We are pointing the finger at Ottawa [editorial]

It’s with a heavy heart that we report on such tragedy as the one that took the lives of two young children in a house fire on the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation in February. Aggravating an already horrible situation is the finger-pointing that has occurred in the aftermath. The tendency, of course, is to look for someone to blame for such a senseless loss. And that seems always to overshadow real and terrible grief.

We fear, in this case, with the loss of a two-year-old boy and his 18-month-old sister, there will be plenty of blame to go around, and suspect there will be no peace in the hearts and minds of those that contributed to the circumstances. It’s not an easy burden to bear. ‘What if we had done this, instead of that?’ The ‘what ifs’ are what will keep people from sleeping easy in their beds for many nights to come.

What we know is that many people failed those children.  A nominal bill for fire services went unpaid. Why?  A drastic decision was made to cut off an emergency life-line with just a stroke of a pen. Why? So underfunded are First Nations, rural and remote communities that they are pitted against one another over a few thousand dollars. Why? Why are neighboring communities not working together on such issues, looking each other square in the eyes and trying to work on compromise and accommodation? Why, why, why?

What we do know for sure is that Ottawa has so neglected their obligations to First Nations communities, cut so close to the bone, been so callus in their response to the needs of our communities that it has set up very dangerous situations on reserves across the country.  Why is there no standard that Ottawa must uphold for the safety and security of First Nations citizens, and why is Ottawa not held to account?

And why do we put up with a minister of Aboriginal Affairs whose knee-jerk and only response is to ignore his own government’s culpability? Never have we seen such a lack of compassion as was demonstrated by Minister Bernard Valcourt in response to this horrific event. His interaction in the House of Commons with NDP Aboriginal Affairs critic Niki Ashton when she asked legitimate questions about the consequences of underfunding First Nations communities was an embarrassment. He accused her of playing politics with the deaths of these two children, but it was he who reduced the discussion to partisanship.

Why does the Conservative government side of the House, time after time, degrade and dehumanize Aboriginal peoples and their concerns?

People eating out of a garbage dump in Rankin Inlet because food is scarce and expensive? The MP responsible for the area is unworried. She heckles Opposition members and attempts to intimidate the leader in the North who speaks about the situation, alarmed. When pressed, Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq decides the issue is beneath her and ignores the discussion, choosing to read a newspaper in the House instead of responding to concerns.

Missing and murdered Aboriginal women? Instead of responding to what many believe is a demonstrated need for an inquiry, Justice Minister Peter MacKay, in a fit of anger, throws the reports and studies that have been compiled on murdered and missing girls and women on the House of Commons’ floor.

This is ongoing disrespectful conduct. It’s a pattern, and tells us that we and the issues we are concerned with are… oh, how should we put it, ‘not high on government’s radar.’

As we go to press, fire officials are telling us that the “complete burn” of the house where the children were staying has left nothing for them to determine a cause for the blaze. We don’t have to know what started the fire to know that the inequities and struggles on reserve that come with underfunding contributed to it. Ottawa failed those children. And we all will contribute to that failure if we don’t press Ottawa to up their attentiveness to First Nations families and communities. We expect better from this government. We insist they do better, in memory and in honour of those two tiny children.

Windspeaker