All posts by Mara Selanders

No increase expected in fire protection dollars on reserve, documents reveal

Access-to-information story
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Records obtained from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development under the Access to Information Act suggest that enough money is provided to fight fires on reserves across the country.

Funding amounts were questioned following the preventable deaths of three children in fires at Pelican Narrows, a reserve community in northern Saskatchewan.

Emails from the the records state that current funding agreements afford Aboriginal bands “the flexibility to allocate the funds among the sub-communities”, but they do not always know how much money each individual sub-community ultimately receives.

Chief Peter Beatty of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, the band that oversees Pelican Narrows, says that bands are not independent in the way Aboriginal Affairs would like the public to think.

“At the end of the day, it’s Indian bands administering Indian Affairs programs on their behalf to on-reserve residents. So it’s not really true what they’re saying, and what they’re claiming. Because attached to all of that money is a whole slough of conditions and strings attached to every dollar being administered on their behalf.”

“To the general public, what they want to portray is that Indian Affairs is dumping truckloads of money onto the reserve. Which is not true. I wish it was, but unfortunately it is not.”

According to the access records, Peter Ballantyne receives $18,109 dollars per year in fire protection services for its eight communities.

That amounts to roughly $1.65 per person. Other Saskatchewan communities, such as the city of Saskatoon, operate on about $168 per person.

The records also state that $31,849 dollars from Peter Ballantyne’s band based capital was to be used as fire protection capital in Pelican Narrows.

Beatty says that band based capital is “flexible dollar”, and those dollars are almost always put towards housing. Even if that money were actually flexible, Beatty says that it wouldn’t make a difference.

“Even if they did give us $31,000, how far is that going to go?”

He says that his three major communities—Pelican Narrows, Deschambault Lake, and South End—would likely require upwards of ten million dollars in fire protection infrastructure and renovations in order to properly fight fires.

Deschambault Lake, for example, doesn’t have a firefighting capability beyond a hydrant, he says.

The records state that infrastructure money is to come out of the Capital Asset Inventory System, money that Beatty says likely couldn’t buy more than few loads of gravel.

The system is described in the access records as having “little meaning to the outside reader” and is “confusing”.

Aboriginal Affairs stated in the records provided that they have been collaborating closely with the Aboriginal Firefighters Association of Canada in order to assist First Nations in fire protection.

Executive Director Blaine Wiggins says that the organization acts as policy expert in terms of fire services, and it is not seeing the necessary dollars put towards those services.

“Funding is always going to be an issue. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether it’s fire services, or housing, or social services. There’s certainly a gap in funding on reserve.”

He says that he also recognizes a knowledge gap.

“We have a lack of capacity which sometimes more money can’t address. We have to build the capacity within the communities to maximize the expertise. A small volunteer fire department is not going to have professionals who are good at public education relative to fires.”

But that capacity won’t be built without money. Though the access records state that money is put towards the training of volunteer firefighters, they also indicate that Aboriginal Affairs does not actually track the number of on-reserve volunteer firefighters or how many reserves have a volunteer fire department.

Whether the gap is in knowledge or funding, continuing to ignore it doesn’t better equip Pelican Narrows for the next fire.

Representatives for Aboriginal Affairs did not respond to requests for an interview in time for publication.

Access Requests

Copies of Email Correspondence ATIP

ATIP Phone Conversations

Previously Released ATIP Requests

Answers to Questions About Document

Selected ATIP Pages (Text)

Government Setbacks Make Wellbeing Difficult for Pelican Narrows

Database Assignment
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The Saskatchewan community of Pelican Narrows is faring little better than they were almost ten years ago, when the federal government gave the reserve a score of 42 out of 100 on their Community Wellbeing Index.

The index used census data to evaluate First Nations, Inuit, and other communities in the areas of housing, income, education and labour force activity and then give an overall score out of 100.

Scores were meant to show how communities compared to each other, but obvious disparities between the groups did little to advance any change, especially in Pelican Narrows.

Paul Mkandawire is a statistician and professor of economics, international development and health geography at Carleton University. He says that despite the fact that such indicators are important when evaluating wellbeing, there is always more to the story.

“The notion of using quantitative indicators to capture qualitative dimensions of life is, in the first place, debatable.”

“For example, what kind of education are they talking about? Within the aboriginal context, it’s not just formal education, but also education in terms of awareness of traditional values, ways of dealing with illnesses, proper feeding practices, that are part and parcel with culture.”

Education scores were calculated using only the proportions of populations that had completed a high school or university education.

Pelican Narrows scored 30, well below the national average of 48.

Peter A. Beatty is the Chief of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, of which Pelican Narrows is a part. He says the community can thank the federal government for the low scores.

“The federal government’s budget allocations have a long term effect in terms of the social problems on the reserve and the low score there,” he says.

The band was once funded to keep parity with the province in terms of teacher’s wages, so that communities were able to recruit better teachers on longer contracts. That funding is no longer.

“Now the federal government has cut that funding to support education. It’s beyond me. Why would you cut that funding when nationally, you’re talking about enhancing education and trying to provide better education on reserve?” Beatty says.

