Canada's First Nations - CF help, protests, solutions, etc. (merged)

[Strike]

What I would like to see is what types of houses the council and band chief are living in.  Haven't heard anything about that yet.

 

[ballz]

According to their auditted financial statements Theresa Spence makes almost 70k a year
http://www.attawapiskat.org/wp-content/uploads/2011-Consolidated-Schedule-of-Salaries-Honouraria-and-Travel-Expenditures.pdf

I'd say that would buy one hell of a tent in that neighbourhood...

 

[Danjanou]

What I would like to see is what types of houses the council and band chief are living in.  Haven't heard anything about that yet.

Care to guess

http://maps.google.ca/maps?rlz=1T4RNRN_enCA434CA434&q=Attawapiskat&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=qOHeTqqqDYX40gHV8o2cBw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=3&ved=0CB8Q_AUoAg

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

No, the problem isn't building materials or what sort of shelter is or is not possible (for $90 million, you could probably build an apartment building or a small suburban neighbourhood), but rather making sure the money is actually managed and spent in an open and effective manner. Maybe instead of giving the money to the band council, the cheques could be delivered to each person individually. Getting @ $8000/ year (according to the breakdown given in an earlier news story) would make each individual much better off than the situation today.

For some in the community you might be right, but there is a large drug problem currently in this community to include alcohol among other things.  I fear giving them a surge of $8,000 would just make things worse in the community because it's not enough money to buy a home, but it's more than enough to make yourself not feel any pain for a while.

What I would like to see is what types of houses the council and band chief are living in.  Haven't heard anything about that yet.

The council quite often live within the community, but you would throw up in your hat if you found out out that some Chiefs in Northern communities *cough* Pikangikum *cough*, own homes in Thunder Bay worth $1million+.  Not to say this Chief is of the same cloth, but I understand they don't live in meagre places.

According to their auditted financial statements Theresa Spence makes almost 70k a year
http://www.attawapiskat.org/content/uploads/2011-Consolidated-Schedule-of-Salaries-Honouraria-and-Travel-Expenditures.pdf

I'd say that would buy one hell of a tent in that neighbourhood...

If that's all she makes a year I'll eat my boots.  What is a listed salary and what they actually take in are two different things.  Corruption is rampant, because once again there is no accountability.

Overall you guys have brought up some good points, but you have to realize in many of these communities the feeling of "white man law doesn't apply to me" is felt.  They think we are responsible to take care of them and provide them with whatever they want, but they don't want us looking over their shoulder making sure they are being accountable with what they have.  There is still a deep feeling of "you stole our lands" and it permeates everything within their life.  Has the situation become dire and is there assistance needed?  Yes.  But it is not only the fault of the Chief and council of Attawapiskat, it's also the fault of the government for not realizing sooner that accountability was needed and that they should have been following up all along on the expenditure of money.

In the end this is a **** storm politically and it needs to be dealt with in a manner that might hurt and leave a bruise, but in the end we have to move forward instead of allowing this to carry on.  Regardless of the backlash happening from the media/opposition, the government has to see that if we let this go unchecked it's a cycle that is doomed to be repeated.

 

[OldSolduer]

Down here in Manitoba, the First Nation of Lake St Martin has been housed in various hotels in Winnipeg since their land flooded in May.

The site of the old radar station at Gypsumville was offered, but now concerns were raised about the amount of garter snakes that frequent the area.

PLUS - the chief didn't like who the government contracted to build the houses - the company the chief has a 60% interest in was not selected to build the houses.....

Am I missing something here? Anywhere else we call that a conflict of interest....don't we?

 

[Danjanou]

Well garter snakes are dangerous Jim :

 

[ballz]

If that's all she makes a year I'll eat my boots.  What is a listed salary and what they actually take in are two different things.  Corruption is rampant, because once again there is no accountability.

I agree, but I can't prove that (hopefully the government will). But I can prove 70k/year alone is a ridiculously high amount for leading a town of <2000 people.

As seen here, she's making way more money than the mayor's of towns with 20,000+ people, about 2.5 times as much as the mayor of Corner Brook, NL (Corner Brook, Newfoundland, has 20,083 people, but its mayor only makes $27,032.)

http://www.yukon-news.com/news/14433/

 

[Sigs Pig]

Well garter snakes are dangerous Jim :

Here is another Keystone Kop type story similar to this fiasco at Indian Affairs...

Snipped from the 'net:

GARTER SNAKES CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS

Garter Snakes also known as Garden Grass Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis ) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes.

Here's why: A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and when it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.

His wife thought he had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, wouldn't listen to his protests and loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him out.

About that time the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbour man. He volunteered to capture the snake.

He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa. The neighbour man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbour?s wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbour lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that he had been bitten by the snake. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now the police had arrived. They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little green snake.

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbour and his sobbing wife.

The little snake again crawled out from under the sofa. One of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over and the lamp on it shattered and as the bulb broke it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, the burning drapes, were seen by the neighbours who called the fire department.

The firemen had started raising the fire truck ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed... Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car, and all was right with their world.

A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night. That's when he shot her.


ME

 

[Robert0288]

I never knew snakes were so dangerous.  Thank you for that important lesson.  I will now kill snakes on sight

 

[GAP]

I never knew snakes were so dangerous.  Thank you for that important lesson.  I will now kill snakes on sight

Don't....only ones under couches.....the rest are neat!!

 

[camouflauge]

Having been involved with some of the First Nations people, I truly believe it's high time that there was some accountability of the funds that are provided to them. The Chief and Band Council should be audited like every other agency that receives funds from our tax dollars. There's a lot more to this story than what has appeared in the media to date

 

[a_majoor]

In her own words. No explnation as to where the money really went, though:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/12/02/attawapiskat-chief-theresa-spence-help-the-first-nations-move-forward/

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence: Help the First Nations move forward
National Post  Dec 2, 2011 – 6:18 PM ET

By Theresa Spence

‘Smashing the status quo” is not an easy task, but it is essential to the future of my community and many others just like ours here in Attawapiskat.

