The federal government does not have a willing partner to find a way to introduce fire codes on First Nation reserves, a newly released document shows.
The senior director for the Indigenous Fire Marshal Service, however, says there are steps Ottawa can take now to better protect communities.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Blaine Wiggins. “Analyzing the problem that they already know is not an option.”
A meeting scenario note for Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu, obtained by The Canadian Press through access-to-information legislation, details some of the sticking points the department says it has run into when it comes to improving fire prevention.
The note was prepared ahead of an anticipated meeting with Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald last October.
For decades, house fires on First Nations have caused deaths and injuries at a much higher rate than off-reserve. Experts say that’s due to of a range of factors, from insufficient housing and overcrowding to improper education and funding for fire prevention and suppression services.
Another major gap is that national and provincial building and fire codes do not apply to structures on First Nations. That means it is up to communities to pass their own bylaws.
Ontario Regional Chief Glen Hare believes that ought to change.
“It’s a no-brainier,” he said in an interview Friday. “(You’ve) got to have fire protection in your home.”
Andrew MacKendrick, Hajdu’s director of communications, confirmed the minister met with the National Indigenous Fire Safety Council and then later spoke with Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Cindy Woodhouse on the matter, as per directions from Archibald’s office.
Woodhouse heads the fire safety file for the AFN, which is the advocate voice for more than 600 First Nations across the country. She did not respond to a request for comment and the assembly did not provide a comment on its position by deadline.
According to the document, the agenda for Hajdu’s meeting included the possible development of legal and regulatory fire protection on-reserve.
It also detailed the AFN’s own history with the issue.
It noted that chiefs passed a resolution at a 2017 gathering recognizing the lack of national fire standards on-reserve and endorsing the creation of an office that eventually became the Indigenous Fire Marshal Service, which is part of the Indigenous safety council.
But Indigenous Services officials noted that the idea of bringing in regulations or legislation was then abandoned, “due to a lack of First Nations leadership support.”
“(The) Assembly of First Nations has previously not been supportive of legal or regulatory approaches to fire protection. To my knowledge, there are currently no partners willing to support co-developed approaches to fire enforcement,” reads a set of prepared opening remarks for Hajdu.
Hare, who is a member of the AFN’s executive, said he plans to raise the issue when they next meet.
“I’ll just put the question out there: Do we support it or not?”
He said while First Nations do not accept many of the “codes” that have been imposed upon them by the federal government, he finds it difficult to imagine a chief saying, ‘Well, we can’t do this.'”
Wiggins said his office of eight is working to get buy-in from communities and build capacity for them to institute their own standards.
“Instead of one legislation for 630 communities, 630 pieces of bylaw for 630 communities.”
He said one step Ottawa could take is working with organizations like his to make better funding decisions when it comes to equipment.
“I can go to a dozen First Nations communities where there are fire trucks, you know, really good fire trucks that are sitting in buildings not being utilized,” he said.
“Nobody knows how to use it.”
MacKendrick said Hajdu is open to all options, and is looking to hold a gathering to discuss fire safety in the coming weeks.
Federal officials have previously noted that legislating fire and building codes on First Nations raises complicated questions, given that much of the housing stock is in poor condition.
For example — is there a risk that homes that are not up to code are at risk of becoming condemned?
For Terrance Meekis, who assists with fire prevention on Sandy Lake First Nation, the idea of Ottawa bringing fire codes into communities like his raises questions of capacity.
Meekis said there are 10 firefighters in the northern Ontario community, which is better than others in the region.
He said Sandy Lake does not have fire codes, but is inspecting homes and dealing with ones that only have one door, or a blocked entryway. They also lack basic equipment like smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
Three children died in a house fire last year, but Meekis said the community has seen fewer deadly blazes than in years past.
In fact, one of the first fires he witnessed took the lives of his great-aunt and cousin.
“I’ve really been fighting for fire safety for the past 20 years.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2023.
A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu’s name in several references. It has since been corrected.
Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.
The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.
Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.
They say the two men were members of the same family.
No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.
RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.
François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.
“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.
Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.
Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.
Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.
Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.
Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.
He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.
“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
