A Discussion re Fort McMurray and Attawapiskat On May 12, 2016, Stephanie Mc Dowall, Nanaimo <smcdow@telus.net> wrote: I have no quarrel with anything that is being done to help the people and community of Fort McMurray. The destruction and emotional distress suffered by residents is taking a heavy toll. Like thousands of other folks, I have made a financial contribution. What I do object to is that, in comparison, the federal and Ontario governments are doing practically nothing and spending a pittance to alleviate the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat, a poverty-stricken, isolated community of 2,000 located 720 km north of Sudbury. To: Charlie Angus, MP: Timmins-James Bay - Angus.C@parl.gc.ca Dear Mr. Angus, All Canadians should read this wonderful letter below – by Dee Nicholson. Of all our Federal Parliamentarians, you are the most knowledgeable and sensitive to Canada’s First Nation’s People.... in my opinion. Canadians want a fair and just relationship with Canada’s Indigenous People. I hope you will take the time to read Dee’s letter. (below) – Stephanie McDowall ***************
From Dee Nicholson, Toronto (May 13, 2016):
My question re suicides in Attawapiskat: What DO you do under those circumstances? Throw money at it? Send in counselors? All tried and all failed. The problem really is that the young people in these communities have a foot in our world and a foot in their own, and it's like having one foot in each of two canoes that are not lashed together: they are destined to fall into the depths between canoes. With their access via internet to the rest of the world, and the total antithesis existing around them, how DO you reconcile their hopelessness within their situation? How DO you erase years of emotional angst, lots of drug and alcohol abuse, and major family dysfunction, in a hot hurry? General answer: you can't. It's nowhere near as simple as pointing a finger and saying "The Government isn't doing anything". This is not a situation that has just popped up out of the blue. It stems from the genocidal, oppressive actions of the colonials who took the land from them, over many, many years. Many parents are "graduates" of the residential school system, which took 50,000 of their children from their families, many of whom wound up irreparably scarred from the experience... IF they survived it. When you are raised in an environment where you feel "different", "rejected", "reviled", "unacceptable" in the white man's world, how do you regain self-esteem and self-love without the esteem and love of others to bolster this learning? It is whole families that need healing here, not just troubled kids. This is not a new issue. Back in the 70's, when Bud Drury was Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, I made a trip on behalf of the provincial Liberal party to Churchill Manitoba and was horrified to see FN people living in shacks without the basic amenities of life, with electricity 20 dialogue
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poached off Manitoba Hydro lines and doorways one had to crawl through and climb up to get inside because of the cold, and polar bears freely wandering the streets at night and even during the day. I saw an entire abandoned CFB airbase with Dee Nicholson over 600 EMPTY apartments, which were in decent shape and certainly could house these people... but Drury's office informed me that this had been offered to them and they refused the offer! My thought is that while these communities do indeed deserve all the help we can give them, such help must be what can BE of help, not what we assume will help. We need to ask the KIDS what they want and what they need, not tell them and enforce our opinions upon them. And we need to show them in no uncertain terms that they are valued for who they are, not lumped in with stereotypical images that have been fed to Canadians over the course of over a century of abuses going on right under our noses. If most of us had been aware of the residential schools and how they were run, that whole thing would have shut down before all this damage was done, but we weren't... and the schools operated, some of them into the 80's, under our collective table. This is shameful. Now we, and they, are paying a horrendous price. As with all situations where people need help, they are the best advisors, not those of us with money in our pockets. Perhaps what they need is better, more inclusive schooling, which yields more hope for the future; initiative building programs to encourage the establishment of craft industries and small businesses; mentoring and acceptance from all of us, and respect for their land and their traditional ways. And they need legislation that prevents large corporations from exploitation of both land and people, not trade rules that prevent …/ www.dialogue.ca