Nickel Belt News Volume 61 • Issue 8
Friday, February 26, 2021
Thompson, Manitoba
Serving the Norman Region since 1961
Lack of housing helping COVID-19 spread and leaving some people homeless in Cross Lake, says chief
BY IAN GRAHAM
EDITOR@THOMPSONCITIZEN.NET
A large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 in Cross Lake and Pimicikamak Cree nation (PCN) is putting stress on the community and its resources, which prompted PCN Chief David Monias to appeal to the federal government to send in military help. Monias said during an online press conference organized by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) on Feb. 16 that the spread fo the virus is exacerbated by housing conditions in the First Nation. There were 216 active cases of COVID-19 in the Cross Lake/Pimicikamak health district as of Feb. 22, according to provincial government date posted online. More than 30 households in PCN were affected by the outbreak as of Feb. 16. The provincial government instituted stricter public health orders in the health district on Feb. 13, banning all gatherings and requiring non-essential businesses to close, among other things.
“We have a lot of overcrowding and lack of housing in our community so when one family gets affected the numbers are normally high because there’s quite a few people in the home,” Monias said. “When this started we said it’s going to be devastating for First Nations in the long run because of the overcrowding and lack of housing in the community.” PCN employees are sometimes working from 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. to as late as 2 a.m., Monias said, since they the First Nation still has all its regular duties to perform as well as the response to the pandemic, which he estimates takes up as much as 60 per cent of their time. “We’ve decided to ask for help from the government and send in the military to come help us out,” Monias said. Another problem caused by the pandemic is people being left without a place to stay when family members don’t want to let them into their homes out of concern for their own safety.
Pimicikamak Cree Nation Chief David Monias speaks Feb. 16 about the COVID-19 outbreak currently affecting his community. “It creates homelessness,” said Monias, noting that that Cross Lake Inn is full as is the school gymnasium, which has 40 cots for people who are isolating. “Normally you don’t see that because everybody takes everybody in.” Dr. Michael Routledge, medical advisor to MKO’s health organization Kee-
watinohk Inniniw Minoayawin (KIM), says conditions in First Nations and some northern communities are keeping case numbers high even as they fall in most of the province. “We’re seeing reducing levels of reported COVID cases and test positivity provincewide,” he said. “Unfortunately in the north
out test positivity rates have remained quite high. Thompson as well is seeing a fair number of cases. With the housing situation what we’ve seen in a number of communities is that a couple of cases turns into a large number of cases very quickly. It makes it doubly difficult to try and control some of these out-
breaks. There’s obviously some still troubling signs in terms of test positivity and communities that are struggling.” MKO Grand Chief Garrison Settee said that in PCN – his home First Nation – where poor internet prevents online educations from being possible, as well as in other northern First Nations, the pandemic is having a serious impact on the mental health of children and youth. A lot of them have gone through many challenges,” he said. “There’s a lot of mental and emotional impacts on our youth.” MKOs mobile crisis response team is still available to assist communities with mental health crises, said program manager Justin Courchene, but its services have changed somewhat as a result of the pandemic, with the number of days team members can spend in a community reduced from three to two. “That’s just to ensure the safety of not only the team but of the community members,” he said.
Keeyask’s first unit went into service Feb. 16 Six more units will be brought online on-by-one over the next year, Manitoba Hydro says Keeyask Generating Station’s first unit began providing electrical power to Manitoba on Feb. 16, Manitoba Hydro said Feb. 18. “First power from Keeyask builds on Manitoba Hydro’s enviable positions in the low carbon world of the future,” said Manitoba Hydro CEO Jay Grewal in a press release. “Nearly 98 per cent of our electricity is already generated using clean, renewable and virtually carbon-free hydropower – a huge advantage for our province as North America moves to reduce carbon emissions. The energy from Keeyask will help preserve that advantage for decades to come, while also helping to keep electricity rates for Manitoba customers among the lowest on the continent.” A partnership between Manitoba Hydro and Tataskweyak Cree Nation, War Lake First Nation, York Factory First Nation and Fox Lake Cree Nation, known collectively as the Keeyask Hydropower Limited Partnership, construction of Keeyask began in 2014. Originally planned to have a $6.5 billion budget and to be in service by 2019, the project is tracking to meet its revised budget of $8.7 billion and coming into service six months earlier than its revised in-service date of August of this year. Keeyask is a 695-megawatt station in the Nelson River and will have seven units producing an average of 4,400 gigawatt hours of electricity annually when it is completed, Manitoba Hydro says, which will make it the fourth-largest generating station in the province. About 600 peopele are working at the site to bring the other six units into service one-by-one over the course of the next year. In the more than six years since construction began, 27,300 employees have been hired and performed 32,600,000 person-hours of work. Sixty-nine percent of those who worked on the project since 2014 are from Manitoba and 39 per cent are Indigenous, Hydro says.
Nickel Belt News photo courtesy of Manitoba Hydro Manitoba Hydro’s Keeyask Generating Station on the Nelson River.