It's been a little cold here in Calgary this week. We've been dealing with -40 temperatures at night, and more to come before it warms up on Sunday or so.
This kind of cold is mostly a frustration. Everything moves slower. Cars don't start. Stuff breaks. Heating bills go up. We bundle up and deal with it. But, we stay warm.
Every year, when we get a cold snap, the local news always features a story about how the homeless are coping. I'm proud to live in a country that has so many shelters and organizations dedicated to helping the less fortunate. Even if a homeless person has to huddle in the corner of a shelter for the night, at least they're warm and safe from freezing to death.
It's also -30 in Attawapiskat, Ontario this week. Attawapiskat is a Cree First Nation reserve in Northern Ontario. It's very remote really. Excruciatingly remote. Nestled up against James Bay, on the Attawapiskat River, there are no roads into town. There is an airstrip, which the almost 2,000 residents of the reserve rely on as a lifeline of supplies.
I've been thinking a lot about the people of Attawapiskat this week. This is the reserve who declared a State of Emergency back in October due to the coming winter and a lack of proper housing. This declaration launched a firestorm of blame in the Canadian Parliament the following month. Yes, somehow it took an entire month for the news to travel to the outside world. Anyways, it seems everyone wanted to know where the $90 million of federal funds provided to the reserve over the past 5 years went to. It seemed quite obvious to the chest pounders in Parliament that the Reserve or Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs squandered the money on shiny baubles and forgot to spend it on the people. This argument over who was to blame went on for weeks.
