Kapyong refuge for flooded reserve?

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This article was published 02/09/2011 (5431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The chief of a flooded First Nation with evacuees stuck in Winnipeg hotel rooms all summer asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper Thursday for the keys to the Kapyong Barracks this winter.

“Our people aren’t asking you to give them the homes. Just let us live there at Kapyong together as a community until our new community can be rebuilt on a reserve on higher ground, maybe a year,” Lake St. Martin Chief Adrian Sinclair asked in a copy of the letter released to the public.

The chief said in his letter to Harper that his people are tired of hotels.

The chief added Friday finding a temporary village is also in the public interest because hotel living is costing millions.

Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development confirmed costs are $100 per person per day for hotels and meals.

Multiply that rate by 700 people and you get a tab of $490,000 a week. The evacuation is now into its 15th week, meaning the federal government is on the hook for at least $1 million in hotel and meal costs alone.

That makes no sense, the chief said.

“Do the numbers. Do you know how many millions the feds are spending on hotels? This would save a lot of taxpayers’ dollars,” Sinclair said.

The appeal for use of the Kapyong Barracks is the latest in a series of proposed locations the First Nation has considered for a temporary village.

Unprecedented high water levels on Lake St. Martin forced the evacuation of the 726 people on the First Nation in early May.

Water levels are still high and much of their Interlake First Nation nearly 300 kilometres north of Winnipeg remains under water or was damaged by flood waters.

In an agreement with the province, the First Nation is searching for a land to set up a temporary village and to locate a new reserve in the future.

“We must have temporary housing that will enable our community to remain together. I am asking… for our evacuees to spend the winter in the 126 vacant houses at Kapyong,” Sinclair said.

Kapyong has been deserted for six years since its soldiers, the Second Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, decamped for CFB Shilo near Brandon.

The fate of the former barracks rests with the Federal Court of Appeal; in February the court heard arguments from several Manitoba First Nations that they are owed surplus federal land and were never properly consulted before Ottawa sold most of Kapyong to Canada Lands, the Crown redevelopment firm.

Norm Boudreau, the lawyer for the Treaty One First Nation pursuing the case, said there’s nothing legal standing in the way of Lake St. Martin staying temporarily in vacant Kapyong homes.

“I don’t think there’s a conflict. The government might make it sound like there is but these houses are unoccupied and they are not part of Treaty One’s case,” Boudreau said.

Terry Nelson, chief of Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation, a signatory to Treaty One, said he doubts the prime minister will help.

“I don’t see the prime minister opening up Kapyong right now. For the prime minister, it might look like a good gesture but it’s not really a solution, is it?” Nelson said.

The Prime Minister’s Office and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development confirmed the houses are still the property of the Department of National Defence to lease or use. A spokeswoman said the department is reviewing the request for a response.

It was not known Friday what condition the houses are in, although it is believed some basic services, like heat, have been maintained since the soldiers decamped.

 

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca