is the beginning…”
For additional information contact Chief Theresa Spence 705-997-2166, theresa.spence@attawapiskat.org
Attawapiskat First Nation INAC Funding by fiscal year, per capital funding level
Go to this weblink (also above) to see an annual accounting of federal funding to Attawapiskat: http://www.attawapiskat.org/wp-content/uploads/Press-Release-Afn-Third-Party-Intervention-Nov-30-2011.pdf
4. Assembly of First Nations leader Shawn Atleo interviewed on CBC Television’s Mansbridge One On One
The 30-minute interview aired on Dec. 3, 2011. Go to this link to view it: http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/mansbridge/.
5. Two Sides of the Same Bay
By Romeo Saganash, MP (New Democratic Party), Abitibi — Baie-James — Nunavik – Eeyou
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/romeo-saganash/attawapiskat-emergency_b_1125905.html
I was born and raised on the Quebec side of James Bay, across from Attawapiskat, a community that has been in the news lately. A lot of credit goes to people like my colleague, Charlie Angus, for raising the profile of the housing crisis there and getting people involved. If you haven’t heard yet, Attawapiskat is a First Nation where many people are without homes for the winter. They will go without running water. They have gone without a school for a generation of children.
This is not unusual.
People may recall the stories about Kashechewan that were in all the media a few years ago, or Pikangikum. There are many others. Sandy Bay First Nation in Manitoba wants people to know they are in similar circumstances.
Estimates are that 80,000 new houses are needed and similar numbers are in need of major repair across the country. There are over 100 communities living under boil water advisories. There are over 40 First Nations that have no school for their children to attend.
Embarrassed by the media and public attention, the Harper government leapt into action this week and immediately blamed the people of Attawapiskat. Basically, they said that big money had been spent there, so we’ll solve the situation by sending in an accounting firm to run the government.
Others have analyzed that spending to demonstrate the fallacy on which Harper is relying, an argument that really shouldn’t need to be made. Does anyone think people would choose to live this way? Or is it just that Indians can’t be trusted to manage money?
Outside the government, people are mobilizing, donating items of use, and the Red Cross has gotten involved. Most are treating this as the crisis it is, pointing to the avoidable tragedy and urgently pleading for help to stop it from happening. Let’s hope that succeeds.
But what about the dozens of communities where the media aren’t paying attention? Will crises come and go relatively unnoticed? And what about stopping this from happening over and over again?
That is where people need to see the bigger picture and focus on solutions. The bigger picture explains why Attawapiskat should not be seen in isolation. The situation there is the result of deliberate policies.
It begins with the Crown breaking the partnerships with First Nations that formed the basis of the treaties and ignoring their own laws, like the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Yes, history matters if you want to understand how we got to this point.
It is followed by a policy of segregation. They invented the idea of “status” Indians, as defined by the Crown, and created reserves, where the Crown chose what it thought was valueless land and compelled people to stay there.
That was followed by the policy of assimilation, where the Crown reversed itself and started encouraging people to leave reserves to join the rest of Canadian society. Encouragement took the form of legislation that stripped people of their “status” and denied them the right to live with their families and communities if they did things like get an education.
The policy of assimilation is still in place. Only now, the Government of Canada uses talk of formal equality — treating everyone exactly the same — to justify treating First Nations like they have no Aboriginal or treaty rights, despite the Constitution of Canada and the UN Declaration.
So, there will be no partnership with First Nations to support them in self-government. There will be no co-operation in planning and implementing effective long-term strategies to make reserves liveable. There will be no money to help catch up from decades of neglect and mismanagement by a distant bureaucracy. There will be red tape and catch-22s and bureaucratic inertia. The plan is that the reserves will fail and people will have to move away. Those who don’t die first.
That plan is what John Duncan is hinting at when he talks about “unviable reserves.” They’re pressing to close them down and send people into the cities as they tried with Kashechewan. They are introducing legislation to privatize reserve lands so that they can be sold or taken in default of loans. The fact that this will make resources, like the diamonds around Attawapiskat, more readily and cheaply available to developers is pure coincidence, I’m sure.
There are solutions. Working in the original spirit of partnership, supported rather than constrained in self-governance, First Nations can move forward. The deal that I helped negotiate between the Grand Council of the Crees and the Government of Quebec called La Paix des Braves has achieved some of that and is benefitting people from all communities in the area, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, right now. It is not the only example. That is what is meant by reconciliation.
On the other side of the same bay from Attawapiskat, their Cree cousins are not living in the same squalor. It can happen elsewhere.
