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Aboriginal and Inuit Non-Mining Issues

Why is Canada denying its indigenous peoples clean water? – by Amanda Klasing (Globe and Mail – August 30, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Amanda Klasing, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, specializes in the right to clean water.

“She likes to take a bath, but [the water] irritates her skin,” Susan said of her active two-year-old daughter. When the little girl was 18 months old, Susan started to notice rashes all over her daughter’s legs. “I thought it was something from the grass,” she said. Instead, a doctor informed her that the baby’s rash was probably from her water. Susan can’t bathe her daughter at home now; she takes her to a daycare centre or relative’s house.

Susan lives in Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario, where I spoke to her and other families in February to learn about living under a “do not consume” water advisory.

The water in the well that supplies her home is contaminated with uranium; water trucked in from a local treatment plant to fill a cistern at her house has dangerous levels of a cancer-causing byproduct that comes from treating dirty source water.

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INVESTIGATION: First Nations Water systems at risk – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – August 29, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Despite an election promise by Justin Trudeau to eliminate boil-water advisories on reserves within five years, data suggest the federal government will fall short of the objective without significant changes in its approach to rectifying problem, Matthew McClearn reports

One-third of First Nations people living on reserves use drinking water systems that threaten their health, an investigation by The Globe and Mail has found.

Roughly 57,000 people living on 101 reserves across Canada obtain water from treatment plants and pipe networks the government deem to be “high risk,” an analysis of federal data shows. Although these systems are not necessarily producing unsafe water today – some are, some aren’t – the government fears they could fail under adverse conditions, such as a sudden deterioration in source-water quality. Another 95,000 are served by “medium risk” systems located on 167 reserves.

Combined, that amounts to roughly one-third of the approximately 462,000 people living on reserves – or about 30 communities the size of Walkerton, Ont. In 2000, bacterial contamination in Walkerton’s water system sickened more than 2,300 people and killed seven. Although the Walkerton tragedy prompted wide-ranging regulatory changes across Canada, this hasn’t resulted in safe water for many reserves. Indeed, many First Nations water systems remain in shambolic condition.

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Gord Downie’s demand for courage – by Jesse Staniforth (Toronto Star – August 24, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

How much was the Tragically Hip singer praising Prime Minister Trudeau or challenging him to make life better for indigenous people?

Gord Downie could have stood for a lot of things on Saturday night, during the final performance of the Tragically Hip’s Man Machine Poem tour, and possibly of his life. But with the nation watching — 11.7-million tuning in on CBC — he called for non-Indigenous Canadians to take up the long, difficult process of decolonization.

His comments came framed as a compliment to Justin Trudeau, who was in the crowd (wearing a Canadian Tuxedo): “He cares about the people way up North, that we were trained our entire lives to ignore, trained our entire lives to hear not a word of what’s going on up there. And what’s going on up there ain’t good. It’s maybe worse than it’s ever been [ … But] we’re going to get it fixed and we got the guy to do it, to start, to help. […] It’s really, really bad, but we’re going to figure it out — you’re going to figure it out.”

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[Tragically Hip] Downie praised for putting Trudeau on spot about indigenous issues – by Joe Friesen (Globe and Mail – August 22, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Indigenous leaders across Canada expressed their support and gratitude to Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie for placing indigenous issues in the spotlight during the band’s nationally televised concert Saturday, and for applying public pressure to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take action.

Mr. Downie, who announced in May that he has incurable brain cancer, told the audience that Mr. Trudeau “cares about the people way up North that we were trained our entire lives to ignore.”

“It’s going to take us 100 years to figure out what the hell went on up there but it isn’t cool, and everybody knows that. It’s really, really bad. But we’re going to figure it out. You’re going to figure it out,” Mr. Downie told the live audience in Kingston, Ont., and the millions watching and listening live on CBC.

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When an official story is a monstrous lie: The textbook history of Canada’s indigenous people – by Sheema Khan (Globe and Mail – August 12, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In 1986, a cinematic gem La Historia Official (The Official Story) from Argentina, won the Academy Award for best foreign film. It dealt with Argentina’s Dirty War, during which thousands of political dissidents “disappeared” at the hands of the ruling military junta.

