[Only The Lonely..]

Body bags sent to reserves
Dozens included in medical supplies to deal with H1N1


By: Mia Rabson | Winnipeg Free Press - 17/09/2009 1:00 AM


OTTAWA -- Northern Manitoba First Nations chiefs say Health Canada sent an ominous message to their reserves this week when dozens of body bags were included in shipments of medical supplies for H1N1 influenza.

At least four First Nations reported receiving body bags in shipments from Health Canada Tuesday. The shipments also included hand sanitizer and face masks.

"This says to me they've given up," said Garden Hill Chief David Harper.

Harper said Wasagamack First Nation counted at least 30 body bags in a shipment of supplies sent to the nursing station. Gods River received 20 of them. Garden Hill and St. Theresa Point also had body bags in their supply shipments but hadn't counted them.

Harper said RCMP on the reserves normally get a few body bags but the nursing station does not. He said the workers who unpacked the boxes were shocked when they saw the bags.

"It's very insensitive," said Harper. "It's like sending body bags to soldiers in Afghanistan."

Harper said he contacted the health minister's office Wednesday morning but had heard nothing from her by late afternoon.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she learned about the body bags in a conference call with First Nations leaders Wednesday morning.

She said she was very concerned by the reports and had asked the deputy minister of health to conduct an investigation.

"It is very disturbing," said Aglukkaq.

She said she didn't know anything about it, including whether or not Health Canada was actually behind it.

"Once I have more information, I can speak to that," she said. "Right now I'm asking the same questions you are."

Manitoba MP and NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis was incredulous.

"This is a government that won't send flu kits to these reserves but they send body bags instead," she said. "It's the ultimate expression of incompetence."

Wasylycia-Leis asked the health committee Wednesday to order Aglukkaq to investigate. She said people are already worried, particularly in communities like St. Theresa Point and Garden Hill, which were hit hard by H1N1 in the spring.

To send them body bags now is an ominous message, she said.

"We find this absolutely abhorrent."

Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Todd Russell said in June, Garden Hill and St. Theresa Point waited weeks for Health Canada to debate what type of hand sanitizer to send. Over the summer, Health Canada denied the reserves financial assistance to purchase flu kits that would have included preventative and treatment options like face masks and Tylenol.

"Now in September, after First Nations have been pleading with the government to put plans in place, day after day, week after week, month after month, what is minister Aglukkaq's response for preventiveness when it comes to H1N1?" said Russell. "What is the health department's response? To send body bags into First Nations communities. It is unacceptable. It is unbelievable that that is the response."

There have been 889 reported cases of H1N1 in Manitoba to date, including 221 hospitalizations, 42 of which were patients who ended up in intensive care. Seven Manitobans have died. Manitoba Health reported 327 of the reported cases were patients who are of aboriginal descent, living both on and off reserve. First Nations patients accounted for 30 per cent of the intensive care unit patients.

Nationally, First Nations patients account for 17 per cent of the hospitalized cases, 15.2 per cent of patients who ended up in intensive care and 11.3 per cent of the deaths.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca


Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 17, 2009 A3

[Only The Lonely..]

Liberals demand body bag apology
Thursday, September 17, 2009 | 9:38 AM CT - CBC NEWS

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is demanding the Conservative government apologize to First Nations people in Canada after some reserves received shipments of body bags as part of H1N1 flu preparation kits.

"What's shocking here is not merely that they sent body bags," he said on Parliament Hill Thursday. "These are fellow citizens. These are our flesh and blood.

"What kind of message does this send to our fellow citizens of aboriginal descent and what kind of message does it send to other Canadians, other Canadian families worried about the swine flu epidemic, worried about their kids going to school?"

Ignatieff was joined in his impromptu news conference by Senator Lillian Dyck, a member of the Gordon's First Nation in Saskatchewan.