6. Dealing with comments about Attawapiskat
Blog posting by âpihtawikosisân, (a Métis woman from Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, currently living in Montreal, Quebec and whose passions include education, Aboriginal law, the Cree language, and roller derby. November 30, 2011 http://apihtawikosisan.wordpress.com/author/apihtawikosisan/
Harper said Attawapiskat got $90 million, where did it all go!?
Yes, Prime Minister Harper is apparently scratching his head about where $90 million in federal funding to Attawapiskat has gone. Many commentators then go on to make claims about lack of accountability, and no one knowing what happens to the money once it is ‘handed over’ by the Federal government. Let’s start simple.
First, please note that $90 million is a deceptive number. It refers to federal funding received since Harper’s government came into power in 2006. In the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Attawapiskat received $17.6 million in federal funds. The document linked to (pdf) (see original posting for all links) shows the breakdown of federal funds in case you wanted to know how much is allocated to things like medical transportation, education, maternal health care and so on. Thus, $90 million refers to the total of an average of about $18 million per year in federal funding since 2006. [As an aside, you will often see the figure of $34 or $35 million in funding given to Attawapiskat per year. This actually refers to total revenues. As noted, federal funding was $17.6 million, and provincial funding was $4.4 million. The community brings in about $12 million of its own revenue, as shown here. So no, the ‘government’ is not giving Attawapiskat $34 million a year.]
Okay fine, but where did it go?
Attawapiskat publishes its financial statements going back to 2005. If you want to know where the money was spent, you can look in the audited financial reports. This document, for example, provides a breakdown of all program funding. Just getting to this stage alone proves false the claim that there is no accountability and no one knows where the money goes.
But $90 million could have built the community 360 brand new houses!!
Assuming, as Grand Chief Stan Louttit of the Mushkegowyk Council has stated, that a new house costs $250,000 to build in Attawapiskat (with half of that being transportation costs), then yes, 360 new units could have been provided by $90 million. However, this money was not just earmarked for the construction of new homes. An important fact that many commentators forget (or are unaware of) is that section 91(24) of the Constitution Act of 1867 gives the Federal Crown exclusive powers over “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians.” You see, for non-natives, the provinces are in charge of funding things like education, health-care, social services and so on.
For example, the Province of Ontario allocated $10,730 in education funding per non-native pupil in the 2010-2011 fiscal year. For most First Nations, particularly those on reserve, the federal government through INAC (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada) is responsible for providing funds for native education.
How is this relevant?
It helps explain why the entire $90 million was not allocated to the construction of new houses. That $90 million includes funding for things like:
* education per pupil
* education infrastructure (maintenance, repair, teacher salaries, etc)
* health-care per patient
* health-care, infrastructure (clinics, staff, access to services outside the community in the absence of facilities on reserve)
* social services (facilities, staff, etc)
* infrastructure (maintenance and construction)
* a myriad of other services.
These costs are often not taken into account when attempting to compare a First Nation reserve to a non-native municipality. In fact, many people forget that their own health-care and education are heavily subsidized by tax dollars as well.
What’s the point here?
How much money was actually allocated to housing in 2010-2011? Page 2 of Schedule A (PDF) shows us that out of the $17.6 million in federal funds, only $2 million was provided for housing. Yes, even $2 million would be enough to 8 brand new homes, if those funds were not also used to maintain and repair existing homes.
The specific breakdown of how that money was spent is found in Schedule I. Now, I admit I am confused about something. The Harper article states: According to figures providing by Aboriginal Affairs, the Attawapiskat Cree band has received just over $3 million in funds specifically for housing and a further $2.8 million in infrastructure money since 2006.” That is actually less than I estimated it would be, going by the 2010-2011 figures. I estimated $10 million for housing, but INAC (now Aboriginal Affairs) is saying it was $5.8 million.
Anyway, that isn’t too important. The point is, if INAC is correct, only $5.8 million has gone towards housing for Attawapiskat. At most that could have built the community 23 new houses, if Attawapiskat had merely let the older houses go without any repairs or maintenance for 5 years. Letting existing homes go like that is not a great strategy, however. The point here is, $90 million sounds like a huge amount, but the real figures allocated to housing are much, much smaller.
Fine, they got $5.8 million for housing, surely that is enough?
Again, assuming 23 new homes were built, all older homes were left without maintenance and repairs, and the people in charge of housing worked for free and there were no other costs associated with administering the housing program, Attawapiskat would still be experiencing a housing crisis. It is estimated that $84 million is needed for housing alone to meet Attawapiskat’s housing needs (you’ll find those figures in a small table on the right, titled “Attawapiskat by the numbers”).
The Feds are just handing that money over and the Band does whatever it wants with it!