The central character of the film is a teacher named Alecia, who teaches history at a high school in Buenos Aires. One day, after delivering a lesson on the civil war, based on the government text book, Alecia is confronted by some students, who challenge her for repeating government propaganda.

Alecia is astounded, for she is an apolitical individual who has lived a comfortable middle-class life, and has never given much thought to the government’s official story. The rest of the film is about the moral evolution of Alecia, and how she gradually discovers the monstrous lie behind the official story – at great personal cost – because she cannot, and will not, compromise her conscience.

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Star Investigation: A Poisoned People – by David Bruser and Jayme Poisson (Toronto Star – July 24, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

The steady drip of the neurotoxin mercury has percolated through river sediment, the food chain and generations of Grassy Narrows First Nations residents for more than four decades, killing a community’s livelihood and then contaminating its people.

GRASSY NARROWS FIRST NATION—For more than 40 years the mercury has percolated through river sediment, the food chain and generations of residents. From 100 kilometres upstream, the slow, steady drip of the neurotoxin first killed a community’s livelihood and then contaminated its people.

A disability board — set up by government officials in the mid-1980s to compensate those who can show doctors they suffer symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning — has approved claims from more than 300 applicants who suffer from tremors, loss of muscle co-ordination, slurred speech and tunnel vision. One of them was Marlin Kokopenace’s 17-year-old son, Calvin.

“(Calvin) was pretty frail.

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Thirsty for Justice campaign takes aim at First Nations water issues – by Kris Ketonen (CBC News Thunder Bay – June 22, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Campaign calls on federal government to address First Nations water problems

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has launched a new campaign aimed at pressuring the federal government to address the water quality issues in First Nations communities across Canada.

The Thirsty for Justice Campaign officially launched on Tuesday, National Aboriginal Day. It includes a website and a video chronicling the water quality problems faced by Grassy Narrows First Nation in northwestern Ontario.

However, the goal of the campaign is to see the water issues being faced by more than 100 First Nations communities in Canada addressed, said Michael Desautels, PSAC’s human rights program and Aboriginal rights officer.

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Reconciliation with First Nations requires action – by Avi Lewis (Toronto Star – June 16, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

Ontario’s inability to clean up Grassy Narrows is indicative of injustices that have been playing out for decades

On the surface, it seemed like unfortunate political timing. On May 30th, Kathleen Wynne apologized for historic abuses toward indigenous peoples as part of her official response to the Truth and Reconciliation commission. “We do not approach reconciliation as something we need to get over with — we approach it as something we need to get right,” she said.

And yet, just an hour later, she was getting heat in Question Period for getting it very wrong in her response to an environmental crime-in-progress on indigenous land that has been going on for almost 60 years.

It just so happened that week was the biennial Grassy Narrows River Run, when community members from the First Nation travel 1,700 km to Toronto to press the government for action on the disaster of mercury in their lakes and rivers.

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Ottawa must act to end First Nations water crisis identified in Human Rights Watch report: Editorial (Toronto Star – June 8, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

A leading human rights group has released a report urging Ottawa to clean up water systems on 85 First Nations reserves. The Liberal government should heed the call immediately.

In a nation as rich as ours, one that contains 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, no one should have to fear what flows through their tap. Yet a damning new report by a leading U.S.-based human rights group concludes that many First Nations communities across Ontario are being deprived of their right to clean water.

As of January 2016, drinking water advisories were in effect in 85 reserves across Canada, most of them in this province. More startling, roughly 36 per cent of those advisories had been in place for 10 years or more — some for more than 20.

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NEWS RELEASE: Canada: Water Crisis Puts First Nations Families at Risk

 

Click here for full report: https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/06/07/make-it-safe/canadas-obligation-end-first-nations-water-crisis

(Toronto) – Canada has abundant water, yet water in many indigenous communities in Ontario is not safe to drink, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. The water on which many First Nations communities in Canada, on lands known as reserves, depend is contaminated, hard to access, or toxic due to faulty treatment systems. The federal and provincial governments need to take urgent steps to address their role in this crisis.

“Tainted water and broken systems on Ontario’s First Nations reserves are jeopardizing health, burdening parents and caregivers, and exacerbating problems on reserves,” said Amanda Klasing, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “First Nations people have the same human rights to adequate water and sanitation as all Canadians, but in practice cannot access them.”

