OTTAWA - Infrastructure improvements have "minimized" flooding in the northern Ontario aboriginal community of Kashechewan, but the First Nation wants to continue living on the flood plain, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl said Monday as the evacuation of the 1,500-member community continued.
Strahl said the people of Kashechewan rejected the idea of moving their reserve closer to Timmins, Ont., in favour of staying on their traditional lands.
An airlift of some 1,100 people from the shores of James Bay was underway Monday after several hundred others were evacuated on the weekend - the fourth flood-driven evacuation of Kashechewan since 2004.
Evacuees were told to expect to be displaced for about four to six weeks.
Ottawa has installed pumps and levies in the community that have lessened the extent of the flooding.
"Much of that work was what prevented the disaster from getting worse than it could have been, including protection of safe drinking water facilities and those sorts of things," Strahl said.
But a $500-million move to higher ground up the Albany River - the First Nation's preferred option - doesn't solve the underlying problem, he said.
"It's still in the flood plain," he said. "The airstrip would have been the same airstrip that got flooded out this weekend. It still doesn't solve the problem, and you still don't have access to any economic opportunities. So that was never a viable option."
When questioned about the situation in the Ontario legislature, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant echoed Strahl's concerns about Kashechewan residents not wanting to leave their land.
"It's extremely difficult when we have circumstances where people are so integrally tied up and proud and defensive of their territory and their land," he said.
"Yet at the same time we have safety concerns."
But federal and provincial opposition politicians said the reserve's residents are not to blame, and they pointed the finger squarely at the federal government.
"Positions take by the Department of Indian Affairs over many years have in fact placed the people of that First Nation in some very difficult situations," said Ontario New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton.
"The location of the reserve, water quality, susceptibility to flooding - all of those things were more or less decided by Department of Indian Affairs bureaucrats, not by the First Nation itself."
Fellow New Democrat Gilles Bisson, whose Timmins-James Bay riding includes Kashechewan, said the province should play a bigger role since the federal government has not stepped up.
"We are now here because basically we have an Indian Act that's failed First Nations," he said.
"We have a reserve system that's failed First Nations. All have been designed by the federal government, and quite frankly, it doesn't work."
Federal Liberal Indian affairs critic Anita Neville accused the Conservatives of failing to adequately address a long-term solution for Kashechewan.
More than 415 people were evacuated over the weekend as floodwaters threatened the community.
"Kashechewan is not too bad at the moment, in that their municipal water systems and everything are still functioning and the airstrip is still accessible," said Barry Radford, a spokesman with the Ontario Natural Resources Ministry.
"(But) it just depends. It may be stable only because so much water is building up behind it, and that could all come at once."
Another 450 people were to be taken from Kashechewan to Stratford, Ont., and surrounding municipalities on Monday, and they were to be joined by the remaining 650 residents of Kashechewan on Tuesday.
"I am very happy to get out of the reserve now," evacuee Ronnie Wessey told the Stratford Beacon Herald after arriving.
Another evacuee, Waylon Wessey, said he was pleased with what the federal government has done to protect the settlement from repeated flooding, although he said dikes intended to protect the community from floodwaters are not yet complete.
The northern Ontario communities of Cochrane, Geraldton and Sudbury took in the first wave of Kashechewan evacuees, mainly the most vulnerable residents.
In Fort Albany and Attawapiskat, about 350 people were evacuated to communities such as Kapuskasing and Hearst.
Radford said the water levels around those two communities were high but stabilized.
"But there's an awful lot of ice and water behind that ice, so we don't know," he said.
"It depends on how the breakup takes place, whether that water and the ice are able to move by the community without further flooding."
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Article online since April 28th 2008, 0:00
Steven Guilbeault - 