"When I heard the news, I was in a state of shock. it was as if someone had taken a knife and driven it into my heart as a woman," she said. "How would you feel if you were worried about being infected with H1N1, and what you were sent was a body bag indicating that your family was going to die?

"Then I started to think, well where is the plan to deal with H1N1 flu? If this is the plan, it's in a sorry state of preparation."

[drew]

This is much ado about nothing and a complete non-issue IMO.

[LeftCoaster]

I dont get the problem? They sent medical supplies for H1N1 and body bags? Everyone is expecting this outbreak to be bad so what exactly has Health Canada done wrong? They are planning for the worst.

[Kevin_foster]

This whole H1N1 issue is such a joke.

[Metro-One]

I agree, a total non issue. Not worth the paper it has been printed on.

[skrish]

I don't get this at all. If dozens of body bags are sent to various hospitals in major cities across Canada, does this mean we want people in those cities to die. When did being prepared become an insult.

[Bigtime]

I don't get this at all. If dozens of body bags are sent to various hospitals in major cities across Canada, does this mean we want people in those cities to die. When did being prepared become an insult.

Couldn't say it any better myself.

[240glt]

I know the trust fund kids and silver spoon set that post here have a hard time understanding this but one of the reasons why the native population is due to be especially hard hit is due to the the social & economic disparity they face within Canada and the lack of services that so many of us take for granted.

What if every parent with a kid in grade school got a body bag sent to them, or every school clinic was stocked with body bags ? Do you think that the parents would be up in arms ?

[Bigtime]

I know the trust fund kids and silver spoon set that post here have a hard time understanding this but one of the reasons why the native population is due to be especially hard hit is due to the the social & economic disparity they face within Canada and the lack of services that so many of us take for granted.

So that is why they have sent body bags up ahead of time, sounds like good planning to me.

I hope they don't have to fill them.

Am I correct in assuming that these reserves are very out of the way and hard to reach? Primarily accessed by air? So it would make perfect sense to pro-actively ship supplies that may be required up, body bags being one of them.

[jeremy_haak]

I know the trust fund kids and silver spoon set that post here have a hard time understanding this but one of the reasons why the native population is due to be especially hard hit is due to the the social & economic disparity they face within Canada and the lack of services that so many of us take for granted.

What if every parent with a kid in grade school got a body bag sent to them, or every school clinic was stocked with body bags ? Do you think that the parents would be up in arms ?

It would be stupid not to send them. We already know that the population on many of these reserves was hard hit by H1N1. What if they needed the body bags and they weren't there? It would be similarly stupid not to send body bags with our soldiers in Afghanistan. As much as we want to avoid casualties, it is a realistic possibility.

We would not reasonably expect a school clinic to have to cope with the death of its students. If there was a death, the school clinic wouldn't have to cope with it, the local hospital probably would, or police/paramedics. The situation is quite different and I would hope that your local hospital and emergency services are properly equipped to deal with the death of an individual, just as these clinics in remote northern areas should be.

[1ajs]

the bags sound like a good idea to me even if they don't use them for this they are allways good to have on hand.......

[240glt]

Maybe, rather than collecting bodies, they could work on correcting some of the issues that they are forecasting will cause a greater number of deaths among the native population ?

Judging by the numbers of residents in these remote villages vs. number of body bags sent it would seem that the Cdn government is expecting a higher number of casualties per capita than they would in other towns. I've done work in remote clinics, and they are typically already equipped to deal with dead people. The gov't sending up a whole bunch more to these areas paints a pretty bleak picture for what they think will be the outcome of an H1N1 outbreak in these places.

Again, hard for some of you to comprehend sitting behind your desks in your little cubicles or sitting in your glass box 100 feet above the street, but this thread smacks of a really distasteful elitism, even with the sympathy expressed.

[1ajs]

think about it most reserves have mold problems witch affect ones lungs....

[Metro-One]

No but every community in this country needs them.

