Band, council defy feds on aid

ALEXANDRA PAUL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES Enlarge Image

Flooding drove the population of Lake St. Martin First Nation away in 2011, and 1,298 evacuees have still been unable to return to their homes.

OTTAWA -- The funding tap continues to flow to 170 people the federal government determined more than a month ago were wrongly receiving aid intended for Lake St. Martin evacuees.

The band chief and council were asked to have the people removed from the evacuation list, but that never happened, a spokeswoman for Aboriginal Affairs said Thursday.

So on Thursday, a letter was sent to the Manitoba Association of Native Fire Fighters asking for the 71 families to be removed from the program as of June 1.

It has cost more than $500,000 for the ineligible recipients since they were identified in late April -- based on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada estimates that each evacuee costs $100 per day for housing, food and other daily allowances.

AANDC officials plan to try to recoup the money for ineligible evacuees from the First Nation but it's unclear whether that will be successful. Sources with the First Nation have indicated plans to fight any attempts to cut Lake St. Martin's funding to repay the evacuation costs.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Derek Nepinak said the focus should not be on ineligible evacuees but on the real evacuees who have been kept from their homes for more than a year.

"The real issue here is the people still disconnected from their communities," he said.

Nepinak said the delays in figuring out how to get people home should not be tolerated.

He said it's unlikely many, if any, of the ineligible evacuees made their claims to be purposely fraudulent. Some may be families displaced years ago by flooding, he said, noting Lake St. Martin has flooded year after year.

In all, there are still 2,230 First Nations residents registered as evacuees, not including the 170 ineligible Lake St. Martin residents. Ellen Funk, a spokeswoman for Aboriginal Affairs, said thus far a review of evacuee lists from the other First Nations has not found anyone ineligible.

She said the department cannot say when any of them will be able to go home.

A bad road is keeping people from returning to Dauphin River First Nation. In Little Saskatchewan First Nation, the province hasn't been able to determine how high to build a new dike and until that dike is built, access to many homes on the reserve is considered unsafe. In Lake St. Martin, Pinaymootang, Peguis and Ebb and Flow First Nations, houses are uninhabitable until they are replaced or repaired due to flood damage.

But there is no word on when any of those things might happen.

"We continue to work with First Nations and our provincial partners to address these issues and get people home to safe, permanent accommodations as soon as possible," said Funk.

Manitoba NDP MP Pat Martin said this is "a humanitarian crisis that is being bungled."

He said one chief told him he thinks he should have hung cowbells around the necks of his community residents since ranchers who were flooded near his community have already been compensated and received new pasture land while residents of his community are still out of their homes.

"This is not rocket science," Martin said of the work that needs to be done to get people home. "These are not insurmountable difficulties."

As of February, Ottawa had already spent $40 million just on the costs of housing and feeding First Nations evacuees since the spring of 2011.

Nepinak said one of the issues surrounding emergency management for First Nations is an agreement between Ottawa and Manitoba signed in 2009, which gives the province authority to provide emergency services to First Nations. Normally, it would be the jurisdiction of the federal government.

However, in 2009 it was found that separation led to different levels of service for First Nations communities and non-First Nations communities, and the agreement was signed.

But Nepinak said no First Nations chiefs were involved in the discussions and he sees it as a prime example of paternalistic governance of First Nations.

"We need to blow the lid off that (memorandum of understanding) and figure out how we do this going forward," he said.

Documents about the evacuations obtained by the Free Press through an access-to-information request show repeatedly the jurisdictional conflicts, confusion and mistrust between First Nations and other governments.

For example, in April 2011, Lake St. Martin chief and council refused to take any further responsibility for evacuations after the government disputed the council's claim the community needed to be evacuated. Around the same time, Lake Manitoba First Nation refused to allow the Manitoba Association of Native Fire Fighters to co-ordinate and register evacuees so the province stepped in to do it just for that band. MANFF, which has a contract with Ottawa to provide emergency services on First Nations, registered all other evacuees.

The process for funding evacuees is also quite complicated. Once evacuees are registered, MANFF pays the bills for such things as hotel stays and food allowances. It in turn sends a bill to the province because of the agreement for Manitoba to provide emergency management. Manitoba then turns around and bills the federal department of Public Safety, which has federal jurisdiction for emergency management. Finally, Public Safety sends the bill to Aboriginal Affairs, which has jurisdiction for First Nations.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Communities still under evacuation orders:

DAUPHIN RIVER FIRST NATION

Location: 240 km north of Winnipeg

Normal on-reserve population: 213

First evacuations began: April 7, 2011

Current number of evacuees: 262

Reason they can't go home: lack of safe road access on provincial road leading into the community

EBB AND FLOW FIRST NATION

Location: 262 km north of Winnipeg

Normal on-reserve population: 1,506

First evacuations began: June 13, 2011

Current number of evacuees: 102

Reason they can't go home: need for home repairs or renovations due to mould, structural damage etc.

LAKE ST. MARTIN FIRST NATION

Location: 225 km north of Winnipeg

Normal on-reserve population: 1,386

First evacuations began: May 20, 2011

Current number of evacuees: 1,298

Reason they can't go home: Repeated flooding has left most homes in the community uninhabitable. The province, Ottawa and the First Nation are negotiating options for new land on which to rebuild the reserve.

LITTLE SASKATCHEWAN FIRST NATION

Location: 255 km north of Winnipeg

Normal on-reserve population: 654

First evacuations began: April 18, 2011

Current number of evacuees: 385

Reason they can't go home: Manitoba Water Stewardship has yet to determine what the final elevation of the dike around the community should be. Until the dike is built, there is no safe access to homes.

PEGUIS FIRST NATION

Location: 170 km north of Winnipeg

Normal on-reserve population: 3,644

First evacuations began: April 12, 2011

Current number of evacuees: 204

Reason they can't go home: need for home repairs or renovations due to mould, structural damage, etc.

PINAYMOOTANG FIRST NATION

Location: 220 km northwest of Winnipeg

Normal on-reserve population: 1,242

First evacuations began: April 13, 2011

Current number of evacuees: 146

Reason they can't go home: need for repairs or renovations due to mould, structural damage, etc.