What the fed had to say with regards to Swine Flu on Mb rez's

OK cool....all good....now for those of you who want to quote sources I am at present listening to As It Happens on Radio One.....now what tweaked me - what got me - was what the Grand Chief of MAFN's had to say - " We need a task force "......

NO muddahfukkah we do not need a task force where all of your connected buddies get a grand a day.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOO....what we need is a concerted effort to ensure that housing and healthcare are in much better shape on de rez......

Task Force My Ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Synonymous with sucking at de big teet.

Dr. Kim Barker.....she made the right statements with regards to equating spread with terrible living conditions....

I am living in terible conditions- wife and daughter abusiv, yelling, bringing me wine out at the gazeebo! Oops , I should have left that one out!

You arse!!! I love you. Now that being said I left a voicemail with as it happens....now let us see/hear if it gets airtime tomorrow nite....

This issue resonates with me for many good reasons....

rosencrentz wrote:I am living in terible conditions- wife and daughter abusiv, yelling, bringing me wine out at the gazeebo! Oops , I should have left that one out!

DRINK YOUR WINE OLD MAN!! shut up and ignore the smell of almonds that is good $7 per bottle wine!

At least they serve you , god I don,t get that .

Well at least this time they didn't claim they couldn't send hand sanitizer because the locals would drink it. That must have been the most racist comment I've ever heard from a government official.

I think that is a catch 22 for officials and natives alike. Many things have been banned from reserves that typically are not used for anything other than what they were intended for. Ditto with some grocery and hardware stores in the core area.

Paint and mouthwash and even yeast are made more difficult to get. Almost always because of the abuse of those products.

Think back to the many actions made by first nations peoples in their efforts to keep their people and their reserves "dry".

In this case it is damned if you do and damned if you don't. If the alcohol based sanitizers were abused on a reserve and god forbid something happened as a consequence there would be hell to pay. Likely by the bureaucrat that authorized the use of that product.

grumpyrom wrote:Well at least this time they didn't claim they couldn't send hand sanitizer because the locals would drink it. That must have been the most racist comment I've ever heard from a government official.

But is it?

Do first nations in Manitoba generally have a problem with alcoholism? Yes.

Do first nations in Manitoba ( and throughout Canada) have a problem with people ingesting items not meant for consumption (lysol, mouthwash, gasoline, etc) to get high? When compared to non-first nations communities - yes.

There is a valid concern that that could occur if they sent alcohol based sanitizer, given the history. Should they ignore that just because they are aboriginal?

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the person who made the comment work for the First Nations? She's not a bureaucrat in Ottawa. And what about the Chief of Island Lake - where the H1N1 outbreak first struck. He's of the same opinion - don't send alcohol based - people will drink it.

Not the most sensitive comment - but to spin it as racist ignores the fact that there is a strong possibility it will get used as an intoxicant.

They should have sourced water based in the first place.

grumpyrom wrote:Well at least this time they didn't claim they couldn't send hand sanitizer because the locals would drink it. That must have been the most racist comment I've ever heard from a government official.

It actually started out as a concern from a chief in Manitoba. Can you be racist against yourself?

Instead of worrying about the alcohol in hand sanitizers, why not just send a case of soap bars?

apparently because they just got running water a couple of years ago and only 10% of houses have water to the house and this somehow stops them from washing hands and such

Which is odd because I grew up in a house that had "run and get it water" and somehow we stilled washed all the time.
The well was about 100-200 feet from the house we had to haul it in 5 gallon pails and heat it on the wood stove. Yet we always had fresh washing and drinking water available.

Same on our farm. No running water except for the critters. We survived, rarely got ill so go figure.

was it a pain in the ass? no doubt.. no doubt indeed.

you know whats awesome though?

waking up on a bone chilling winter morning and having to break through a few milimetres ice that has formed on the top of the drinking water pail in order to get yourself a drink because the fire went out about 3AM and you are the first one up. Damn that was refreshing.

Had the same lifestyle at my cabin up north....Mr P was practically raised there. We had to dig a hole in the ice in the winter to get water, bathed in the sauna, had the outhouse, wood stove, oil stove.....yes, running water in the summer months, sauna always going and felt cleaner out there in some ways.....so no one can tell me that not having running water is the root cause. Maybe lack of hygiene knowledge or overcrowding? Reminds of the simple solutions employed with dysentery - the distribution of pennies per rehydration packs to the impoverished in rural areas...did wonders.

Good posts for perspective Miz p and Deank. Add to the debate how many aboriginals in Manitoba have no running water.

Again the chiefs serve up excuses empowering their people to feel down-trodden. These are simply tactics to squeeze more dollars out of Canada.

I wonder how many of the chiefs live without running water?

Miz point wrote:Had the same lifestyle at my cabin up north....Mr P was practically raised there. We had to dig a hole in the ice in the winter to get water, bathed in the sauna, had the outhouse, wood stove, oil stove.....yes, running water in the summer months, sauna always going and felt cleaner out there in some ways.....so no one can tell me that not having running water is the root cause. Maybe lack of hygiene knowledge or overcrowding? Reminds of the simple solutions employed with dysentery - the distribution of pennies per rehydration packs to the impoverished in rural areas...did wonders.

Was it up hill both ways to the well?

No well.....cabin is about twenty feet from the lake.

Freeman wrote:

Miz point wrote:Had the same lifestyle at my cabin up north....Mr P was practically raised there. We had to dig a hole in the ice in the winter to get water, bathed in the sauna, had the outhouse, wood stove, oil stove.....yes, running water in the summer months, sauna always going and felt cleaner out there in some ways.....so no one can tell me that not having running water is the root cause. Maybe lack of hygiene knowledge or overcrowding? Reminds of the simple solutions employed with dysentery - the distribution of pennies per rehydration packs to the impoverished in rural areas...did wonders.

Was it up hill both ways to the well?

Depended on how high the snow drifts were

"Maybe lack of hygiene knowledge or overcrowding?"

That it indeed could be. Couple that with the fact that 14 years ago there was a published study that showed the bar soap in a typical institution contained more germs/bacteria then the typical toilet and then this same little tidbit being spread all over the north. I would bet some people are concerned about even using soap in some houses and it has become "an old wives tale" of sorts.

What I found odd when I moved to the city and talked about it one day at work. In health classes up north they actually included proper showering techniques in the health classes as late as grade 8 or 9. Apparently they dont do that in the southern part of the province. Can anyone else provide information on that?

Well, studies have shown that the average home kitchen is way filthier than a commercial kitchen.....

I am not surprised at classes in hygiene having to be taught. I remember stink bomb kids in highschool, and these kids lived in homes with all the amenities no less, that just did not practice good hygiene. I knew many adults up north, eccentric upper mine managment types who eschewed bathing and countless others who were too cheap to employ the use of hot water....the list is endless.

Poor hygiene is not limited to the north to be sure but when you get a multigenerational, at least 15 persons crowded into a home without running water or septic, well, you do have a great recipe for easy transmission of bacterium.

My biggest question in all of this is, why are the chief's relying on the Feds to supply the hand sanitizer for their people. I know that in the school system, the schools themselves are responsible for purchasing the santizer for each classroom and more for the office and common areas, etc. Same goes for the hospitals and nursing homes in the city. These facilities purchase from the wholesaler and then submit the receipts back to the government department as part of their budget/audit procedure. If the chiefs were so concerned, go out & purchase the product & deliver it, submit for reimbursement. At least the people would maybe see their chief as a caring, responsible person (sarcasm.................)

well some chiefs would have to pull it either out of their own meager pocket ( in the case of some chief who make well over 100K per year..) or out of the bands meager funds ( in the case of Garden hill a very meager 40 million per year for 4000 residents.