Evacuate reserve, chief urges Ottawa

[Said1]

I think there is another scandle brewing within our wonderful government. I just heard on the radio that the Auditor General's report on Indian and Northern Affairs states that there are millions of dollars unaccounted for.....again.

The article quoted below is fairly good, despite it's obvious shortcomings - still searching for more detail on the issues.........

McGuinty criticizes Feds on water crisis

Steve Erwin
Canadian Press

October 26, 2005

TORONTO -- The federal government has been "missing in action" during a water-contamination crisis at a remote northern Ontario reserve, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday as critics called for the resignation of federal Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott.

It's "unacceptable" that 1,900 residents of the Kashechewan community off James Bay have been living in "deplorable" conditions on Ottawa's watch when it's a federal responsibility to ensure their health, McGuinty said.

On Tuesday, the premier ordered the evacuation of more than half the reserve's 1,900 residents, many of whom are sick from contaminated water. The community has been under a boil-water advisory for more than two years.

"The federal government is going to have to decide whether or not it's prepared to assume (its) responsibility," McGuinty said before a cabinet meeting.

"If they're not prepared to assume responsibility, then they should talk to not just this premier, but premiers throughout the country and come to a new arrangement because at the present time, according to the rules, they've been missing in action."

Medical teams were scheduled to begin evacuating sick residents as early as Wednesday afternoon.

McGuinty stopped short of calling for Scott's ouster, but New Democrat critic Gilles Bisson said Scott "should resign . . . no doubt about it."

"His officials have been basically bamboozling the people for the last number of years," he said.

McGuinty said he plans to press Ottawa on its handling of the crisis at a first ministers' meeting on native affairs next month in Kelowna, B.C.

Bisson said he wants Ontario to take over responsbility from Ottawa for water treatment, with the federal government picking up the tab for any facility construction and repair.

About 50 other native communities in Ontario are operating under a boil-water advisory. The province is now doing assessments of other reserves, said David Ramsay, the Ontario minister responsible for native affairs.

"We don't know the extent of those problems, but we're doing that assessment now to make sure that people are safe," Ramsay said.

Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishnawbe-Aski First Nations said the majority of the water treatment plants on his group's 49 northern Ontario reserves need repair.

Beardy said it's unclear whether E. coli has been found elsewhere but added that drinking water at most reserves has the same brownish, ginger-ale colour seen in Kashechewan.

He said most of the water plants, built by the federal government, weren't designed to meet the number of residents at the reserves, forcing them to constantly run at capacity, causing breakdowns.

Similarly, Ottawa hasn't spent enough money to train staff how to operate the facilities properly, he said.

"We get very little dollars to train our operators properly. It's almost half-assed training programs," Beardy said.

McGuinty said he couldn't wait any longer to help Kashechewan residents who have become ill from dirty drinking water while the two levels of government engaged in jurisdictional debates.

"This is Ontario at the beginning of the 21st century. No families should have to tolerate what these families are going through," he said.

"It really is unfortunate -- to use the most diplomatic word -- that I can think of right now, that these conditions have continued for so long."

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