The news of the two little girls who froze to death at the Yellow Quill First Nation in Saskatchewan when they went outside in -50 C weather wearing only diapers and t shirts has sent shock waves around the world and is hopefully embarrassing our country’s officials and First Nations officials into doing more about a crisis they have known about for decades and have only been putting band-aids on the problems.
The father of the youngsters (aged 1 and 3) may now be facing criminal charges as he was found to be highly inebriated when he was picked up by the RCMP. Police are only now starting to piece the puzzle together as to what happened Tuesday morning, however many people believe that he too is a victim.
A First Nation Assessment report was published last January that was prepared by representatives from Save the Children Canada, UNICEF, the Ontario Office of Child and Family Services Advocacy, among other organizations, as well as community leaders and youths in the First Nations communities (read the complete report here). The report lists an exhaustive series of issues these communities are almost all facing. They include:
- Inadequate housing
- Extreme poverty
- Lack of community infrastructure
- Children are three to four years behind in their education (if they don’t drop out first)
- Employment opportunities are limited to seasonal and community work
- Physical and mental health problems (including addiction and diabetes) are exacerbated by the housing and economic problems
- Almost 90% of the families have been directly affected by suicide
People in Yellow Quill have been interviewed by the media all week and have painted a grim picture as to the health of their community. Perhaps these two babes will not have died in vain. That is my wish. Clearly we have not been focusing enough on getting aid to our own residents. How could that even be? Canada spends billions of dollars in foreign aid ($3.1 billion in 2006) surely we could do so much more for our First Nations!
UNICEF asks the question: What should be done to improve life for children in Canada? Let them know what you think. Take the UNICEF survey here
I also want to know what you think. Please leave a comment or email me at melissacthibodeau [at] gmail [dot] com.
Filed under: Humanitarian, People | Tagged: alcoholism, Child and Family Services, First Nation, Foreign aid, poverty, Save the Children Canada, starvation, UNICEF, Yellow Quill First Nation
