OTTAWA - Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says 90 per cent of First Nations communities in Canada have a flu pandemic preparedness plan, but native leaders say that misrepresents the grim reality.
A parade of First Nations leaders followed Aglukkaq in testifying at a parliamentary committee hearing Friday, and their testimony sharply contradicted the Conservative minister.
Aglukkaq acknowledged that the first round of the H1N1 virus last spring hit Canada's remote native communities hard, but she said a plan is in place for the coming flu season and the government expects to "stay the course and see it through."
She also heralded a "first of its kind in Canada" meeting next week in Winnipeg where public health officials, intensive care specialists and medical experts from Canada and abroad will share ideas on treating severe flu infections.
But none of the native chiefs and health care workers who followed Aglukkaq at committee -- including Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and Manitoba Grand Chief Ron Evans -- said they were aware of any First Nations invited to the meeting.
Evans delivered a blistering broadside, saying the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs was "continually stone-walled by tight-fisted financial decisions that ignore Crown fiduciary responsibilities for health care."
While federal officials testified that 90 per cent of Canada's 600 First Nations communities have a pandemic plan in place, and 70 per cent have been "table-top tested," native leaders weren't buying it.
One northern Manitoba chief, Sydney Garrioch of the Keewatinowi Okimakanak, said only two of 30 communities in his territory have a flu plan in place.
Gail Turner, a public health nurse with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in northern Labrador, gave a devastatingly eloquent critique of government actions to date.
The federal pandemic plans for remote and isolated northern communities, she said, have "guidelines created (that) do not fit, and use a language that is full of false assumptions and hints of colonial bureaucracy."
Turner noted that in northern Labrador, "on a good day, without H1N1, we have no (health care) capacity."
Virtually all the complaints and criticisms came down a few common denominators: substandard or non-existent health-care facilities, over-crowded housing, a lack of running water, and lack of funding.
As such, the issues raised went far beyond the particular flu pandemic that is expected to flare again this fall.
Atleo characterized the H1N1 flu as a looming crisis that may be only weeks away.
"We need to turn this crisis into an opportunity to talk about what's not working in the system more broadly," he said.
And while many of the issues raised -- particularly housing and water -- are longstanding and won't be solved this winter, Atleo implored governments to start negotiating with First Nations now.
"It's never too late to do the right thing on the broader notion."
