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[winnie]

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PM says feds 'dealing with' Kashechewan water

CTV.ca News Staff

Answering allegations he's been "missing in action" since a water-contamination crisis began on a northern Ontario Cree reserve two years ago, Prime Minister Paul Martin insists his government is dealing with the situation.

The day after Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty declared a state of emergency in the Kashechewan community on the western shores of James Bay, he blamed Ottawa's neglect for the "deplorable conditions."

"The federal government is going to have to decide whether or not it's prepared to assume (its) responsibility,'' McGuinty told reporters as he headed into a cabinet meeting Wednesday.

"If they're not prepared to assume responsibility, then they should talk to not just this premier, but premiers throughout the country and come to a new arrangement because at the present time, according to the rules, they've been missing in action.''

McGuinty's allegation was echoed on Parliament Hill later Wednesday, when federal Conservative Leader Stephen Harper demanded Martin answer the charge.

"First of all, the Minister of Indian Affairs (Andy Scott) was at the reservation last week to deal with it," the prime minister shot back, adding that an agreement signed almost a decade ago makes the province responsible for handling the evacuation.

The federal government's responsibility, he said, is to pay for the operation.

"We are assuming our responsibility and we are dealing with the situation and we will do so."

Scott also came under heavy fire during the daily House of Commons question period Wednesday, as opposition MPs pressed him to admit having mishandled the situation.

"Where was this minister, where was this government," Conservative MP Jim Prentice asked, looking for the prime minister to assume responsibility for Scott's portfolio.

"When will he stand up and prevent our citizens from living in the Third World?"

Answering for the government, Scott suggested he's done all that he's been asked.

"Last Wednesday I visited the community of Kashechewan. They asked me to provide good water, to provide people to work in the system to make it work. They asked me for long-term not band aid solutions and we're working together with them on all of those things," Scott answered over jeers from the opposition benches.

"That's where I've been."

Kashechewan has been under a boil-water order for more than two years and has had other boil advisories over the last eight years. Two weeks ago, Dr. Murray Trusler visited the reserve and detailed the deplorable conditions and health problems plaguing the community.

When McGuinty declared a medical emergency in Kashechewan Tuesday, he said the province would begin evacuating up to 1,000 sick residents to Timmins, Cochrane and other nearby communities as early as Wednesday.

At the same time, David Ramsay, the Ontario minister responsible for native affairs, said the province is now doing assessments of other reserves. It's estimated there are about 100 native communities in Canada under boil-water advisories and some 50 in Ontario alone.

Polluted water is blamed for a litany of illnesses including chronic diarrhea, scabies and impetigo -- a bacterial disease in which parasites live under the skin.

In Kashechewan, there are reports the concentrations of chlorine now being used to kill waterborne bacteria is making conditions worse.

Stan Louttit, the grand chief for the Mushkegowuk Council responsible for the Kashechewan Reserve, wants to know why the federal and provincial governments didn't act sooner.

"We're shocked, actually, that the governments would allow such a thing in this country, this very rich country," Louttit told CTV's Canada AM early Wednesday. "Hopefully ... governments will wake up and realize the problem in this country in regard to water in our communities."

Kashechewan's water treatment plant, funded 10 years ago by the federal department of Indian Affairs, was placed downstream from an existing sewage lagoon. That means contaminants flow past the intake pipe that feeds raw water into the complex system to be treated for drinking.

[Bulsajo]

There's enough 'stupid' and 'shameful' in this story for everyone to have a slice, including a helping for Dalton 'broken every election promise I've ever made' McGuinty. He's as guilty as the feds as some of the responsibility for this situation lay in Provincial jurisdiction.