Canada is betraying its Aborigines, who must deal with dreadful living conditions, poor healthcare and discrimination, the country’s top Aboriginal leader said in a fiery speech on Tuesday.
Aborigines, who make up about 1.2 million of Canada’s 34.5 million population, suffer high levels of poverty and crime. Unemployment and suicide levels are highest among Aborigines, especially on the remote reserves and settlements that dot the country’s north.
Dismaying conditions in the isolated community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario — where a severe housing crisis means people are living in tents as temperatures dip down toward minus 40oC — have been at the center of media attention since last week, embarrassing the federal government.
“Canada saw for the first time last week what we see every day, what our people live with day in and day out,” said Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
“Some of our communities — too many of our peoples — live in appalling conditions. This is a national disgrace, and we have reason to feel angry and betrayed,” he told an Ottawa gathering of Aboriginal leaders.
Atleo said Aborigines were living through “a tragic, frustrating and even terrifying time.”
He said the Attawapiskat debacle could be a moment of reckoning that helps Aborigines gain more control over their lives.
Successive Canadian governments have for decades struggled to improve the life of Aborigines, who want more federal spending and a much greater say over what happens to the resources on their land.
The increasing sense of frustration is helping bolster Aboriginal opposition to Enbridge’s planned C$5.5 billion (US$5.4 billion) Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would take crude from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific across land belonging to many Aboriginal tribes.
Ottawa currently spends about C$11 billion a year on the Aboriginal population, which leaders of Aboriginal tribes say is not enough.
Canadian Federal Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan, expressing concern about possible mismanagement at Attawapiskat, appointed an outside specialist to oversee the settlement’s finances, but the specialist was forced to leave almost as soon as he arrived.
Opposition legislators described the move as crass.
“It is a truly terrifying situation for the people there to have a government whose only response to the situation of urgency and emergency is to send in an auditor,” said Bob Rae, interim leader of the Liberal Party.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded that Ottawa would respond to the community’s needs.
He is scheduled to meet Atleo in Ottawa on Jan. 24 to discuss ways of improving the lives of Aborigines.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of