Kashechewan not only lacks the resources to build an economy, it doesn't even have clean water
Picture this: Hundreds of people wait to be airlifted to safety as a Canadian Forces disaster relief team is flown in with a water-purification unit.
None of the above.
This is
It was just a little more than a year ago that about 1,000 of the 1,900 residents of the remote
Some residents were flown to
The cost of the evacuation has been estimated at $16 million.
A year later, things are no better, said Stan Beardy, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which includes Kashechewan.
"I have about 19 communities out of 49 that are on a boil-water advisory," Beardy said in an interview last week.
"I have serious problems with three of the communities -- Appawatiskat,
Beardy is asking for a fundamental right to be met for his people -- the right to clean water.
"We live in
Kashechewan has been evacuated three times in the past year -- once for the tainted-water scare and twice when the mighty
A recent controversial report has proposed that the community be moved to
"The people wanted to build it a little farther inland on higher ground. It goes back to the fact that the government never listens to native people and the result is 100 years later, you have native people being displaced three times in one year," he said.
The federal commissioners who set up the reserve system insisted the community be close enough to
Federal penny-pinching is the reason for the bad water, Beardy said.
"One of the reasons we have problems with the 19 boil-water advisories is the fact that very little is provided for human-capacity development at the community level.
"There is no support mechanism to ensure that operators can get that expertise in a phone call," he said.
He said the only way to sustain native communities in the north is through jobs and economic growth.
Diamonds have been found near
De Beers, the South African diamond exploration giant, has started mining there in conjunction with the Attawapiskat First Nation. Other economic development projects include the native-operated Whitefeather Forest Initiative at Pikangikum, near the
When the reserve system was set up more than 100 years ago, Beardy said, the federal government deliberately placed them far from potential sources of economic development such as minerals, forestry or potential hydro-electric sites. While the rest of the province has prospered from that wealth, aboriginal people have been shut out, he said.
"We want to be able to control our natural resources, so that we can participate in the economy and begin to build our own economic base," Beardy said.
"We are not asking for handouts," he said, pointing out that natives have treaty rights to share in resource benefits.
"We are not interested in taxpayers' money. We want a share of the wealth that comes from our lands," he said.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Alan Pope wrote the report for the federal department of Indian and northern affairs that suggested moving Kashechewan residents to their own community near Timmins -- about 400 km south of James Bay.
Pope argues the community is not sustainable where it is. Without better education and social services, there is no way to provide the infrastructure needed to keep it going.
A proposal to relocate on higher ground a few kilometres from their current location would cost $435 million, Pope said in a phone interview last week.
"To me, while that did solve the elevation issue and the flooding issue ... it didn't address the other social problems in the community," hesaid, pointing to an 87% unemployment rate, a failing education system, no jobs and very little by way of social services. He said the band would retain access and resource rights on their traditional land.
"So when I looked at all those things as well, it made a more dramatic move necessary in my mind," Pope said.
As long as Kashechewan is unable to produce its own skilled workers to keep the place running, the community is doomed, he said.
"There are no math or sciences taught in the high school. The dropout rate is 60%. There hasn't been a graduate in two years," Pope said.
With no graduates, there are no homegrown health workers or social-work professionals.
And with no math or science taught, the people of Kashechewan are unable to run their own water plants. And there's a lack of accountability in the band's finances.
"One of my recommendations is to have the current chief get to the bottom of what is going on and do some audits and control over banking and over expenditure of moneys. I think money has been wasted," he said.
Law professor Darlene Johnston said a dramatic shift of people off reserves over the past 20 to 30 years leaves aboriginal groups fearing assimilation.
"I think there is a concern in some communities that if enough people move off the reserves that the government is just going to give up on making it viable to provide services to the people who remain," said Johnston, who teaches aboriginal law at the University of Toronto and is from the Cape Croker reserve on Georgian Bay.
The traditional hunter-gatherer native way of life has long vanished, and only a vestige remains of the fur trade on which the country was built.
In the distant past, native tribes lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place, season to season, living off the land.
Today, aboriginal people live in settlements. A sedentary lifestyle contributes to the poor health so many First Nations people suffer.
While non-natives, especially in the south, question why aboriginal people wouldn't just move to get better education and services,
"If you are a James Bay Cree and you have spent all your life either on the coast or in those watersheds -- that's what the traditional people would have done -- that's part of your identity," she said. Leaving the place where their ancestors are buried is not something James Bay Cree do lightly.
"If your world view is that the Creator put you in that place and you have certain responsibilities and obligations, then the choice of moving to Timmins is not just about changing houses, it would affect who you are and whether you are meeting your obligations," she said.
The provincial minister responsible for aboriginal affairs, David Ramsay, said the decision on where to relocate the community must be made by Kashechewan residents themselves.
"There is a lot of Crown land within the city of Timmins and adjacent to it, so there is a lot of opportunity if that is what the decision is, where traditional activities could be pursued and at the same time be close to major health, social and industrial infrastructure," he said.
Timmins-James Bay New Democratic MPP Gilles Bisson said Kashechewan is pondering its fate and he will take the pulse of the community when he flies in this week.
"If people are to move to Timmins, what proof do we have that the federal government is any more committed to funding the needs of that community should they set up the reserve in Timmins, if they haven't done it in Kashechewan?" he asks.
The state of our isolated native reserves is this province's shame.
What do our aboriginal people want? Clean water? Schools? Jobs? Hope for their children?
You can sum it all up in one word: Dignity. It shouldn't be too much to ask.