Voices on the State of Emergency in Attawapiskat

In the week since NDP MP Charlie Angus’ plea for help in The Huffington Post (“What if they declared an emergency and nobody came?“), Canadian eyes have turned to the state of emergency in Attawapiskat.

While the Canadian Red Cross will mobilize to manage donations for the community, NDP MP Charlie Angus and NDP MPP Gilles Bisson remain disappointed in the government’s response to the crisis.

You can help by making a financial donation online at www.redcross.ca, or through your local Canadian Red Cross office.

A monetary donation is the best way the public can help the Red Cross in an emergency.

Here are some of the most passionate voices speaking out about the situation in Attawapiskat.

Urban Native Girl – Lisa Charleyboy

I remember sitting in my marketing research class at Ryerson University where my professor was telling the class that the true measure of a home’s worth was more readily told by the number of bathrooms and not the number of bedrooms. I was just a young student then, fresh from BC and not that far removed from seeing conditions on my home reservation.

I naively spoke up and asked “What about homes with no bathrooms?” He haughtily laughed and said that such a thing does not exist in Canada and that it was simply not possible. I didn’t want to bring up my heritage, my reservation, conditions on many First Nations communities right then in class so I shrank back and became quiet.

KAIROS Canada

KAIROS believes that all Canadians support the basic human right to safe housing, health, education, and clean water. Currently the people of Attawapiskat lack all of these. We also believe that as a society we have more than enough money to ensure that all people’s basic needs are met.

The real issues are the funding choices we make, and the continued lack of self-determination and access to their traditional lands that face the vast majority of Aboriginal communities.

Registered Nurses Association of Ontario

As citizens, we are shocked by the life-threatening conditions in which residents of this community must live. We are deeply ashamed that federal and provincial officials point fingers at each other and refuse to take responsibility.

As nurses, we are profoundly concerned about the danger of fires, freezing, infectious diseases, skin conditions, and mental health challenges that arise when people are forced to live in inhumane living conditions, particularly as winter approaches. People need warm, safe shelter, reliable plumbing, and safe drinking water to be healthy.

Small Change Fund

How would you feel if this was happening in your own country? We assume that it would not happen here in Canada. After all, Canada is home to three of the top five most livable cities in the world, tremendous resources, and is ranked in the top 15 wealthiest countries in the world….

Small Change Fund’s advisors, staff and board believe this issue is so important that we have set a goal that in 2012 at least 35% of the projects we ask donors to support are from aboriginal communities or organizations.

Intercontinental Cry

With winter fast approaching, the housing shortage is turning into the kind of crisis that humanitarian aid groups would normally flock to in droves, if it was happening in Haiti or Darfur. But the Cree Fist Nation isn’t in Haiti, it’s in Canada. And Canada is basically doing nothing.

In fact, these days the government seems more interested in spying on Cindy Blackstock and shutting down native healing centres than actually helping and working with Indigenous Peoples.

Carolyn Bennet MP: Letter to John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs

It has been reported that departmental officials have yet to visit the community. It has also been reported that the Canadian Red Cross will be intervening in the crisis. These development are further proof that your government has failed completely in its responsbilitiy to provide the basic necessities of life for the citizen of Attawapiskat.

I implore you to invest the needed resources, on an urgent basis, to provide a healthy and safe environment for the citizens of Attawapiskat, as is your moral and legal obligation.

Editorial, Timmins Daily Press

The majority of the time, we are proud to be Canadian. Worldwide, we are known as a caring, generous nation. We enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, and generally take care of our friends and neighbours who are experiencing troubled times.

But the situation that is unfolding in Attawapiskat brings shame to our great country.

Editorial, Sudbury Star

The Red Cross moves in to help a beleaguered community where children are living in squalor in tents, sheds and a trailer. Where can this be? Haiti? Some Third World country in Africa? Not at all. Welcome to Attawapiskat — an aboriginal community on James Bay, here on your doorstep. Welcome to Shameful, Ontario.

Shameful, because while children are peeing in buckets, while raw sewage is being dumped in ditches, two levels of government are bickering over who should deal with it.

Kids Help Phone: Open letter regarding the Attawapiskat First Nation

Canada does not end at the 50th parallel. The young people and families living in northern First Nations communities are no less deserving of the basic resources required to foster physical and mental health and well- being than other young people and families in Canada.

They, like all living in Canada, have the right to safe and adequate housing, modern plumbing and heating, and access to culturally relevant education in or near the communities they call home.