Kashechewan receives news from INAC - $200 million to stay on flood plain
The following two stories documents document the struggle that the people of Kashechewan are having with the Conservative government ...
Prentice: $474M move for Kashechewan too costly
Updated Fri. Mar. 30 2007 - CTV.ca News Staff
Canada's Indian Affairs minister says the federal government can't afford the $474 million price tag estimated to move the embattled Kashechewan reserve.
Jim Prentice said it would be more feasible to spend $200 million on repairs rather than completely move the 1,800 people in the northern Ontario community.
"It's not realistic and frankly to move 30 kilometres up the river, ... there's no economy there, there's no jobs there, there's no economic future there," he told CTV News.
The report, commissioned by Indian Affairs, was prepared by engineering firm Neegan Burnside. The firm estimated it would cost $263,000 for each man, woman and child to move north.
The document does not stipulate the cost to move Kashechewan 450 kilometres south to Timmins, Ont. -- a move recommended by a special adviser appointed by Prentice but rejected by the residents of the reserve.
"It's a community of 50-60,000 people. It has modern schools hospitals, colleges all of the things that young people would take advantage of," Prentice said.
However, opposition parties are siding with the people of Kashechewan.
"When you move a whole community that has lived for thousands of years in Canada's north and put them as a little suburb to a big urban area, you're essentially condemning that community to ultimately being absorbed," said NDP leader Jack Layton.
The Mushkegowuk Council, which is responsible for the Kashechewan reserve, maintains they would rather move their residents north to their traditional hunting grounds.
"The majority of them said that they would rather re-locate to safer, higher ground," said Chief Jonathon Solomon.
The repairs to flood-plagued reserve near Albany River would include extensive work to a failing protective flood wall, housing, along with repairs to the school and buildings.
The Cree hunters were forcibly relocated to the flood plain in 1957 by the federal government.
Liberal MP and former Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott was forced to deal with a barrage of criticism in 2004 as the reserve made headlines for an E. coli water crisis.
On Oct. 27, 2005, Scott signed an agreement worth $500 million to rebuild the entire Kashechewan community on higher ground north of the reserve.
"It was approved and booked,'' by former finance minister Ralph Goodale, Scott said.
However, the Conservative government has since reneged on the funding, saying the Liberals never officially committed to the deal.
"If Andy Scott can show us where the $500 million was booked, we'd be glad to see it because we sure can't find it anywhere,'' Prentice spokesman Bill Rodgers said.
The minister said it would not be practical to maintain the current reserve through another flood season while a new one was being built.
The entire town of Kashechewan has had to be evacuated three times since 2004 because of flooding and water supply contamination on the low-lying site.
With a report by CTV's Rosemary Thompson and files from The Canadian Press
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Prentice turns down Kashechewan move request
Last Updated: Friday, March 30, 2007 - CBC News
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has turned down a request by the embattled Kashechewan reserve in northern Ontario to relocate within its traditional hunting grounds, reserve officials say.
Stan Louttit, grand chief for the Mushkegowuk Council, which is responsible for the Kashechewan reserve, told CBC News Friday that Prentice rejected the option of relocation as too costly and offered $200 million to redevelop the community at the current location.
"Disappointment" was how Louttit described his reaction, as he said relocation was the preferred option of the vast majority of the community's 1,700 residents.
In an interview Friday with the Canadian Press, Prentice said a new engineering report estimates it would cost about $474 million to move the reserve to higher ground — an option he called "prohibitively" expensive.
"If the situation is that the community wishes to stay in their traditional territory, then the most prudent option is the current Kashechewan site, where there's probably $150 million to $200 million of infrastructure in place already," Prentice said.
Louttit said the next step is for Kashechewan Chief Jonathan Solomon to go back to the community with this offer and decide how they will respond.
Earlier this month, Solomon said Prentice had balked at a report saying the community preferred to be relocated 30 kilometres upstream, within their traditional lands.
The report found a majority of residents wanted to move off the flood plain of the Albany River, where their homes have been repeatedly swamped during spring thaws.
It contradicted an earlier federal report recommending community members be moved to the city of Timmins, about 480 kilometres to the south.
Three evacuations since 2004
The federal report, prepared for Indian Affairs by former Ontario provincial government cabinet minister Alan Pope and released last November, recommended moving the reserve to the outskirts of Timmins to give community members access to hospitals, schools and employment.
Solomon has called on the Tories to honour a 2005 deal worth $500 million reached with the previous Liberal government to build a new community within their traditional hunting grounds in 10 years.
"It was approved and booked" by former finance minister Ralph Goodale, Liberal MP and former Indian Affairs minister Andy Scott told the Canadian Press Friday.
Prentice had repeatedly said the people could choose to relocate, but following the release of the survey earlier this month, a spokesperson for Indian Affairs told CBC News the cost projections had forced the ministry to take a second look.
Ottawa moved the community, against the residents' will, to the low-lying land in 1957.
Flooding and tainted water have prompted three evacuations since 2004.
The evacuations came as the community struggled with squalid housing, domestic violence, addiction and a number of reported suicide attempts.
Prentice himself has called conditions on the reserve "deplorable."