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Quebec Cree desire to ‘share’ not consistent with past – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – June 7, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

MOOSONEE – The Moose Cree First Nation says it has no intention of sharing its Aboriginal rights and title over a section of what it sees as its traditional territory with the Cree First Nations on the Quebec side of James Bay.

In a strongly worded open letter to Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come, the leader of the Grand Council of the Crees, Moose Factory Chief Norman Hardisty Jr. Rejected the notion of sharing rights and title with Quebec Cree; saying their past actions do not demonstrate a history of sharing.

“You say that your interest is to ‘share’ the lands and resources in the Moose Cree’s homeland … but the facts tell a different story,” reads Hardisty’s letter. The letter goes on to say that when the Quebec Cree signed their own treaty in 1975, the Moose Cree supported them without expecting any consultation because there was no mention that the Quebec Cree had claims to land on the Ontario side of the border.

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Time to clean up river in Grassy Narrows First Nation, grandmother says – by Muriel Draaisma (CBC News Toronto – June 2, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/

A grandmother from Grassy Narrows First Nation says it’s time for the Ontario government to clean up mercury poisoning in the waterways that run near her community.

Judy DaSilva, 54, environmental health co-ordinator for Grassy Narrows First Nation, told CBC’s Metro Morning on Thursday that mercury poisoning in the Wabigoon River has sickened many members of the community, and that the Ontario government has refused to act despite several reports.

The river was contaminated in the 1960s when an estimated 9,000 kilograms of mercury were dumped into the river by a pulp and paper mill in Dryden, Ont. “We are not valuable enough to be considered,” she said. “We, as Indigenous people, are expendable. And that’s why the poison is allowed to be still in the river. Money is more important than us,” DaSilva said.

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Ontario’s moment of truth, message of reconciliation – by Martin Regg Cohn (Toronto Star – May 31, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

One public pledge stands out as the easiest to uphold: The promise to recognize and remember the history of residential school survivors by retelling their stories to all our schoolchildren through a revised curriculum.

For most of its existence, Ontario’s legislature has not been an especially welcoming place to the indigenous people who predate it.

The hallways at Queen’s Park are a pantheon of portraits showing stolid leaders of European descent — generals, politicians, fathers of Confederation — their stern visages looking down upon visitors. Today, that whitewashed view of the province’s history looks a little less cloistered.

After a sunrise reconciliation ceremony on the front lawn of Queen’s Park, hundreds of indigenous Ontarians were invited inside Monday to see its new public face.

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‘Shocked the world’: Suicide crisis at Attawapiskat reverberates in rare emergency debate – by John Ward (National Post – April 13, 2016)

http://news.nationalpost.com/

The Canadian Press – OTTAWA — The misery and neglect at the root of a suicide crisis on a remote northern First Nation has “shocked the world,” an NDP MP said Tuesday as the cascading tragedy in Attiwapiskat reverberated on the floor of the House of Commons.

No one can understand “how a country as rich as Canada can leave so many young children and young people behind,” said Charlie Angus, whose sprawling northern Ontario riding includes the deeply troubled and isolated aboriginal community.

“Will this minister commit to a total overhaul to ensure that every child in this country has the mental health supports that they need to have hope and a positive future?

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Attawapiskat declares state of emergency over spate of suicide attempts – by Kate Rutherford (CBC News Sudbury – April 10, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Chief Bruce Shisheesh desperate for mental health services after 11 attempts on Saturday night alone

The chief and council for the Attawapiskat First Nation on remote James Bay have declared a state of emergency, saying they’re overwhelmed by the number of attempted suicides in the community.

On Saturday night alone, 11 people attempted to take their own lives, Chief Bruce Shisheesh said. Shisheesh and the council met Saturday night and unanimously voted to declare the state of emergency. That compels such agencies as the Weeneebayko Health Authority in Moose Factory, Ont., and Health Canada to bring in additional resources.

Including Saturday’s spate of suicide attempts, a total of 101 people of all ages have tried to kill themselves since September, Shisheesh said, with one person dying. The youngest was 11, the oldest 71.

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