“We won’t be on par with the province anymore. We won’t be able to afford it.”

It is for this reason, among others, that Peter Ballantyne and three other bands in Saskatchewan have not yet signed their funding agreements.

Of course, it’s not just teachers that are difficult to keep in school. 2011 Census data shows that of 1,105 students aged 15 and over, 735 do not obtain any kind of certificate, diploma or degree.

One incentive the community tried to keep youth in school was the hot lunch program.

But when the workload for the community’s two social workers exceeded 1,000 cases, the hot lunch program was cut in order to redirect money into social assistance.

Listen to Beatty discuss the importance of the program here:

“What they did was reallocate that money, the money that goes towards lunch programs for kids going to school, and said ‘we’re giving you new money.’”

Beatty says that this practice of repackaging funds has become all too familiar.

“You know the minister’s announcement of new monies for education across Canada? That’s not new money. That is money that has been cut from education programs, from social programs, and been reallocated to make it look like it’s new money.”

Whether new or old, funds remain scarce at Pelican Narrows. The index revealed an income score of 37, and in 2010 the majority of households had an annual income of less than $30,000.

Regardless, Beatty says in terms of income, Pelican Narrows has reason to be optimistic.

He says that the impending diamond mine at Deschambault Lake is promising, and Peter Ballantyne is taking steps to arrange impact benefit and labour force agreements on their own.

“The stereotype of an Indian is that they don’t want to work. Well, that’s hogwash,” Beatty says.

“You’ve got enough people here, develop that resource. That human resource is there. But if you keep those people under your thumb, on social assistance, they’re going to remain that way for the rest of their lives.”

Average Education Score, Organized by Province and Community Type

Source: Statistics Canada Analysis by Mara Selanders

Average Wellbeing Score, Organized by Province and Community Type

Source: Statistics Canada Analysis by Mara Selanders

 

Pelican Narrows 2011 Census Information: Education

Pelican Narrows Education 2011 Census (Text)
Pelican Narrows 2011 Census Information: Household Income

Pelican Narrows Household Income 2011 (Text)

Future Still Questionable for J.C. Penney

Business Assignment
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A former titan in the department store market is licking its wounds on the eve of completing its first recovery year.

J.C. Penney faced third quarter losses of 298 percent and year-to-date losses of 229 percent compared to 2012, as illustrated in the annotated document below. Stock prices have spiraled down more than 80 percent in the past two years.

The only hope for the retailer may be to declare bankruptcy on hundreds of stores, says Columbia business professor and former Sears CEO Mark Cohen.

They can choose whether or not they face the closures head on and begin anew, or remain in denial and be “forced into bankruptcy without regards to whether or not they can ever come out.”

Though the company announced mid-January that it will close 33 stores for a projected savings of 65 million, Cohen isn’t confident that will be enough.

“There are various financial analysts who are opining about how they can get the four to five billion dollars back. They’re getting some of it back, but they need to get most of it back, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

What began as a brand revitalization exercise wound up doing serious damage to the company that had been sleeping at the wheel for quite some time.

“The prior management of J.C. Penney—the management led by Mike Ullman—before Ron Johnson showed up had basically driven the company off the road into a ditch. It wasn’t catastrophic, but it resulted in the fact that the business was basically going nowhere.” Cohen said.

After several years of stagnating numbers, the company hired Johnson, former Apple senior vice-president of retail operations, to replace Ullman as CEO. Johnson had recently garnered attention with his retail strategies for Apple, which included the concept for the Apple retail store and Genius Bar. Prior to Apple, Johnson was vice president of merchandising for Target where his Michael Graves housewares line pioneered the long list of Target collaborations that have come to define the chain.

Johnson entered the company to fanfare and his vision for the store resulted in a 24 percent increase in stock price upon its announcement in January 2012.

High hopes were dashed within the year after Johnson’s installation of hip, upscale shops within the JC Penney alienated old customers and failed to attract new. The company endured losses of nearly one billion dollars and a revenue drop of 25 percent.

Johnson was fired in April 2013 and replaced by Ullman.

Though Ullman is optimistic about the company’s growth, third quarter numbers suggest that the company hold its applause, and Cohen agrees. Their gross margin—the difference in what the company pays for goods and what they sell them for—remains low.

“Their margins were declining when Mike Ullman was running the thing the first time—what is it that suggests that he has some sort of magic potion that will enable him to get back, let alone become prosperous in that regard?”

Ullman said in a statement issued alongside the results that he was proud of the company’s progress and that their “strategies to reconnect with customers are beginning to take hold.”

When compared to the year-to-date financials from the 2012 third quarter report, it would appear that J.C. Penney is indeed recovering. In 2012, the company’s net income plummeted by 566 percent.

Cohen says that the best the company can hope for is to be back where it began, which may not be worth hoping for.

“The right answer of course is that if they are successful, they will merely bring themselves back to that mediocre place that wasn’t going anywhere in the first place.”

The company reiterated their positive outlook after the holiday season, but January’s store closure announcement suggests that the annual report may tell a different story.

Its release has yet to be announced.