Cat Lake First Nation's
Housing Emergency
Demands Government
Action
In summer 2015 residents from Cat Lake
walked 3,000 km to raise awareness about the lack of health
services in
their and other remote northern Ontario First Nation
communities.
Cat Lake First Nation, a fly-in Ojibway community
600
kilometres north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, declared a housing
state of
emergency on January 16. In their declaration, Chief Matthew
Keewaykapow and the Cat Lake Band Council have demanded that
federal
and provincial governments stop their jurisdictional bickering
and take
immediate action to meet the First Nation's treaty right to
housing.
Chief Keewaykapow and his Council have been
working
hard to
secure help to solve their community's problems but have found
"unrelenting barriers" and "outright refusals" by officials
from the federal government's Indigenous Services Department.
According to an independent assessment, more than
90 of
the
120 homes in the community need to be demolished and new ones
built. The condemned houses have poor and crumbling structures,
leaky roofs, exposed electrical wiring, and are infested with
black mould. This has caused a large number of health problems
such as severe lung diseases, respiratory problems, eye
infections, skin rashes and other health problems that have
affected the 700 members of the community, particularly the
elderly and children. Almost everyday someone has to be
med-evacked to an outside hospital for treatment at great
financial expense to the community. Cat Lake First Nation, like
the vast majority of the First Nations north of Thunder Bay, has
no doctor or adequate medical facilities. The housing crisis in
Cat Lake has also resulted in other social and economic stresses
and has led to mental illness and trauma, various types of
addictions, as well as early death and suicide amongst the youth.
This is entirely due to the neglect of the racist Canadian state
from the time the Cat Lake First Nation people signed on to
Treaty 9 in 1905.
Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishawbe Aski
Nation
(NAN), the
political organization for the 49 First Nations communities in
Northern Ontario, including Cat Lake, stated: "It is unacceptable
that the people of Cat Lake suffer in living conditions that
would be intolerable in mainstream society ... We will support
Chief and Council to ensure that the necessary housing
improvements are made available as quickly as possible,
especially for high-risk community members such as infants and
youth, the infirm and the aged." Grand Chief Fiddler also
recalled that all 49 First Nations Chiefs of the NAN territory
collectively declared a housing state of emergency in 2014 with
little response from the federal Harper Conservatives or the
provincial Wynne Liberals.
The housing state of emergency declared by Cat
Lake
First Nation reflects the ongoing housing crisis in Indigenous
communities in Canada, which is well documented. The refusal of
the
federal government to take up its duty to guarantee Indigenous
peoples
their right to housing, water, health care and other treaty
rights is
unconscionable.
As Grand Chief Fiddler said -- housing conditions
in
Cat
Lake
would not be tolerated for mainstream society. The Trudeau
Liberals must be held to account for this racist, colonial regime
state of affairs.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 5 - February 16, 2019
Article Link:
Cat Lake First Nation's
Housing Emergency
Demands Government
Action
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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