KASH MAY NOT BE THE ANSWER

If $4 billion is required just to battle Native poverty, what might it take to win?

The package, which sources say may reach $5-billion by the time it is made final, will be unveiled Friday [November 25] at the end of a two-day first ministers meeting devoted entirely to improving natives' living standards...

The section on economic development is only six paragraphs long and contains few specific pledges. There is also little mention of accountability in terms of how the new money will be spent.

The negotiations are an attempt to bring 19 organizations and governments into agreement on a course of action for the next 10 years in a policy area where there is little consensus on how best to solve the entrenched poverty of many natives, both on reserves and in cities...

Arthur Manuel, a former chief from British Columbia, has organized a Grassroots Peoples' Coalition with hopes of bringing at least three busloads of natives to Kelowna to protest against the summit. Mr. Manuel said the deal currently makes no mention of treaty rights to natural resources, which he said would do far more to improve the lives of natives than announcements of new programs for housing and education.

"The minute you recognize our economic and treaty rights, our poverty would disappear immediately."...

And what work would result? Is it a matter of simply collecting rents? How to divvy up the loot? Some Native communities might get large rents, others might not.

"Money for nothin' and chicks for free [see Peterborough below]" somehow does not seem a recipe for long-term societal improvement (cf. Saudi Arabia).

If the water is safe at Kashechewan why are residents not returning rapidly?

More than 1,000 Kashechewan residents who were removed from their homes will stay in hotel rooms and dormitories across Ontario, even though the reserve's deputy chief acknowledged its water is safe to drink...

Officials from both the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Emergency Management Ontario said that no one will force the residents to return, adding that it's the band council's call.

So far, only 100 men, who flew home yesterday to start renovation projects on houses, have left the evacuation centres. Unfortunately, they have nothing to build...

In Peterborough, the indefinite evacuation has allowed for more cigarette breaks, cafeteria food and girl-watching.

“Chicks,” said Ernest Wynne, 14, when asked about his favourite part of Peterborough, as the teen and his friend, Darcy Lazarus, 16, lounged in the lobby of a Galaxy theatre.

Dressed entirely in new clothes, save for a sweatshirt he brought from home, the teen highlighted the features of his old home and his temporary home northeast of Toronto, where there's shopping, stop signs, and places to go at night. A similar night at home? “We wouldn't go nowhere. It's boring.”

How're you goin' keep them up on the res after they've seen PO? I feel sad even writing something that cynical.

Why were the residents evacuated in the first place? (Scroll down to "HOW KASHECHEWAN CREATED A POLITICAL STAMPEDE".)

...it looks more and more as if governments overreacted, succumbing to an orchestrated media campaign and airlifting hundreds of residents out of the settlement for no reason...

But it turns out bad water may not be Kashechewan's real problem after all. Water-treatment records show the E. coli was cleared up in days. The levels of chlorine in the water, which were said to be so high they contributed to residents' skin problems, have been normal for at least the past 10 days. What is more, some experts say that, contrary to what Mr. McDonald and his fellow activists argued, water problems probably did not cause scabies and impetigo to break out in the community. Neither is a waterborne infection. Poor hygiene and overcrowding may have been responsible instead. "Please do not tie these diseases to chlorine levels and the community's drinking-water supply," water official Jason LeBlanc wrote after examining the reserve's water troubles.

So if the water is okay now, and may not have caused the skin outbreaks that were the source of all the fuss, why exactly is the government evacuating the settlement?..

The money spent on evacuation would be well justified if the residents of Kashechewan were in any real danger. They are not. Whatever the problems on the reserve, and they are profound, the water is now clean and there is no reason why people should not remain in their homes. Instead, they are being uprooted from the place they know best and scattered like refugees around the province -- all because governments feared being accused of neglect.

To sum up (note all reporting is from the eminently reasonable Globe and Mail): There was no need to evacuate. The Ontario and federal governments panicked in the face of yet more television pictures showing the terrible living conditions of some Natives. The water problem was rapidly fixed. The evacuees (surprise, surprise) are in no hurry to return.

And the federal Liberal government is now willing to throw even larger amounts of cash at Native problems with absolutely no reason to believe that any significant amelioration of their conditions will occur.

How Long, Oh Lord, How Long?

Posted by markc at November 19, 2005 08:54 PM | TrackBack