Jean Chrétien comments on Attawapiskat 'fundamentally wrong,' indigenous studies prof says

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien's comments on the substandard living conditions facing many remote First Nations communities are "fundamentally wrong," says the chair of indigenous studies at the University of Winnipeg.

"It displays a fundamental misunderstanding about indigenous culture, about what indigenous people want, about the nature of indigenous communities and indigenous lives," Jacqueline Romanow said.

Members of Parliament held an emergency debate on the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat on Tuesday. Chrétien, who was minister from 1968 to 1974 of what was then called Indian Affairs and Northern Development, was on Parliament Hill earlier that day for unrelated business. 

Reporters asked Chrétien about the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat and he suggested the solution for some First Nations people may be to leave their isolated communities. He also suggested there's not enough economic activity on some reserves. 

• Jean Chrétien's comments on Attawapiskat criticized in Commons
• Attawapiskat suicide crisis: MPs hold emergency debate over suicide attempts

"I think that's fundamentally wrong," Romanow said. "I'm disappointed."

On Saturday night alone, 11 people tried to commit suicide in the remote northern Ontario First Nation. Attawapiskat Chief Bruce Shisheesh declared a state of emergency.

• States of emergency Attawapiskat has declared in recent years
• Desperation in Attawapiskat, where First Nation leaders fear for the young

Romanow said the government forced indigenous people onto reserves, which were far away from the resources that were available at the time. Indigenous communities are still feeling the effects, she said. 

"The problem is that indigenous people have had their rights to their resources and their traditional territories taken away from them, and they've been forcibly impoverished. They've been pushed on reserves," she said. 

"Reserves were never meant to sustain communities or human beings. They were meant as temporary holdings cells until they could be assimilated into Canadian culture through things like residential schools."

People can't be forced to relocate from the homes they and their families have lived in for decades, Romanow said. 

"That seems cruel to me," she said.

Land programs would help teach and reaffirm people's knowledge about traditional activities, such as hunting and gathering, Romanow said. The federal government also has to allow indigenous people to benefit from resources on their land, she said.

"We have to not dismantle reserves, we have to open them up and allow people back onto their traditional territory and let them figure out the answers."