Jean Chrtien comments on Attawapiskat 'fundamentally wrong,' indigenous studies prof says

Former prime minister Jean Chrtien's comments on the substandard living conditions facing many remote First Nations communities are "fundamentally wrong,"says the chair of indigenous studies at the University of Winnipeg.

"It displays a fundamental misunderstanding about indigenous culture, about what indigenous people want, about the nature of indigenous communities and indigenous lives," JacquelineRomanow said.

Members of Parliament held an emergency debate on the suicide crisis in Attawapiskat on Tuesday.Chrtien, who was ministerfrom 1968 to 1974of what was thencalledIndian Affairs and Northern Development, was on Parliament Hill earlier that day for unrelated business.

Reporters asked Chrtien aboutthesuicide crisis inAttawapiskatand hesuggested the solutionfor some First Nations people may be to leave their isolated communities. He also suggested there's not enough economic activity on some reserves.

• Jean Chrtien's comments on Attawapiskat criticized in Commons
• Attawapiskat suicide crisis: MPs hold emergency debate over suicide attempts

"I think that's fundamentally wrong," Romanow said."I'm disappointed."

On Saturday night alone, 11 people tried to commit suicide in the remote northern Ontario First Nation. Attawapiskat Chief Bruce Shisheesh declared a state of emergency.

• States of emergency Attawapiskat has declared in recent years
• Desperation in Attawapiskat, where First Nation leaders fear for the young

Romanowsaidthe government forced indigenous people onto reserves, whichwere far away from theresources that were available at the time. Indigenous communities are still feeling the effects, she said.

"The problem is that indigenous people have had their rights to their resources and their traditional territories taken away from them, and they've been forcibly impoverished. They've been pushed on reserves," she said.

"Reserves were never meant to sustain communities or human beings. They were meant as temporary holdings cells until they could be assimilated into Canadian culture through things like residential schools."

People can't be forced to relocate from the homes they and their families have lived in for decades, Romanowsaid.

"That seems cruel to me," she said.

Land programs would help teach andreaffirm people's knowledge about traditional activities, such as hunting and gathering, Romanow said. The federal government also has to allow indigenous people to benefit from resources on their land, she said.

"We have to not dismantle reserves, we have to open them up and allow people back onto their traditional territory and let them figure out the answers."