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.
Copies of Email Correspondence ATIP
Previously Released ATIP Requests