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Attawapiskat First Nation
Lack of access to clean water is something that has long existed in this country, and it still does today.
"The greatest resource we have in this country is not the gold and it is not the oil."
"I wanted to give up on life. But now, I know that it shouldn't be that way. I'm slowly learning about life and taking it day by day."
The state of emergency was declared on Oct. 28, 2011, by Attawapiskat's new chief, Theresa Spence. I had known her through her work on council. She didn't strike me as a firebrand or overly political. She was worried that, as the arctic winter descended on the community, people in these makeshift quarters could die. Days turned into weeks, and the temperature kept dropping. Officials from the regional office of Aboriginal Affairs spoke with the community about advancing some money to repair some of the condemned houses, but there was no offer to help get the families out of the tents and shacks.
A healthy, non-profit solution to high food prices.
If Attawapiskat wants the continued support of the public over an extended period of time, it has to show that they are managing funds effectively. But in the meantime, who is helping the people who need housing now? Fight it out in court and do your audits after you take care of the emergency.
Attawapiskat is Canada's Katrina moment. It may not be the same scale, but it is the tip of the iceberg for the numerous Bantustan-style homelands of the far north. Years of chronic under funding and bureaucratic indifference has created a Haiti north where dying in slow motion on ice-filled shantytown is considered the norm.
It's been an extraordinary week here at Huffingtonpost.ca: After only six months online, we've just seen a huge surge of traffic that should cause other Canadian news sites to start watching their backs. This past Monday, our news team launched an important series about rising income inequality in Canada: Mind The Gap.
While that series led the news, MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) posted an extraordinary and wrenching account of human conditions at the Attawapiskat First Nation community on the James Bay coast.
And I posted a blog of my own that drew an unexpected amount of international traffic. Suffice to say it involved vodka, tampons, teenagers, and a ridiculous urban myth I was determined to prove wrong. No one can now say I won't do anything for a story -- or a drink.
While that series led the news, MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) posted an extraordinary and wrenching account of human conditions at the Attawapiskat First Nation community on the James Bay coast.
And I posted a blog of my own that drew an unexpected amount of international traffic. Suffice to say it involved vodka, tampons, teenagers, and a ridiculous urban myth I was determined to prove wrong. No one can now say I won't do anything for a story -- or a drink.
