The Dominion - Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg

Strangers Scour the Land

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:28:11 +0000

The search for Maisy and Shannon continues

KITIGAN ZIBI ANISHINABEG–Maisy Odjick, 17, and her friend Shannon Alexander, now 18, vanished from Shannon's father's apartment in Maniwaki, Quebec, September 6, 2008. Both are from Kitigan Zibi, an Algonquin reserve adjacent to Maniwaki. Since September, neither the Kitigan Zibi Police Services nor the Sûreté du Québec has collected any evidence pertaining to the whereabouts of the two girls. When Maisy and Shannon vanished, their wallets and their money were left behind. The police are not ruling out the possibility that the two girls are "runaways." In addition, the police have repeatedly neglected to communicate with and report back to the two families. The little media attention this case has attracted may be attributed to the constant and determined efforts at media outreach by Maisy's mother, Laurie Odjick.

The two ground searches since the disappearance - December 7, 2008, and May 2, 2009 - were led by Search and Rescue Global 1; both times the Odjick family was the main organizer. According to Search Leader Lawrence Conway, the search for Maisy and Shannon is the first family-organized search he has ever taken part in. Normally, the police call rescue teams and arrange searches.

Indigenous women in Canada are five times more likely than other women to die as the result of violence. The official number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada since 1980 is 520, two-thirds of whom were murdered and about one-quarter of whom are still missing. Roughly half of these murders and disappearances occurred in the last nine years and over 300 cases are as of yet unsolved. Indigenous grassroots activists and communities put the number of cases closer to 1800.

Amnesty International, the United Nations, and the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) have all put forth comprehensive recommendations to the Canadian government to address the violence and discrimination faced by Indigenous women, but so far no action has been taken beyond a small amount of funding allotted for research.

NWAC President Beverley Jacobs points out that even working with a number like 520, taken proportionately that "would equal 18,000 women among Canada's white population. If there were 18,000 white women missing and murdered, it would be headlines. There would be something done immediately."

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie is an independent journalist and Indigenous solidarity activist living in Montreal. Dru Oja Jay is an editor with The Dominion.

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The Search for Maisy and Shannon

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:22:05 +0000

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On May 2nd, the search for Maisy Odjick and Shannon Alexander continued, on the Kitigan Zibi reserve, 8 months after the two girls went missing. The search was organized by the Odjick family, with the help of Amnesty International, which donated 2 buses to help transport volunteers from Ottawa who wished to help with the search. The two buses were filled, and many more showed up on top of that. All in all, over 240 people came to help scour the woods around the reserve for any clue at all that might lead to answers. Four member of the Missing Justice collective in Montreal attended.

The search was led by Search and Rescue Global 1, a pro-search team run entirely by volunteers. The SAR team was overwhelmed by the number of volunteers, so some people had to wait in the community hall for their turn to join a search team.

We were divided into groups of 15-20 people, with 2 team leaders. Everyone had a stick of some kind to help them push aside some of the thick brush that we would encounter. We lined up for instructions: we were to yell ’stop ‘ along with a number we had been given whenever we saw anything that might be a clue. A clue could be anything at all: a beer bottle, a piece of cloth, strange litter, anything.Then, a team leader would come and find us, look at the clue, and maybe choose to radio it in.

At times distracted by nightmarish visions of what we might find, at times pre-occupied with getting through the insanely thick bush unscathed, we walked through the woods, in as straight a line as possible given the fact that we were supposed to go through all obstacles as opposed to around them. There were a few times when we lost site of the people beside us, but it was never long before someone yelled ’stop.’

Boiling Point!

hillarybain — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:31:48 +0000

Polaris report finds water in First Nations communities a “violation of fundamental human rights”

In May, the Polaris Institute, a citizen-focused think tank, released Boiling Point!, a report about the “violation of fundamental human rights” occurring in First Nation communities across Canada.

“For many, water has become a source of fear and people have good reason to believe that what comes out of their taps may be making them sick,” reads the report. This reality is not a new one for First Nations in Canada, and it’s getting worse, not better.

In May 2007, The Dominion reported that 88 First Nations were under a Health Canada drinking water advisory. As of April 18, 2008, almost 100 First Nations are on a drinking water advisory, according to the Polaris Report. Health Canada put the figure at 97 as of July 11, 2008.

Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, believes the lack of progress on obtaining clean water for First Nations “...clearly demonstrates that access to clean water for First Nation citizens is not a priority for Canada.”

“First Nations have always viewed water as a sacred trust. From time immemorial, First Nations have centred their existence on water,” says Fontaine. “Today, it is unacceptable that many of our First Nations should be subjected to conditions where there is no access to safe, potable water...These conditions would not be tolerated in any municipal setting and if they are to occur, swift and decisive action is the norm and is expected.”

Boiling Point! investigated the situation in six First Nations communities across Canada:

Neskantaga First Nation is situated 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario. The community of 282 has been under a boil water advisory since 1995. Polaris asks: “What other community do you know of in Canada that has been on boil water advisory for 13 years? Would this be acceptable for you, your family, friends and colleagues? What does this say about the federal government’s fiduciary responsibility to First Nations health and safety?”

