Why Canada has Declared a State of Emergency for the Attawapiskat

Attawapiskat First Nation Band Office (Photo: Wiki Commons)

The housing conditions for the Attawapiskat tribe have deteriorated to the point where many residents are living in sheds and tents.

Now they are getting emergency help from the Red Cross.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Canadian Member of Parliament, Charlie Angus, about the problems facing the Attawapiskat.

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Lisa Mullins: Now, in many parts of the developing world you might not be surprised to see people living in terrible conditions; families forced to sleep in makeshift sheds, no running water, no heat or electricity, people using buckets as toilets. But what we just described there is taking place in the Attawapiskat native reservation in Ontario, Canada. Charlie Angus represents the area in the Canadian Parliament. Angus recently visited the reservation and he says climate conditions are adding to the misery of people there.

Charlie Angus: The difference between third world conditions and northern Canada is the temperature. I was in Attawapiskat the other day, this is up on the James Bay Coast in northern Canada. It was minus 20. And that’s not cold up there. We met one family in a non-heated shed. The man was too sick to cut wood so they had no heat. He spit up blood every time he tried to cut firewood. We were in a little tent with a family of six, living in a small tent with a makeshift fire stove. Two years they’ve been in that tent. There’s 90 people being put up in a construction trailer that looks like a medieval prison and unfortunately, this is the reality in many communities. The difference with Attawapiskat is this is a community ragged, impoverished little community sad enough, they declared a state of emergency because they actually were concerned people were going to start to die if the temperatures dropped any further.

Mullins: So they declared a state of emergency themselves, the local leaders in the community. How did though get so bad in the first place?

Angus: What you’re dealing with here in northern Canada in terms of First Nation reserves or reservations is years of chronic underfunding. This is a community that doesn’t even have a grade school. For 12 years these kids have been going to school in dilapidated, portables on a toxic field. You know, this community, the kids were so upset that a little girl, she was 13 years old, Shannen Koostachin, launched a campaign to shame the government to giving us schools. Shannen became in Canada a national leader for First Nation equal education rights.

Mullins: How could that have gone though beyond the reach or the gaze of the government, including you because you represent James Bay and these residents in Parliament. And could the conditions that you saw really have come as a surprise?

Angus: Unfortunately, they haven’t been a surprise to me. I’ve been speaking of for the last seven years. We had one community in Saskatchewan that was so badly contaminated with e-coli we had three massive evacuations in one year. We’ve had major mold crisis in Fort Albany. I’ve spoken out on the situation in Attawapiskat. We had three states of emergency in three years. But what happens is the Federal Department of Indian Affairs just turns a blind eye. There’s an incredible capacity for indifference.

Mullins: Well, another question is how could this happen in an area that has rich resources, including a DeBeers diamond mine in the area?

Angus: Well, the lands of Canada’s far north are incredibly rich — copper, gold, diamonds. That’s why they make these communities so small, so that anything that’s found on the land that’s on their trap lines and their traditional hunting grounds where they’ve lived for thousands of years doesn’t belong to them. They have no access to…now in fairness to…

Mullins: They have no, in other words they have nothing in terms of revenue from the diamond mines?

Angus: Nothing. All the revenues from this rich diamond mine will go down to the province and all that money will be spent in urban areas in the southern part of Canada. Now, in fairness to DeBeers, they’ve actually sent in technicians. They sent in the trailers that were just supposed to be temporary housing, which have unfortunately become permanent, these construction trailers.

Mullins: Who is stepping up right now to help?

Angus: Well, it’s amazing, we have Red Cross Disaster Management on the ground. We’re getting calls from kids across the country doing fundraising at their schools. In Ontario, our largest province, the public school boards association are calling on all students to raise funds. I got calls from Boston, New York, Seattle, the Netherlands, the people are horrified that this is happening.

Mullins: Charlies Angus is a member of Parliament for James Bay, speaking to us about the dire living conditions for 1,800 members of the Attawapiskat native reservation in northern Ontario. Thank you.

Angus: Thank you so much.

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