[aka.alias] Answer Me This
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aka.alias
Apr 21, 2011, 4:20:23 PM4/21/11
to andy.blo...@gmail.com
Why is Attawapiskat still waiting for its new elementary school to be built?
It has already been over a decade now that the government has been making empty promises to the Attawapiskat First Nation, and the people still have nothing more to show for their patient waiting than syllables blown away by the hot air of Ottawa's speechmakers.
J.R. Nakogee Elementary school, closed down in May 2000, was found to be sitting on a network of pipes that were leaking diesel fuel into the ground beneath the school. Inspection has shown both the soil and the groundwater to be polluted by benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene and total petroleum hydrocarbons from gas and diesel at levels above those deemed safe for human health. The building itself has been found to have five species of mould growing in the classrooms and corridors.
If such a situation were found to exist in any of Canada's cities, even in any of its southern rural communities, it would be addressed immediately. The school would be promptly replaced. Because this situation exists in a First Nation community, it drags on, unresolved, while the elementary school children attend classes in eleven portables that stand betweeen the fenced-off, contaminated site, and an airstrip. Meant to be only temporary, these buildings stand separated from each other, so that walking from classroom to classroom in winter requires a parka. While students here in Toronto, for instance, who are housed in a portable for any of their classes might don a parka as well, to get to their gym class, they would at least have a gym to walk to. The students at Attawapiskat have no gym. They have no playground, either, for that matter. There is no play equipment for them; there is nothing.
Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, has declared there is "no money" for the new school. Bullshit, plain and simple. A government that has two million dollars to waste on building a fake lake for last summer's G8 has the money to spend on a new school in Attawapiskat. It simply chooses not to.
During this current election campaign, it would make damn interesting copy if anyone could corner Harper and actually get the truth from him about the paternalistic/racist ministry of "Indian Affairs" and the government attitude toward the people of the First Nations. It would be interesting, indeed, to hear what any of the party leaders had to say about what they would do for Attawapiskat and every other left-behind First Nation community, for that matter.
Unfortunately, these people are too easily ignored by Canada, and there is little pride to he had for our true north strong and free in the country's treatment of its own people.
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Posted By aka.alias to aka.alias at 4/21/2011 03:45:00 PM
It has already been over a decade now that the government has been making empty promises to the Attawapiskat First Nation, and the people still have nothing more to show for their patient waiting than syllables blown away by the hot air of Ottawa's speechmakers.
J.R. Nakogee Elementary school, closed down in May 2000, was found to be sitting on a network of pipes that were leaking diesel fuel into the ground beneath the school. Inspection has shown both the soil and the groundwater to be polluted by benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene and total petroleum hydrocarbons from gas and diesel at levels above those deemed safe for human health. The building itself has been found to have five species of mould growing in the classrooms and corridors.
If such a situation were found to exist in any of Canada's cities, even in any of its southern rural communities, it would be addressed immediately. The school would be promptly replaced. Because this situation exists in a First Nation community, it drags on, unresolved, while the elementary school children attend classes in eleven portables that stand betweeen the fenced-off, contaminated site, and an airstrip. Meant to be only temporary, these buildings stand separated from each other, so that walking from classroom to classroom in winter requires a parka. While students here in Toronto, for instance, who are housed in a portable for any of their classes might don a parka as well, to get to their gym class, they would at least have a gym to walk to. The students at Attawapiskat have no gym. They have no playground, either, for that matter. There is no play equipment for them; there is nothing.
Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, has declared there is "no money" for the new school. Bullshit, plain and simple. A government that has two million dollars to waste on building a fake lake for last summer's G8 has the money to spend on a new school in Attawapiskat. It simply chooses not to.
During this current election campaign, it would make damn interesting copy if anyone could corner Harper and actually get the truth from him about the paternalistic/racist ministry of "Indian Affairs" and the government attitude toward the people of the First Nations. It would be interesting, indeed, to hear what any of the party leaders had to say about what they would do for Attawapiskat and every other left-behind First Nation community, for that matter.
Unfortunately, these people are too easily ignored by Canada, and there is little pride to he had for our true north strong and free in the country's treatment of its own people.
--
Posted By aka.alias to aka.alias at 4/21/2011 03:45:00 PM
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