Also a lot of problems in native communities come from the factthat they are isolated. (hence the lack of services) There are non-native isolated communites in BC as well that have very few services. Is it our fault that they live in these regions? they have every right to live in a larger city, but many decide not to do so because they love their home town or fear the larger cities.

i am so tired of this damed if we do damed if we dont situation. So much money is thrown towards natives, yet they still remain in third world conditions in many areas. A big reason for this is they do not have the pride or knowledge how to properly take care of themselves, hence why so many reserve houses and yards become over grown with garbage. to me, many reserve natives are akin to trailer park non-native people.

When my Dad was working in the far north he said every year the communities were given new snowmobiles, trucks, etc... to play and work on, and these vehicles would be destroyed by the next year. Thjey were not taught how to take care of them properly and they do not have the pride to take care of them, because they were simply given to them (the same thing happens when a rich kid is given a new car by his parents, often it ends up being banged around and abused).

If we were to go in and set up better educational facilities and teach such life skills we would then be blamed as trying to take over their culture, etc... They dont want us our our educational system in the reserves because they will blame us as trying to amalgamate them, but then they blame us for not giving them enough/helping them enough.

Bottom line, it is better to teach a man to fish than throw him a fish.

The Reserve system is horrible, and also many tribal leaders are corrupt and tend to embezzle.

Of course this is just a generalization, the situation changes from tribe to tribe and person to person. I know several natives who hate the reserve system and would never live on one.

Lets face it, it will always be our fault, just like it is always the jews or the muslims fault hundreds and thousands of years later. Only when a group takes charge of their own destiny and starts pointing the finger at themsleves to do something do they move beyond the past.

I feel the reserve system should come to an end and everyone in this nation should be seen as equal. Having special groups and borders only continues the idea that we are different in rights and only continues the idea of racism. That being said I do support programs that encourage more natives to go to post secondary, but sadly few take advantage of this.

[Bigtime]

Again, hard for some of you to comprehend sitting behind your desks in your little cubicles or sitting in your glass box 100 feet above the street, but this thread smacks of a really distasteful elitism, even with the sympathy expressed.

I think you are way out of line with comments like this.

You say fix the problem instead of sending the bandaids (body bags), but realistically what can be done in this quick a timeframe to fix the real problem? I just don't understand how trying to make the best of a shitty situation by sending extra supplies is a bad thing.

[240glt]

^ Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but sadly it is true, as exemplified by some of the responses in this thread. Many (most ?) urban Canadians are sorely ignorant to what goes on in remote places in the north.

Obviously it is too late to take any drastic measures by the time the next flu season starts, but the health services in these areas have been neglected, understaffed and underfunded for decades. Some of you seem to think that these people are second class citizens solely due to the fact that they are native and live in remote locations. That's why both the government sending a large number of body bags and the comments by people saying this is the proper course of action to deal with an epidemic is symbolic of the larger issues that have existed for quite some time.

[Bigtime]

^ Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but sadly it is true, as exemplified by some of the responses in this thread. Many (most ?) urban Canadians are sorely ignorant to what goes on in remote places in the north.

Obviously it is too late to take any drastic measures by the time the next flu season starts, but the health services in these areas have been neglected, understaffed and underfunded for decades. Some of you seem to think that these people are second class citizens solely due to the fact that they are native and live in remote locations. That's why both the government sending a large number of body bags and the comments by people saying this is the proper course of action to deal with an epidemic is symbolic of the larger issues that have existed for quite some time.

I agree with you 100% here. A very close family friend has spent a considerable amount of his time as a doctor working with the native populations in the Calgary area reserves, which I would imagine are 10 times better then these remote towns and villages. I hear plenty about them from friends in the aviation community.

[drew]

^ Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but sadly it is true, as exemplified by some of the responses in this thread. Many (most ?) urban Canadians are sorely ignorant to what goes on in remote places in the north.


I have worked on 5 different reserves in Northern Manitoba and have spent a significant amount of time on reserve inspecting existing houses and houses under construction.