Many people seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that First Nations have self-governance and run themselves freely. This is far from the truth, but given that most Canadians are familiar with the municipal model, the confusion is actually understandable. It isn’t as though Canada does a very good job of teaching people about the Indian Act. Section 61(1)(a-k) of the Indian Act details that: “With the consent of the council of a band, the Minister may authorize and direct the expenditure of capital moneys of the band” for various purposes. What this means is that Ministerial approval is actually a requirement before any capital expenditures can occur on reserve.
In practice, a Band will generally pass a Band Council Resolution (BCR) authorizing a certain expenditure (say on housing), and that BCR must be forwarded to INAC for approval. That’s right. Most First Nations have to get permission before they can spend money. That is the opposite of ‘doing whatever they want’ with the money. Bands are micromanaged to an extent unseen in nearly any other context that does not involve a minor or someone who lacks capacity due to mental disability. Any claims that INAC has no control over what Bands spend their money on is false.
I would hope by now you’d ask the following question: If INAC has to approve spending, why is Harper so confused?
There is a tendency to believe that our government officials do things in a way that makes sense. This despite the fact that most of us don’t actually believe this to be true. We want to believe. I know I do. So upon learning that the federal government is the one in charge of providing services to First Nations that are provided to non-natives by the province, we might assume that the provision of these services are administered in a comparable manner. Not so! And it actually makes sense why not, when you think about it for a moment.
Have you ever seen a federal hospital, for example? No, because hospitals are built, maintained, and staffed by the provinces. Thus, when a First Nations person needs to access health-care, they cannot access federal infrastructure. They must access provincial infrastructure and have the feds rather than the province pick up the tab. If only it were as easy as federal funding via provincial structures.
The Auditor General of Canada speaks up
The Auditor General of Canada released a report in June of this year examining Programs for First Nations on Reserve. A similar report was published in 2006. This report identifies deficiencies in program planning and delivery by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Health Canada, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. The reports also provide a number of recommendations to improve these deficiencies. The 2011 report evaluated the progress made since the 2006 report, and in most areas, gave these federal agencies a failing grade. Don’t worry, there is a point to this, stay with me.
The 2011 report has this to say: “In our view, many of the problems facing First Nations go deeper than the existing programs’ lack of efficiency and effectiveness. We believe that structural impediments severely limit the delivery of public services to First Nations communities and hinder improvements in living conditions on reserves. We have identified four such impediments:
* lack of clarity about service levels,
* lack of a legislative base,
* lack of an appropriate funding mechanism, and
* lack of organizations to support local service delivery.
I know this is going to look like mumbo jumbo at first, so let me break it down a little for you. This will help explain why millions of dollars of funding is not enough to actually improve the living conditions of First Nations people, particularly those on reserve.
Lack of clarity about service levels
As explained earlier the federal government is in charge of delivering services that are otherwise provided by the provinces to non-natives. The Auditor General states: “It is not always evident whether the federal government is committed to providing services on reserves of the same range and quality as those provided to other communities across Canada.”
Shockingly, the federal government does not always have clear program objectives, nor does it necessarily specify specific roles and responsibilities for program delivery, and has not established measures for evaluating performance in order to determine if outcome are actually met. What!? That’s right. The federal government is not keeping track of what it does, how it does it, or whether what it is doing works. The Auditor General recommends the federal government fix this, pronto. How can a community rely on these services if the federal government itself isn’t even clear on what it is providing and whether the programs are working?
Lack of a legislative base
“Provincial legislation provides a basis of clarity for services delivered by provinces. A legislative base for programs specifies respective roles and responsibilities, eligibility, and other program elements. It constitutes an unambiguous commitment by government to deliver those services. The result is that accountability and funding are better defined.”
The provinces all have some sort of Education Act that clearly lays out the roles and responsibilities of education authorities, as well as mechanisms of evaluation. There is generally no comparable federal legislation for the provision of First Nations education, health-care, housing and so on. As noted by the AG, legislation provides clarity and accountability. Without it, decision can be made on an ill-defined ‘policy’ basis or on a completely ad hoc basis.
Lack of an appropriate funding mechanism
The AG focuses on a few areas here. Lack of service standards for one. Were you aware that provincial building codes do not apply on reserve? Some provincial laws of ‘general application’ (like Highway Traffic Acts) can apply on reserve, but building codes do not. There is a federal National Building Code, but enforcement and inspection has been a major problem. This has been listed as one of the factors in why homes built on reserve do not have a similar ‘life’ to those built off reserve.
Poor timing for provision of funds is another key issue. “Most contribution agreements must be renewed yearly. In previous audits, we found that the funds may not be available until several months into the period to be funded.”
