NDP leader slams PM's Attawapiskat response
Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel has denounced Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his comments that the government has spent millions in the troubled northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat and is unhappy with the results.
Turmel returned to Ottawa after visiting the remote James Bay community, which declared an emergency a month ago over a dire housing crisis as winter approached.
"What I saw is terrible. What I saw is unacceptable in Canada. And this government, his only answer, he wants to get value for his money. This is not the right answer," she said to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday.
"These people are living in sheds, these people are living in tents, without having their kids around them, without heat. And it is –15. Today it's even –20. That's what I saw yesterday, and I would love this prime minister to go there, and then maybe he wouldn't talk about money, he would talk about the people."
During question period on Tuesday, Harper had said: "This government has spent some $90 million since coming to office just on Attawapiskat. That's over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the community. Obviously we're not very happy that the results do not seem to have been achieved for that, we're concerned about that, we have officials looking into it and taking action."
Turmel said 80 per cent of the money goes to education, yet the community is still without a proper school.
“I won’t play with figures,” she said. “The figures we got from his representative up north, there’s a deficit of $4.5 million, and you have to break it down per year, so it’s really $5,000 or $6,000 per person, and you cannot go anywhere with $6,500 in a municipality where you see poverty as we saw yesterday.”
As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, the Red Cross had received $63,000 in donations for Attawapiskat, Saunders said. Housing presents the greatest problem in Attawapiskat.
Attawapiskat, like many reserves, is suffering an acute housing shortage. Families are doubled up in the small homes that line the handful of streets making up this town. Others have been squeezed out of their residences and had to seek shelter in shacks, teepees, tents or giant construction trailers donated by De Beers, a diamond mine about 80 kilometres from the reserve.
These families lack the basics of life in the North: running water, plumbing, insulation and proper heating.
De Beers makes employing Attawapiskat members a top priority, but only a small proportion of their salaries seems to flow back home to deal with harsh conditions. The miners move away, or find the rules of reserve life too restrictive to put their savings into.
Now, with the band's finances in a mess, Ottawa is taking a bigger role in monitoring spending on the reserve.
NDP leader slams PM's Attawapiskat response - Canada - CBC News
Attawapiskat by the numbers
Population: 1,800
Houses: 300
Tents: 5
Sheds: 17
Waiting list for housing: 314 applications
People living in De Beers trailers: 90
Cost of maintaining trailers: $100,000 a year
Federal housing allocation for 2011-12: $581,407
Cost of building a new house: $250,000
Federal money for renovating five condemned houses: $500,000
Cost of renovating one condemned house: $50,000-$100,000
Federal stimulus money for housing in 2009-10: $450,000
Benefit payments from De Beers mine since July 2008: $10.5 million (held in trust fund by community)
Amount in De Beers business contracts with Attawapiskat related to mine construction and operation: $325 million
Amount needed to meet housing needs: $84 million