Quite honestly the vast majority of the reasons for poor housing conditions on the reserves that I have visited are direct result of a complete lack of maintenance, tenant abuse, mismanagement and funds, and inflated local labour costs. Essentially it's a giant shit show. If you haven't come to this same conclusion, you may have visited one of the few well managed reserves, or you simply haven't been involved that deeply in the housing system.

Chiefs that vocalize every little thing they feel insults or discriminates against their people would be far better off trying to encourage the citizens of their community to start taking responsibility for their own futures and well being. It has to start somewhere, because the system (at least in Manitoba) is completely broken and will never improve if it remains the same.

[240glt]

^ well in the new construction of health centres I've dealt with on reserves in northern Alberta and Nunavut you're absolutely right... they frequently turn into a giant shit show for the reasons you note.

However, the myopic 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps' mentality is the disconnect that people can't seem to be able to overcome. "Personal responsibility" is all fine & good in a perfect world but when you're dealing with, again, social and economic issues that go back as long as Canada has existed, there are certain things that are more complicated than keeping your house clean and maintaining a job to support yourself.

I'm not putting the blame on anyone (as some are prone to do) but the situation has been created and it won't get better if we just follow the status quo. Jut abandonning these people is not an option, just as abandonning the homeless in our cities is not. It's a very complicated situation that cannot be summed up & corrected with a few quips about taking 'responsibility'

[drew]

However, the myopic 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps' mentality is the disconnect that people can't seem to be able to overcome. "Personal responsibility" is all fine & good in a perfect world but when you're dealing with, again, social and economic issues that go back as long as Canada has existed, there are certain things that are more complicated than keeping your house clean and maintaining a job to support yourself.


^ this is true, but again when does it end? It has to start from within the reserves.

I agree that perhaps the "pull yourself up" solution may not be as black and white in the reserve system as elsewhere in Canada, however the constant blaming on others and almost habitual avoidance of any personal responsibility isn't really helping matters much either.

[Yume-sama]

And, if, God forbid there was a serious outbreak with many deaths, and they are in a remote part of the Country, and had no bodybags (which, I have never thought of as something more than an obvious necessity for any medical department... people die, *shock*), what would they do? Now, if the only supplies they were sent was a bodybag, that would be different.

But nope, these were PART of a shipment of medical supplies. And what is a bodybag? A medical supply that everyone will eventually use.

What would you rather they do? Stuff you in to a green garbage bag, and put you in a ditch? I guess at that point, you might not really care, yourself.

If being prepared is the worst charge against the current government, we don't have much of a problem.

And now I wait for the "Michael Ignatieff would rather bury native peoples in mass graves, without dignity" attack ads :P

[Only The Lonely..]

the bags sound like a good idea to me even if they don't use them for this they are allways good to have on hand.......

Always the optimist.. ;)

[Cambridgite]

This whole H1N1 issue is such a joke.

When it becomes as big as the regular flu, give me a call.

[sammo]

^lol, sounds like you don't want your gov. proscribed elixir. -it's just a little prick. you can keep your ipod on... :haha:

oh, and allow me to apologize to indignant/offended ignagoof.
"sorry iggy. -now go jump off a cliff."

[Calgarian]

I think this is a pretty shameful, totally sends the wrong message. Send doctors, not body bags.

[vid]

i am so tired of this damed if we do damed if we dont situation. So much money is thrown towards natives, yet they still remain in third world conditions in many areas. A big reason for this is they do not have the pride or knowledge how to properly take care of themselves, hence why so many reserve houses and yards become over grown with garbage. to me, many reserve natives are akin to trailer park non-native people.

It isn't that they lack the "pride of knowledge to take care of themselves" (they did just fine for about 10,000 years before Europeans arrived on this continent). So now we ask ourselves the question, "Why do people who live in trailer parks or low income neighbourhoods or on reserves neglect to maintain their properties"?

