Close to home

Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures Minister Ian Bushie was at home in Hollow Water First Nation when he learned of the tragedy that struck his community.

“I found out when my mother called me, because one of the victims went to her house. That’s how close-knit we are, and how close this was and how close this hit to home for me personally,” said Bushie, the MLA for Keewatinook.

“She told me about that, and then told me that they called the paramedics, they called the police and all that kind of thing.”

His gut reaction was to ensure his family was safe.

“Immediately, you know, everybody kind of gets on their phones and connects who they can connect with. You immediately start to see the police presence, the paramedics presence on the ground. You could hear the STARS air ambulance,” he said.

Hollow Water First Nation is located about 190 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg.

The arrival of emergency responders was a relief during a “very active situation going on at the time,” Bushie said.

He said he was on his way to the Health Sciences Centre to visit some of the victims who are relatives Friday afternoon. He didn’t name them.

“There’s a lot of families that are affected and I think our thoughts and prayers go out to them, as well,” he said, adding families are gathering to help each other both in the community and at HSC.

“There’s a real sense of, ‘We’re all over the place, but at the same time we’re all in this together,’” he said.

The minister said Hollow Water is home and it’s safe.

“We have a lot of very good people running a lot of very good programming in our community,” he said. “When things like this happen, of course it raises the question, ‘how did this happen?’”

“I think as we roll out in the coming days, in the coming weeks, we’ll have more of an idea as to how this came to be and the underlying factors and what kind of pushed us to this point… we’ll be able to kind of assess that to hopefully avoid anything like this in the future.”

Bushie said he’s always been a proud member of the First Nation, and it’s how he introduces himself at speaking events, such as the Assembly of First Nations gathering in Winnipeg, where he addressed hundreds of delegates Wednesday before driving home to his community that night.

“That’s how I feel today. That’s how I feel every day. And that’s how I’ll continue to feel,” said the lifelong resident who commutes to the legislature.

“The residents are very proud of who they are, who we are and where we come from, and we’re very open and we share our gifts with society, with the world.”

Now they’re grateful for people from across the country sharing their support for Hollow Water residents.

“As we continue to deal with this tragedy, it’s been very good to know that we really have the support of all First Nations, all these communities, but also all Manitobans and Canadians,” Bushie said.

“It’s very uplifting.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca