The results of review, which is looking at the legitimacy of the government's decision to impose an outside financial manager, are expected on April 24 and the community wants to regain control of their books in the interim.
"We feel that (Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan) made decisions in haste," said Grand Chief Stan Louttit, who has stood beside Spence throughout the dispute. "And we feel that the decision made to impose the third-party manager was wrong, legally and morally."
"There was no justifiable reason to bring in a third-party manager," said Charlie Angus, the NDP MP for the area, after Spence asked for the judicial review on Dec. 15, 2011.
"A third-party manager is brought in to communities basically as a punishment battalion — it destroys the ability of a community to do any response in an adequate way. This is an emergency . . . and the third-party manager is interfering, I think, with a process that could have been solved very easily. The community is well within their rights to go to court."
The images from the community show people living in makeshift tents and shacks without heat as temperatures drop to -40 Celsius. At least 90 people have resorted to living in two construction workers' portables equipped with only two washrooms and four showers.
Others are using buckets as washroom facilities and sleep in fear of fire because of wood-burning stoves in their homes.
In a sworn affidavit which accompanies Tuesday's court documents, Spence likens the imposition of an outside manager to her community's experience of the residential school system, in which aboriginal children were taken from their families by the government.
"The rationale used by Canada for insisting that we attend residential schools was that our families and community were incapable of caring for us and educating us adequately," said Spence in the statement.
"Residential schools are all about somebody else determining your fate and controlling you as a person," said Louttit. "When the minister comes in and says 'I'm the boss, I'm your master,' you can draw a pretty good parallel with the residential school system and what the government is imposing in 2011 by way of the third party manager."
In a Jan. 5 statement, Duncan said the government "continues to put the health and safety of the people of Attawapiskat first."
He said the third-party manager has been key to the retrofitting of a Healing Lodge, and the purchasing of 22 modular homes which are currently waiting for winter ice roads to open so that they can be delivered to community members in need.
"The third-party manager is ready to issue payroll cheques for essential services, such as teachers' salaries," said the statement, "he will do so as soon as he is provided with the necessary information from the Chief and Council."
Spence and her council forbade the manager, Jacques Marion, from setting foot in the community in December, and she said he remains uninvolved in efforts to help the community emerge from its crisis.
The court documents, which will be filed Tuesday, say "in the weeks since this appointment was made — the third-party manager has failed to even appoint a project manager to set the process underway. The First Nation, in the meantime, has taken active steps to organize an effective response, and has plans developed and ready to execute — but no capacity to control the funds necessary to do so."
At a benefit concert to raise money for Attawapiskat in Ottawa last week, Regional Chief for the Northwest Territories, Bill Erasmus said Spence's fight is a fight for all First Nations communities going through similar crises and that, by supporting the James Bay community, those at the concert were helping to keep the issue in everyone's mind.
At the Assembly of First Nations General Meeting in Ottawa at the beginning of December, Louttit said chiefs from across the country thanked Spence for bringing to light the horrible conditions her community is facing. "Finally people are starting to see the conditions," said Louttit. "People are asking questions."
"If we had kept quiet and not said anything, we'd probably still be out of sight, out of mind," said Louttit.
The decision about whether to give financial control back to the band until the judicial review is completed is expected to come down within the week.
Original Article
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Author: Teresa Smith
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