There is a general apathy among impoverished people about their living quarters and so they neglect them (I have experienced this first hand). There is also a general lack of pride in ones home when they do not own the home (something I have also experienced), and on reserves, no one owns their home. (The Federal government has control of their land, the Band owns the houses and rents them but they don't own the land the houses are on.) You can see a similar treatment to the buildings of their community. The buildings that were built by southern (ie, white) contractors are treated more poorly than the buildings the people of the community worked together to build themselves. They lack pride in their surroundings because they didn't make them. We did, and we set up a system where they can use them but they're not their own. Another aspect that you have to consider is the over crowding. Even in the city of Thunder Bay (where reserves do own many homes for their residents to live in while in the city for various reasons), overcrowding is a much bigger problem with aboriginals than non-aboriginals. It isn't just a "lots of kids to get wel-fare cheques) thing, there are many cases of as many as a dozen adults living in a two bedroom house in my own neighbourhood, and on reserves overcrowding is the norm. They do not have enough housing for all the people living there.

If we were to go in and set up better educational facilities and teach such life skills we would then be blamed as trying to take over their culture, etc... They dont want us our our educational system in the reserves because they will blame us as trying to amalgamate them, but then they blame us for not giving them enough/helping them enough.

But that is the problem--WE are going in and setting up their educational systems for them, and WE have even gone so far as to write laws (Indian Act) that prevent them from setting up their own educational systems. Northern Nishnawbe Education Council operates a high school for aboriginals in Thunder Bay, with a focus on Aboriginal culture while maintaining the Ontario curriculum. (It is located beside a public high school and they have cultural exchanges, so the students aren't totally segregated, either. Many even live in white foster homes while they stay in the city to receive educations there.) NNEC had to fight very hard to get the funds to operate this school, and it continues to right for the right to operate their own school board that WILL follow the regular curriculum but will also incorporate aboriginal culture (which is something I think all students should be learning, as part of our fight against racism). We have to give them the ability to educate themselves instead of pushing our form of education on them. The memories of the residential schools is still fresh for many aboriginal leaders, they don't (some can't) trust the public education systems. (My great grandmother was reluctant to send her children to school because she feared what happened to her in Residential School would happen to them.) If we give them the ability to educate themselves, govern themselves, have their own judicial system at the same level of provinces (at least civil court--they would still be subject to the supreme court and constitution) and so on, they would have more pride in their culture, and be much better off. Many aboriginal leaders are trying to bring about these changes but politicians are too reluctant to change the status quo. (We still call it the Indian Act!) The high school run by NNEC has been very positive. Thunder Bay has the most educated aboriginal population in Canada. (But they still can't find work. I'm not going to touch on that, it's another issue..)

Bottom line, it is better to teach a man to fish than throw him a fish.

They knew how to fish. We took that ability away from them by trying to assimilate them, then we stopped trying to assimilate them but left in a bunch of laws and influences that make their old ways of life almost impossible.

The Reserve system is horrible, and also many tribal leaders are corrupt and tend to embezzle.

And this is why an electoral commission for First Nations (like Elections Canada and the provincial bodies) has to be set up. They need the ability to clearly outline how their governments work, and the ability to hold their leaders accountable when they abuse their power.

Lets face it, it will always be our fault, just like it is always the jews or the muslims fault hundreds and thousands of years later. Only when a group takes charge of their own destiny and starts pointing the finger at themsleves to do something do they move beyond the past.

The difference in this situation is that white Canadians precipitated the events that are the root of these problems. Aboriginal people are Canadian Citizens, and it is the responsibility of the Government of Canada to assist its citizens when they need assistance. The Government promised by signing the treaties that it would fulfil its obligations and many aboriginals feel that the government has not lived up to its claim. I think it is time for all parties to come to the table and re-negotiate the Indian Act, the Treaty, and the place Aboriginals hold in our society. (In aboriginal cultures, the renegotiation and updating of agreements over time as a relationship progressed was common; the idea of multiple parties agreeing to something and never changing that agreement between them is strange to them, and I think it is obvious that it isn't working for us.)

I feel the reserve system should come to an end and everyone in this nation should be seen as equal. Having special groups and borders only continues the idea that we are different in rights and only continues the idea of racism.

I prefer to look at is as two nations overlapping each other and living (or at least trying to live) in harmony. Unlike Chinese or Zulu people living in Canada, the Ojibwe or Dene or Inuit have no nation to call their own, because we've taken where they live as our nation. I don't see why we can't co-exist, the Provinces, the Territories and the First Nations, under the Government of Canada and the Canadian Crown. Understand that the creation of these problems is not our fault, but allowing them to continue is. The solution has to come from Aboriginal people taking responsibility for themselves and non-aboriginal people taking the responsibility of demanding an improvement to the laws that govern aboriginals so that they can lead themselves more effectively. (Emphasis on that last point.)

That being said I do support programs that encourage more natives to go to post secondary, but sadly few take advantage of this.

There are two big reasons that they don't. 1: They don't have high school educations (because they don't have access to high schools) and so are not eligible to any post-secondary courses; 2: they don't know those services even exist. Many don't even speak English or French.

==

On the body bag situation--It should have been explained with the package they received that the bodies bags represented a shipment of supplies that was meant to last longer (IE. You will not receive any body bags in November, here are enough to last until January). The outrage was an over-reaction to Health Canada's decision, as a result of Health Canada's inability to explain what it was doing and why. But you have to consider the cultural effect of this action as well: Their interpretation of this action is not unlike what you or I might feel if someone started planing your funeral after you were diagnosed with early stage skin cancer. Their culture simply doesn't consider death to be something for which people prepare, and this is an insult to them. They should look past this and be practical but some people just let emotions overwhelm them, don't they?

Ultimately this whole conflict is the result of Health Canada not explaining its actions to them but it did get people talking about their problems again. Hopefully this time some sort of progress will result from the discussion.

[1ajs]

^^^ what he said

[drew]

There is also a general lack of pride in ones home when they do not own the home (something I have also experienced), and on reserves, no one owns their home. (The Federal government has control of their land, the Band owns the houses and rents them but they don't own the land the houses are on.) You can see a similar treatment to the buildings of their community. The buildings that were built by southern (ie, white) contractors are treated more poorly than the buildings the people of the community worked together to build themselves. They lack pride in their surroundings because they didn't make them. We did, and we set up a system where they can use them but they're not their own. Another aspect that you have to consider is the over crowding. Even in the city of Thunder Bay (where reserves do own many homes for their residents to live in while in the city for various reasons), overcrowding is a much bigger problem with aboriginals than non-aboriginals. It isn't just a "lots of kids to get wel-fare cheques) thing, there are many cases of as many as a dozen adults living in a two bedroom house in my own neighbourhood, and on reserves overcrowding is the norm. They do not have enough housing for all the people living there.


Sorry Vid, but the idea that natives treat the houses and buildings differently that were built by "white" contractors versus local workers has no basis in fact from the reserves I have visited. A house in the community of Shamattawa in Northern Manitoba has an average life span of between 5 and 10 years regardless of who built the house.

As to home ownership, the federal government offers incentives for reserves (including $25k forgivable loans) to fix up and sell reserve homes to citizens for full ownership. The reserves I have worked on aren't interested in the program because there is no one lining up to purchase homes.

Overcrowding on reserves is a problem, but again from what I have experienced (first hand) a lot of the time that houses don't get built it's due to mismanagement of funds by the reserve, massive cost over runs due to local contractors milking the project that results in funding being cut off, and houses sitting half built.

[manny_santos]

I think this is a pretty shameful, totally sends the wrong message. Send doctors, not body bags.

I suggest you read the other posts in this thread.