INDIAN AFFAIRS REFUSING TO REPLACE CONTAMINATED SCHOOL
The federal Indian affairs ministry has stated that it will not be replacing a school in the northern Ontario native community of Attawapiskat that has been closed for eight years because of health concerns.
In 1979(yes, still in the time of Trudeau)the school was contaminated by a massive diesel fuel spill and was closed for several weeks but still continued to house more than 400 studentseven though the grounds had never been cleaned up after the spill.
The federal government then made promises(both liberal and their conservative successors)to replace the condemned school within 5 years. In 2000 a group of parents removed their children from the contaminated site, and the rest of the parents followed suit shortly after. The federal government who is in charge of reserves (and all of the services available on them)now refuses to identify a timeline for the schools' replacement, and their spokeperson, Tony Prudori says there is no school being proposed.
Since 2000 students have been housed in everything from garden sheds to mouldy portables and many are taking classes in unheated conditions. A perfect environment for education.
Attawapiskat, one of the most poverty stricken reserves in Canada, is located near one of the richest diamond mines on earth.
Chuck Strahl, Minister in charge of Indian Affairs, says that due to a fire on another reserve in their school, "Attawapiskat will just have to go without and has been moved further down the pecking order." He says there is nothing he can do about it. He also said that while the situation is not ideal in Attawapiskat, "the school is not unsafe or unhealthy."
You can bet that if this was a school in any other part of Canada where the kids are white, this school would have been closed and replaced...long ago. Shame on those successive governments that ignored this issue.
5 comments:
Ignoring native problems is what governments are good at. Remember Caledonia. The MSM have conveniently stopped reporting but the situation there is no better.
You can bet that if the people of Attawapiskat represented a valuable block of votes they'd be getting their schools and a whole lot more.
Daft of them
pathetic
What would caledonia have to do with bad buildings in the north?
Both are the result of government's bungling of native issues.
The feds neglect and procrastination on the one hand and McWeasel's pandering on the other reflect government's inability or unwillingness to acknowledge their responsibilities where the native population is concerned.
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