The residents of Kashechewan do not want to be relocated just outside Timmins as has been recommended. Three times the community has been evacuated with a cost running in the millions, and rebuilding would cost them $500M.
What is a government to do?
There is compassion, but there is also reality. If a commission recommends they should move and they choose to ignore the recommendation, my cold heart says turn the taps off on government funding. I would call it tough love. Tax dollars come at a cost and wasting half a billion on a new town is not acceptable.
I admire the first nations for their desire to stay, but I would admire them more if they chose a path that allowed them to sustain themselves.
The ironic part of this whole choice is that the town is built on a flood plain and the only real answer to rebuilding is to relocate to a different location off the floodplain. If they are going to relocate anyway, it would just make sense to relocate near an existing urban area like Timmins. They would have access to far more benefits like good health care, clean water, a decent school system, abundant jobs, etc. The effect would be noticeable on the suicide rate alone.
No one ever wants to move. It’s a hard choice to pick up and change everything about your life. But sometimes a major change creates a new attitude in a community. Sometimes it gives a fresh start, a rebirth of sorts.
Give your children a chance. Get out of Dodge.
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This is a thorny problem that has implications far beyond this one issue. I agree the practical solution to move to Timmins is the the best one. I can also sympathize with the natives. I try to visualize the government coming into my community and dragging me off to an urban centre against my wishes and dropping me into a new location without addressing the root problems. To be uprooted from your home must be a traumatic experience.
To take the reserve system and transplant it to another location solves nothing. On the other hand a comprehensive plan to integrate the community into the mainstream Canadian culture with individuial home and property ownership,jobs and community infrastructure and remove the Department of Indian Affairs from the picture entirely would only benefit the natives and might make the move more palatable.
What about all the other high maintenance communities scattered across the north.? Could this create a template for dealing with all the attendant problems endemic in northern communities such as joblessness, suicide and poor living conditions.? The past practice of throwing barrels of money at the problem in order to avoid facing a solution to native land claims will have to be addressed eventually. The problem won’t go away by ignoring it.