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Bad water, bad leadership (Sickening Kashechewan crisis at its worst!!!)
Ottawa Sun ^ | 10/30/05 | Ottawa Sun editorial

Posted on 10/30/2005 8:19:46 AM PST by Heartofsong83

Bad water, bad leadership

Once again Canadians have been left slack-jawed over the living conditions on a Native reserve.

This time around the fuss is over a community called Kashechawan on the shores of James Bay.

From the safety and comfort of our own homes we stare in disbelief at the newspaper pictures and television images of a community where even the most basic necessities of life can't be taken for granted.

Kashechawan, where the water that flows from the taps is so filthy and contaminated it's not fit for bathing, let alone drinking. Where residents, many of whom are on welfare, say they often spend $300 to $400 for about five days worth of groceries.

Kashechawan, a community most of us hadn't heard of until a few days ago, despite the fact the conditions described above have existed for two years or more.

Unfortunately the story coming out of Kashechawan is hardly unique.

A couple of years earlier the focus was on Pikangikum, a remote Ojibway community 250 km north of Dryden, where few of the 2,000 residents have running water.

Most have only outhouses as toilets, a terrible hardship for the elderly and young children in a far northern community where the temperature can dip to -30C. Most homes have no sewers, there's no road out, and the community has a shocking suicide rate among its young people.

In Pikangikum, in fact, the only buildings with indoor toilets are government agencies -- the school, the police and nursing stations.

Still etched into our memories is the horrible situation in Davis Inlet, where an entire community was picked up and moved in an attempt to overcome an epidemic of alcoholism and alcohol abuse.

What do the situations described above have in common?

Just that the government twiddled its thumbs -- as it is doing in its relations with dozens of other reserves -- until conditions became so desperate they burst onto the political and media agendas.

Nothing short of a crisis, it seems, can spur the Department of Indian Affairs into action. And even then the government seems inclined to do only what is necessary to end the controversy instead of finding long-term solutions.

They still ignore the fact that the reserve system isn't working. That sending billions of dollars to band councils is not improving living conditions on the reserves. That under the Indian Act, most families are denied the simple right to own their homes.

Elected officials and bureaucrats in Ottawa make decisions about what is best for the reserves, pat themselves on the back and go home to their modern houses with cozy rooms, heat and hydro and plenty of clean running water.

In a country of plenty we should be embarrassed and ashamed of the way we have marginalized our Native population. And nowhere should the blame hang more heavily than around the necks of Prime Minister Paul Martin and Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott. Theirs is a legacy that must be remembered at election time.

And another thing ...

Canadians won't take much comfort from the latest earnings reports from the oil patch. Choose your company ... everyone from Suncor to PetroCanada, Esso and Shell was rolling in money during the third quarter.

That's the same period during which we were getting hosed for gas and being promised record high oil prices this winter.

We can't wait to hear how they'll explain this one away.


TOPICS: Canada; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: ashamedtobeacanadian; badwater; canada; canuckistan; dithers; firstnations; indians; kashechewan; martin; thirdworld
If there has ever been a more sickening story I have ever heard out of Canada, this takes the cake. While the Libranos may lose lots of support in rural and remote areas, this isn't resonating in the Toronto-centric mainstream media at all...

These are Canadian citizens in third-world living conditions. Yet Mr. Dithers ignores them, fearing more people won't vote Liberal as a result???

1 posted on 10/30/2005 8:19:49 AM PST by Heartofsong83
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To: Heartofsong83

The most appalling poverty in North America is found not in American ghettos but in Canadian Native Reserves.


2 posted on 10/30/2005 8:24:40 AM PST by MarxSux
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To: MarxSux

Yes it is. It makes me ashamed to be living in Canada, especially seeing such everyday...and there is little they can do because of the federal interference...

It was Dalton McGuinty, Liberal Premier of Ontario, who went out of his way to order the evacuation of the reserve when these evil criminals in the federal Liberal cabinet would not...(provinces technically have no jurisdiction over native reserves)


3 posted on 10/30/2005 8:26:15 AM PST by Heartofsong83
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To: Heartofsong83

All the while the UN babbles about human right violations in New Orleans.


4 posted on 10/30/2005 8:28:10 AM PST by SouthTexas (Texans vote FOR prop 2, Nov 8th)
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To: Heartofsong83

Wait. Canada is so much better than the US. Just ask their transgendered politicians who have made it their own personal cesspool of anti-morality, they'll tell you how much we stink here in the US. How much they get to look down their anti-gun rights noses and how much they will judge us with their bad immigration values and poor health care system. Just ask em.

/Sarcasm off.


5 posted on 10/30/2005 8:28:27 AM PST by ICE-FLYER (God bless and keep the United States of America)
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To: Heartofsong83
Only the Canadian Government can screw things up this badly. The intake for the water system is downstream from the sewage outlet.
6 posted on 10/30/2005 8:31:14 AM PST by Chief Engineer
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To: Heartofsong83

As long as the denizens of the Toronto-Montreal Axis can sneer at and disparage Americans, nobody cares what goes on out in the hinterland. That's how the Liberistas stay in power.


7 posted on 10/30/2005 8:33:27 AM PST by atomic conspiracy (British by birth and bloodline; American by choice and bloodshed.)
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To: atomic conspiracy

Even if the Conservatives and NDP gain some extra seats from the Liberal leftovers up north...


8 posted on 10/30/2005 8:34:41 AM PST by Heartofsong83
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To: ICE-FLYER

Somewhere, in a coffe shop with $6 lattes, members of the Left are plotting to blame this on American racism/colonialism/capitalism/Reagan/etc.


9 posted on 10/30/2005 8:35:10 AM PST by Sociopathocracy (The Left and Islamo-fascism, the twin cancers of human history.)
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To: Chief Engineer
Please tell me you're kidding? Even with the most modern treatment plants, I think I'd prefer my water to come from upstream.

That doesn't stop the water company from screwing up. We just had our water company dump Fly ash into our water instead of soda ash. We all got sick and then they announced the problem on TV and in the Bee. You couldn't even boil the water to make it safe. It took almost three days before the water was supposedly safe to drink.
10 posted on 10/30/2005 8:38:37 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: Heartofsong83

"we stare in disbelief at the newspaper pictures and television images of a community"

On the other hand, the CBC audience, for one, had no trouble believing a faded "Whites Only" sign posted over the alley entrance to a building in Lubbock, Texas.
They were not told that the sign had been deliberately preserved by the black community as a reminder of past racism, or that the building was owned by the same civil rights lawyer who had brought the MSM Lubbock to report on a case he was pursuing.


11 posted on 10/30/2005 8:38:41 AM PST by atomic conspiracy (British by birth and bloodline; American by choice and bloodshed.)
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To: Lx
I kid you not. There was a rather long piece last week on the National, CBC's evening news show about the situation.
12 posted on 10/30/2005 8:56:15 AM PST by Chief Engineer
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To: Heartofsong83

A similar phenoma takes place here on Reservations in the United States:
http://www.neoperspectives.com/NativeAmericans.htm


Government causes these conditions with welfare and parental controls.


13 posted on 10/30/2005 12:25:30 PM PST by traviskicks (http://www.neoperspectives.com/janicerogersbrown.htm)
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To: traviskicks

It seems a lot worse here though. They had E.Coli in their water system for 2 months and no one was contacted, despite the pleas of local MP's and MPP's...the MSM was also silent, thinking (in their minds) that why should we Toronto folks cover a sickening story in far northern Ontario, especially when it slams the "beloved" Liberals???


14 posted on 10/30/2005 2:26:08 PM PST by Heartofsong83
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