National Post (National Edition)
NDP charges federal neglect after fatal fire
4 kids, father die in First Nation blaze
LONDON • It’s not just bad housing that’s killing Canada’s indigenous people, but also inadequate fire protection, unsafe heating and overcrowding, the NDP’s aboriginal affairs critic charges.
In the wake of a fire that killed a father and four young sons this week in Oneida, southwest of London, MP Charlie Angus put the blame on the federal Liberals Friday for a tragedy he’s says he’s seen too often in Northern Ontario.
“We’re seeing the systemic neglect of the basic safety for indigenous people,” Angus, the Timmins-James Bay MPP, told The London Free Press. “Meanwhile, little children are dying. People are living in risky and dangerous conditions.”
But the minister in charge of First Nations affairs said the government will address shortfalls left by years of chronic under-funding.
“Our government is committed to closing the unacceptable housing gap for Indigenous people,” Carolyn Bennett, minister of indigenous and northern affairs, said in an emailed statement.
“The wide-reaching need for improved infrastructure — like housing, community centres, and fire protection services — is a result of years of chronic under-funding. Our government knows that more needs to be done.” she said.
Bennett said she’s reached out to Randall Phillips, chief of the Oneida Nation of the Thames, to offer support.
“I was deeply saddened when I heard of the tragic loss of lives — our hearts go out to the community during this difficult time,” her statement said.
Kurt Antone, 43, and four of his children, including an infant boy, died in the midday blaze Wednesday that destroyed the wooden, twostorey house in an isolated area of the settlement.
Firefighters who arrived in bitter cold found the house engulfed in flames, with the band chief saying they couldn’t go in to save anyone. “It (the house) was just basically kindling,” he said.
Police haven’t confirmed the identities of the children and issued no updates Friday.
Meanwhile, help for the surviving members of the Doxtator Antone family, a mother and four more children, continued to grow, with area First Nations setting up donation stations and London indigenous organizations collecting items.
“The mom and siblings need all the support and help we can give them,” said Oneida band member Brian Hill.
Phillips, the Oneida chief, said at a news conference Thursday the deadly house fire was a “perfect example” of the housing crisis in First Nations communities. Oneida applied for money to upgrade 50 houses but was denied funding by the federal government, he said.
Every year as Christmas approaches, people in First Nations communities turn up their inadequate heating systems in crowded and substandard houses and die, Angus said.
“This is the time of year these terrible accidents and death happen,” Angus said.
The death rate by fire is 10.4 times higher on First Nations communities than for the rest of Canada, with the rate of fires 2.4 times greater, says a 2007 CMHC study.
That same study found low numbers of smoke detectors and regular inspections of smoke detectors in First Nations communities.
“You have as much chance of winning the lottery as getting a nice house on a reserve,” Angus said.
Statistics back him up. Almost 41 per cent of homes on reserves needed major repair as of 2011, according to federal government figures.
The collection of fire data was stopped six years ago to ease the “reporting burden” on First Nations communities, the minister said in written responses to questions recently tabled in Parliament.
The lack of information allows the federal government to further ignore the problem, Angus charged.