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.

The Red Cross will help address many of the short-term problems facing the community, however, this disaster wasn't an accident of nature. It was the direct result of the failure of the federal and provincial government to work with the community. This problem remains.