Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Hall was told by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl Wednesday that the new school is on the ministry’s list of new capital projects.
…Susan Bertrand, manager of communications for INAC, confirmed the news.
“INAC has scheduled a new school for Attawapiskat in the Ontario Region Major Capital Plan,” Bertrand wrote in an e-mail to The Daily Press. “For the next fiscal year (2010-2011), INAC has dedicated an amount of $200,000 to assist the First Nation in updating its school capital planning study. Funding is also planned for the design and construction phases for subsequent years.”
John Duncan, insisting on the government’s ludicrously diversionary “third party management,” now introduces a fresh diversion: he’s promising a new school for Attawapiskat, taking credit where it is clearly not due.
The Chief of Attawapiskat First Nation, however, is not swayed. No wonder: the cost of this latter-day Indian agentry has just now been disclosed—$180,000, which, to add injury to injury, is supposed to come out of the band’s own strained finances.
Duncan brought along his parliamentary secretary, Greg Rickford, to a meeting with the chief and other leaders. Who? Oh. The man who mocked the local MP Charlie Angus in 2009 for pushing for that school in Attawapiskat.
Must have been a lovely meeting. In fact Rickford described it as “respectful, cordial and collegial.”
That prompted old memories: back in the day, such talks were called “frank and comradely.” Lucky for the people of Attawapiskat that they’re out of reach of the tanks that inevitably followed.