For the past week, the world has seen the shocking impacts of a flawed system. The faces of our children and the deplorable conditions of our homes have been plastered across newspapers and TV screens. Our ability to manage our community resources has been questioned, regardless of the full transparency we provide by annually posting a full consolidated audit reporting all salaries, including my own.

It should not take a crisis to prompt change. I am further discouraged these past days by the attempts to pit people within my own community against one another, and to drive wedges between us and other First Nations or our organizations. Blaming is hurtful and pointless — we must accept responsibility, as I do for my part, and commit to moving forward. This is what we demand of the Canadian government — nothing more and certainly nothing less. We have inherent and treaty rights yet we are relegated to administering our own poverty under the completely flawed Indian Act regime and the remote control of Ottawa. Instead of moving forward, Ottawa keeps dragging us backwards within the system that has failed for so long.

I am encouraged by the support of other leadership and I know that it is only through understanding and unity that we will achieve fairness and the respect and dignity we deserve. The Crown-First Nations Gathering, announced yesterday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and National Chief Shawn Atleo is not a response to Attawapiskat. It’s a response to a failed system, and a bold move to change a status quo that isn’t working for the people of Attawapiskat or anyone in this country.

This important gathering between the Crown and First Nations, which we as First Nations called for, is important to get at the longer term change required. It’s about renewing the treaty relationship and rejecting the failure of Indian policy in this country once and for all.

Right now, we need immediate help from all Canadians. At the same time, we insist that the federal government work with us not against us. But we also need a plan for the future and this is why the support of others, the Grand Chief, the Regional Chief and the National Chief is so critical to us now. We must work together and we will demand that once and for all we move on a vision for the future.

As a leader in my community, as a mother, I want nothing more than to be able to provide a safe community for my people. I want our members to be healthy and happy and thriving. I want roofs over our heads. I want a school for our children. A jointly developed approach is what we need to ensure our rights are respected and our needs are met.

No longer can First Nation poverty in a First World country be used as political football, further driving wedges within our communities and between First Nations and other Canadians.

Achieving this kind of real change and “smashing the status quo” is exactly the purpose of the Crown-First Nations Gathering. I encourage all Canadians to not judge us but join us with respect — help us move forward in dignity, recognizing our rights and responsibilities. This is the only path forward to creating a future that restores the pride and dignity for all.

Theresa Spence is Chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation.

Smashing the Status Quo is a fine idea; convert reservations to municipalities or counties under the various provincial laws and regulations of that jurisdiction, close down the Ottawa Bureaucracy and end the transfer payments and let them run the communities just like all the other communities in the provinces they are in.

But the letter is pretty clear the desired solution is more of the handouts and transfers, but less questions asked...

 

[OldSolduer]

Having been involved with some of the First Nations people, I truly believe it's high time that there was some accountability of the funds that are provided to them. The Chief and Band Council should be audited like every other agency that receives funds from our tax dollars. There's a lot more to this story than what has appeared in the media to date

Oh that's so racist and oppressive!! How dare you question the cheifs?    I'm joking of course.

I agree fully.

The NDP didn't help matters when their interim leader said the solution is to throw   p!ss away more money trying to solve the problem.

 

[PMedMoe]

Government unrolls plan for Attawapiskat

Federal funds will be used to purchase 15 winterized portables to help tackle the housing crisis at a northern Ontario reserve.

Aboriginal and Northern Development Minster John Duncan penned a letter to the chief of Attawapiskat First Nation Wednesday to relay the government's plan for the remote community.

In the note, Duncan said a third-party manager will be tasked with purchasing the units, but materials won't be delivered until winter ice roads are opened in mid-January. There are a number of logistical complexities associated with moving resources in and out of the northern area along the coast of James Bay.

In the short-term, the government says the community can work to retrofit its healing lodge or sports centre, or it can evacuate families currently living in tents and shacks without electricity, heat, or running water. The band says about 62 people are living in these conditions.

More at link

I'm at work, so I can't watch the video that accompanies this article, but I love the caption: "Keep out... but keep sending cash" 

 

[ReneeClaude]

I'm at work, so I can't watch the video that accompanies this article, but I love the caption: "Keep out... but keep sending cash"

Just watched it. I believe it express what a lot of us are thinking. It's a 3:31 minutes worth watching.

 

[Canadian.Trucker]

FYI, we need to be careful with the information posted and view/opinions expressed since this may be monitored closely since CF assistance is now being heavily reviewed.

 

[OldSolduer]

FYI, we need to be careful with the information posted and view/opinions expressed since this may be monitored closely since CF assistance is now being heavily reviewed.

And not to be disrespectful, but how do you know this?

 

[MJP]

And not to be disrespectful, but how do you know this?

We have always seen a steady stream of journalists browsing and posting on these boards.  Posts from this sites have shown up in the MSM.  Mike has been threatened with lawsuits from those that can't be named (to save a kitten's life).  We should always post under the assumption that our words can be used by the MSM and therefore give careful consideration to what we post.

 

[Strike]

According to this link:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/12/07/attawapiskat-ndp-military.html

There has been no request made, just suggestions from the opposition.  Reading more into the article, the community itself has not asked for military involvement.  That is a big indicator right there.

That's not to say that someone somewhere isn't drawing up a plan "just in case" but the chances of it being used are likely extremely slim.

 

[aesop081]

FYI, we need to be careful with the information posted and view/opinions expressed since this may be monitored closely since CF assistance is now being heavily reviewed.

We were all talking about Libya before the CF went.......we made out just fine.