Boil water advisories only hint at the problems for Neskantaga First Nation. On September 29, 2004, the presence of gasoline and a high level of the suspected carcinogen trihalomethane caused the water supply to be shut down entirely.

The cost of bottled water ($6/litre) is beyond the community’s means. Following the shut down, the department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) provided five litres of water a day per person (insufficient for daily needs, according to Polaris), then, because of the cost, decreased the ration to two litres.

“INAC has a fiduciary and financial responsibility to take care of the people of Neskantaga and to honour our Treaty rights in an adequate standard of living and health care,” says Neskantaga Chief Moonias. “The right to a safe and useable water supply is a right of every person living in this country for the health and well-being of himself and his family.”

“Nowhere else in Canada would anyone accept this,” Moonias continues. “It’s a violation of our fundamental human rights...We’re being treated as second-class citizens.”

“I wonder how different the response would be if the residents of Toronto were without access to water,” he says.

Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg is located in Quebec, 130 kilometres north of Ottawa. The community has been advised to refrain from drinking its well water since 1999, after uranium and other toxic-heavy chemicals were detected. Polaris notes “some progress” for the community’s water situation since 2006, but emphasizes that, “This comes after years of people drinking water that most Canadians would deem undrinkable.”

On the eastern shores of Pikangikum Lake, about 100 kilometres north of Red Lake in northwestern Ontario, is the remote Ojibway community of Pikangikum First Nation. It is a self-sufficient community of 2,300 keen on preserving their culture and language. Indeed, it has the highest rate of indigenous language retention in northern Ontario. Polaris argues, “The case of Pikangikum underscores why Canada must recognize water as a human right and ecological trust.”

Boiling Point! also describes the extreme poverty of Pikangikum First Nation. Juliette Turtle, a 58-year-old woman, and her family of eight live in a 65-square-metre house with no toilet and no running water. In the backyard is an outhouse. When the hole is full, a new hole is dug and the outhouse moved over top. In the same backyard, seven of Turtle’s 12 children are buried. All seven committed suicide.

Particularly frustrating, according to Polaris, is a water treatment plant built in 1995, which is capable of producing enough potable water for the entire community. However, in 2007, 90 per cent of homes were still unconnected.

Despite the clear reality that Pikangikum is in crisis, it is not considered one of the 21 priority communities identified under the federal government’s Plan of Action for Drinking Water in First Nations Communities.

On the southwestern tip of Lake Athabasca, 200 kilometres from Fort McMurray, in the middle of the Alberta tar sands, is the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

In February 2008, chiefs from Treaties 6, 7 and 8, including Chipewyan First Nation, unanimously urged the Alberta government to enact a moratorium on all new oil sands projects until watershed and resource development plans have been approved by First Nations.

Dr. John O’Connor blew the whistle on unchecked tar sands development after noticing high rates of illnesses, in particular, cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer, in residents of Fort Chipewyan in late 2000. According to the Polaris report, there is a belief among physicians of an effort on the part of the Alberta government to silence O’Connor.

Along the Yukon River lies Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation. The community’s water is supplied by upwards of 90 individual wells and truck delivery. The wells, installed by INAC, are poorly situated and as a result the water is unsafe to drink and the community has been under a boil water advisory for over three years.

Currently, there is a joint initiative between the Canadian Auto Workers and the Assembly of First Nations to help provide clean drinking water in Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation.

In northeastern Saskatchewan, the Yellow Quill First Nation was under a boil water advisory from 1995 until 2004. During that time the community got its water from Pipestone Creek, which flows between just five and 15 days every spring. In addition, a town located upstream empties its sewage lagoon into the creek. “[O]ur water was worse than what they had in Walkerton,” says the community’s chief, Robert Whitehead.

Since then, Yellow Quill First Nation’s water source has been switched to an underground well that is being successfully treated through a process developed by Dr. Hans Peterson of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation.

Yellow Quill provides the one sanguine account in the Polaris report. According to Trevor Sutter, communications manager at INAC, the treated water at Yellow Quill is now "very good, very good water."

Peterson reports that, “Two more communities, Pasqua and George Gordon, have now had full-scale Yellow Quill systems for 2.5 years and they are all running flawlessly.”

Peterson is surprised there aren’t more examples of successful water systems in First Nations communities. “For all the hundreds of millions the federal government has spent on researching water through Canada's many universities, Canada's federal research departments, Health Canada, Environment Canada and the National Research Council, would you not have thought that the head of the Assembly of First Nations would have some examples of what those agencies have done in terms of water in aboriginal communities?” he asks. “The fact is a couple of years ago the director general of INAC, Gilles Rochon, told me he had no example of research agencies having done research on aboriginal water issues and then having come up with solutions that could be implemented."

The Safe Drinking Water Foundation is currently working on a Framework for Safe Drinking Water, for which Peterson is hoping to receive funding.

To overcome the disparity between indigenous communities and other Canadian communities, Polaris identifies the need for federal government implementation of long-term solutions based on “equality and respect, including ensuring access to safe drinking water, source water and sanitation.”

Boiling Water