This is particularly problematic for housing as “money often doesn’t arrive until late summer, past the peak construction period, so projects get delayed and their costs rise.”
Lack of accountability
“It is often unclear who is accountable to First Nations members for achieving improved outcomes or specific levels of services. First Nations often cite a lack of federal funding as the main reason for inadequate services. For its part, INAC maintains that the federal government funds services to First Nations but is not responsible for the delivery or provision of these services.”
The AG also refers to a heavy reporting burden put on First Nations, and notes that the endless paperwork often is completely ignored anyway by federal agencies.
Lack of organizations to support local service delivery
This refers once again to the fact that there are no federal school or health boards, no federal infrastructure and expertise. Some programs are delivered through provincial structures, while others are provided directly by the federal government, with less than stellar results. As the Auditor General states, “Change is needed if meaning full progress is to be realised”. There is extreme lack of clarity about what the federal government is doing, why, how, and whether it is at all effective. No wonder Harper is confused! Tired yet? Don’t worry, the commentators aren’t finished, and neither am I.
The Chief of Attawapiskat made $71,000 last year while her people live in tents!!!
Apparently we are supposed to be outraged at the excess involved here. This of course follows on the heels of a report by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about ‘jaw-dropping’ reserve salaries. It’s become fashionable to rant about Chiefs making more than premiers (though no one could make that claim here).
Attawapiskat publishes its salaries, travel expenses and honorariums (again, nothing being `hidden here). Chief Theresa Spence was paid $69,575 in salary and honorariums in 2010-2011, and had $1,798 in travel expenses for a total of about $71K. If you are like most people, you don’t spend a lot of time looking at what public employees actually make. What number wouldn’t shock you in the absence of such context? $50,000? $32,000? I suspect any amount would be offered as some sort of proof of…something not right.
Well okay. Why don’t we take a look at some other salaries? But first, note that Ontario Premier McGuinty made $209,000 in 2010, and apparently over 100 public service executives made more than he did.
It is difficult to do a really accurate comparison of salaries, because Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act (doc) of 1996 only requires that salaries over $100,000 be reported (in addition, if the salaries are reported elsewhere, they are not necessarily included in this report). However, the annual reports are a fantastic resource. Here is the list of various public sector employees making over $100K a year. I offer this merely in order to ask…were you aware these people were making this amount of money? I sure wasn’t. These are salaries paid by tax dollars too. I have no idea if the Director of Quality Services for the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation should be paid $147,437.58 a year (sorry to single you out, sir, I chose randomly). If this Corporation were in the news and having financial difficulties, I have no doubt this salary would be brought up as somehow relevant…but is it?
I don’t know if it is. That’s the point. I don’t think the people bringing it up know either.
I haven’t been able to find a source listing the salaries of mayors of municipalities in Ontario to compare to Chief Spence’s salary. hen again, I doubt anyone would seriously claim that if she worked for free, the housing crisis in Attawakpiskat would be over. A good comment was sent to me recently on the issue of salaries that I’d like to share. “Whenever one is talking about the salaries of say a [premier or a] prime minister versus someone else, two things: 1) parliamentarians get very good pensions and for a relatively short time of service; 2) more particularly, a post like the prime ministership or the presidency of the United States opens up all kinds of doors for later life.
“So even if the salary is $200,000, the person is virtually guaranteed a very comfortably post-office life. Counsel in a big law firm. Paid corporate director. University professor. Etc. etc. I don’t think we imagine that the Barrick Gold Corporations of the world will be banging down the door of a past chief of Attawapiskat in a comparable way.”
I wonder what kind of pension Chief Spence can count on?
The more you know…
I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the common accusations and arguments being made about Attawapiskat on various forums and comments sections of online news articles. I might update if necessary to address them, but I think you now have at least a base to begin with, whether you honestly just want to understand the situation a little better, or want to fight those comment battles. If you would like an on-the-ground perspective, please check out Smoke Signals from Cree Yellowlegs (a song starts playing automatically so have your speakers turned down).
Update, December 2: An article by Michael Posluns sheds some light on what third party management means in practice. Chief Theresa Spence has published a press release on the imposition of third party management in Attawapiskat.
Above all, my relations, don’t let it get you down. You will see people call for the abolition of the Indian Act, for the abolition of reserves and the ‘assimilation’ of First Nations into ‘Canadian society’. You will see horrible things said about aboriginal culture. What you will rarely see are people responding to facts. Don’t be discouraged when facts are brushed off in favour of accusations. We do have the power to educate those around us, and even if we can’t reach the most vocal of bigots, we can reach the ‘average’ Canadian who is merely unaware rather than necessarily outright hateful.
