OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says an impoverished First Nation community in northern Ontario needs more infrastructure and services, but also better management.
For a second day in the House of Commons, the prime minister pointed a finger at poor management in Attawapiskat for the horrendous housing conditions facing the remote reserve.
Yet the band was already being co-managed by an outside party before the latest crisis, prompting critics to accuse the Conservative government of blaming the victim.
The prime minister is meeting today with Shawn Atleo, the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
With Attawapiskat suddenly in the media spotlight this week, the government effectively took over running the community — a full month after the reserve on James Bay declared a state of emergency.
New Democrats are now accusing John Duncan, minister of northern and Indian affairs, of “punishing an impoverished little community for making him look bad.”
And at Queen’s Park in Toronto, Ontario’s provincial minister of aboriginal affairs said pointing fingers and laying blame in Attawapiskat is the “easy way out.”