Letter to Prime Minister
December 6, 2011
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Dear Prime Minister:
Housing is urgently needed in Attawapiskat. Work with the community and build it now. Basic infrastructure is also lacking and needs to be attended to now. A school is urgently needed. Replace the makeshift portables on the toxic land that is making the children sick and do it now.
The truth about this debacle is also needed, but you have squandered the opportunity by blaming the people of Attawapiskat and exploiting their desperate circumstances for your own political and ideological purposes.
Here is the truth:
Your government has known about the desperate conditions in Attawapiskat for years. It would have taken monumental effort NOT to know about them. This is the result of years of chronic underfunding and bureaucratic indifference.
Even after a state of emergency was declared and only when, a month later, the Red Cross cargo plane was landing, did you finally take action and it was not to facilitate a solution; rather, your response demanding to know the whereabouts of the $50,000 allegedly paid to "every man, woman and child in the community," triggered such an outpouring of racism and hatred that it is now part of the historical record. You played on the centuries’-old stereotype to deflect attention away from your government’s inaction and obstruction.
Yesterday, your Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, John Duncan, issued the same purposefully misleading rehash of your earlier statements, notably: “Since 2006, we have invested over $90 million in the community of Attawapiskat.” Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence has said: “The taxpayers of Ontario and Canada should be made aware that the majority of the $94M 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, which in turn support urban northern communities . . . The majority of these firms are non Aboriginal tax-payers.”
Absent from Duncan’s lengthy media release and “Fact Sheet” (Marketwire: 14:21 ET) is any commitment to working with the community to build the more than 250 housing units that are needed now. Instead, the government once again raises the specious twin spectres of transparency and accountability. The information and accounts are available publicly for all to see on the website.
This is what is needed now: In Attawapiskat 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 is a need for 268 houses just to deal with the immediate backlog of homelessness.
Sending in forced third-party management, so reminiscent of the “Indian Agents” of the past, is insulting and is not a substitute for the action needed. We support Attiwapiskat’s decision to eject your appointee from its territory.
Finally, Prime Minister, I remind you of your refusal to sign the United Nations international document that recognized indigenous rights and that had been adopted by 143 countries. To Canada’s shame, your government was one of only four countries that voted “No” in Sept. 2007. You finally signed the “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” after delaying for more than three years. But great damage was done by your refusal.
Canadians must see a commitment from the federal government to a relationship that is built on respect, cooperation, consultation, a commitment to capacity building in the community, revenue sharing that both repays the First Nation for the wealth taken from traditional homelands in the past and a commitment to real revenue resource sharing on a go-forward basis.
I am therefore urging you, on behalf of the one million members of the Ontario Federation of Labour, to choose a new way forward, one that enables all Aboriginal people to live with dignity, respect and the opportunity to live up to their full human potential, rather than one that obstructs Aboriginal peoples in their aspirations for long-overdue equality.
Temperatures have dropped 20 degrees and will likely drop another 20 or 25 degrees further in the coming weeks. Please take action now.
Yours very truly,
SID RYAN
President
Ontario Federation of Labour
copy:
John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development
Andrea Horwath, Leader ONDP
Charlie Angus, MP Timmins-James Bay
Linda Duncan, NDP critic, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development
OFL Executive Board and Council
Joanne Webb, Chair OFL Aboriginal Circle
Download (DOC)
Download (PDF)
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Dear Prime Minister:
Housing is urgently needed in Attawapiskat. Work with the community and build it now. Basic infrastructure is also lacking and needs to be attended to now. A school is urgently needed. Replace the makeshift portables on the toxic land that is making the children sick and do it now.
The truth about this debacle is also needed, but you have squandered the opportunity by blaming the people of Attawapiskat and exploiting their desperate circumstances for your own political and ideological purposes.
Here is the truth:
Your government has known about the desperate conditions in Attawapiskat for years. It would have taken monumental effort NOT to know about them. This is the result of years of chronic underfunding and bureaucratic indifference.
Even after a state of emergency was declared and only when, a month later, the Red Cross cargo plane was landing, did you finally take action and it was not to facilitate a solution; rather, your response demanding to know the whereabouts of the $50,000 allegedly paid to "every man, woman and child in the community," triggered such an outpouring of racism and hatred that it is now part of the historical record. You played on the centuries’-old stereotype to deflect attention away from your government’s inaction and obstruction.
Yesterday, your Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, John Duncan, issued the same purposefully misleading rehash of your earlier statements, notably: “Since 2006, we have invested over $90 million in the community of Attawapiskat.” Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence has said: “The taxpayers of Ontario and Canada should be made aware that the majority of the $94M 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, which in turn support urban northern communities . . . The majority of these firms are non Aboriginal tax-payers.”
Absent from Duncan’s lengthy media release and “Fact Sheet” (Marketwire: 14:21 ET) is any commitment to working with the community to build the more than 250 housing units that are needed now. Instead, the government once again raises the specious twin spectres of transparency and accountability. The information and accounts are available publicly for all to see on the website.
This is what is needed now: In Attawapiskat 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 is a need for 268 houses just to deal with the immediate backlog of homelessness.
Sending in forced third-party management, so reminiscent of the “Indian Agents” of the past, is insulting and is not a substitute for the action needed. We support Attiwapiskat’s decision to eject your appointee from its territory.
Finally, Prime Minister, I remind you of your refusal to sign the United Nations international document that recognized indigenous rights and that had been adopted by 143 countries. To Canada’s shame, your government was one of only four countries that voted “No” in Sept. 2007. You finally signed the “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” after delaying for more than three years. But great damage was done by your refusal.
Canadians must see a commitment from the federal government to a relationship that is built on respect, cooperation, consultation, a commitment to capacity building in the community, revenue sharing that both repays the First Nation for the wealth taken from traditional homelands in the past and a commitment to real revenue resource sharing on a go-forward basis.
I am therefore urging you, on behalf of the one million members of the Ontario Federation of Labour, to choose a new way forward, one that enables all Aboriginal people to live with dignity, respect and the opportunity to live up to their full human potential, rather than one that obstructs Aboriginal peoples in their aspirations for long-overdue equality.
Temperatures have dropped 20 degrees and will likely drop another 20 or 25 degrees further in the coming weeks. Please take action now.
Yours very truly,
SID RYAN
President
Ontario Federation of Labour
copy:
John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development
Andrea Horwath, Leader ONDP
Charlie Angus, MP Timmins-James Bay
Linda Duncan, NDP critic, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development
OFL Executive Board and Council
Joanne Webb, Chair OFL Aboriginal Circle
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Download (PDF)
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