‘Unacceptable’: Ontario Ombudsman condemns conditions for Canada First Nation

This article was first published on APTN News.

Ontario’s ombudsman is calling on the federal and provincial governments to act on improving the lives of people in Neskantaga First Nation in northern Ontario after a two day visit to the community.

Paul Dubé said he found homes and infrastructure that was “in disrepair or is simply not functional.”

“The people I met shared deeply moving stories of desperate hardship,” Dubé wrote in a statement on Friday. “Because of insufficient housing, families crowd into houses with basements with dangerous black mold. Children are growing up never having known safe tap water; bottled water rations of 1.5 litres per day for adults and 1 litre for children are not enough, and the waste of plastic bottles fills homes and landfills.

Neskantaga has been in the news recently because of a flood at its nursing station, which forced the community to close its doors.

Currently, operations of the nursing station moved to a house in the community, which the ombudsman found “cannot accommodate health professionals or modern telehealth technology.”

Dubé said he and the director of his children and youth unit were invited by Gary Quisess, chief of Neskantaga, an Ojibway community located about 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

The community has been on a boil water advisory for 30 years, the longest in Canada and one former prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to fix when elected in 2015.

“We visited a local graveyard, with graves of children surrounded by stuffed animals and flowers,” Dubé said in the statement. “Many of these lives were tragically lost to suicide. Other young people were sent out of the community to attend high school because the community does not have one for their citizens – only to return home in caskets.

“This is a heartbreaking reality for Neskantaga First Nation.”

Dubé cited numerous reasons for the challenges the people in Neskantaga face including “poorly planned and underfunded relocation of the community in the 1980s, an arena is an “empty shell without ice or programming because of funding and Hydro One’s outdated diesel system,” a cultural and youth centre that was identified as a priority in 2013 but isn’t built and a school that hasn’t been upgraded in 30 years.

The ombudsman also noted that a new Nishnawbe Aski Police station can’t open because “no telecommunications carrier will provide service.”

Dubé said the visit was an “important opportunity to listen directly to residents, hear their stories, and observe the realities they are living with.”

“No community in a country as prosperous as Canada should have to endure what Neskantaga First Nation is facing. Living without essential services like health care, safe water, mental health resources, and education is simply not acceptable,” he said.

I urge the federal and provincial governments to act now to resolve the long-standing challenges in Neskantaga First Nation. Governments committed to the reduction of red tape would do well to prioritise eliminating the red tape that deprives remote Indigenous communities of safe drinking water and adequate funding for health care, education, and infrastructure.

Neskantaga is one of communities in northern Ontario that is on the outskirts of an area known as the Ring of Fire in the James Bay Lowlands. The area is rich in minerals important to the tools used in the south including batteries used in cars and phones.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has committed to making development of the Ring of Fire a top priority. But the community is balking at both the federal and provincial governments over its lack of consultation and harms to the local environment.

On Sept. 15, the community issued a statement rejecting both governments development of the area.

“Neskantaga has declared multiple states of emergency in recent years over youth suicides, addictions, mental health, and lack of safe drinking water,” said the statement. “The community continues to suffer from chronic housing shortages and limited health services. Despite repeated calls for urgent support, governments remain absent when it comes to addressing these life-and-death issues.

“Yet those same governments are mobilising quickly to dismantle environmental protections, create “special economic zones,” and give mining companies a free pass to carve through rivers, forests, and the homelands of the Anishinaabe people.”

According to Indigenous Services Canada, work on the nursing station started in April but was stopped by the community.

“Air quality testing, soil testing has been completed with no contaminations found and minor renovations required to the foundation. ISC is awaiting the community’s approval to complete the remediation work to the Rachael Bessie Sakanee Memorial Health Centre,” said ISC spokesperons Pascal Laplante in an email to APTN News.

“Minister Gull-Masty has committed to meet with Chief Quisess and Neskantaga First Nation leadership in the coming weeks to discuss shared priorities including the Health Centre.”

By APTN News.