COVID-19 Daily News Digest – April 30, 2020
The Drilldown: Coldwater Indian Band questions CER changes to Trans Mountain hearings
According to CAPP’s CEO Tim McMillan, there has been direct communication between the organization and the AFN and clarified last Friday that they are in support of the enactment of UNDRIP. That being said, CAPP has discussed concerns that it has about being able to follow through without proper Indigenous consultation due to the “current and unprecedented health and economic crisis,” because of the coronavirus.
Abuse survivor has message to share: ‘You’re not alone’
She was accessing counselling until the COVID-19 pandemic began. Now, those services are full or redirected to women currently escaping abusive relationships.
She’s been told she’s not at risk, so “there is nothing left for those outside of shelters” beyond overworked crisis call lines and emergency rooms.
All of this has grown worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are fewer services, less assistance, and fewer outlets to safety.
Indigenous student advisor one of many giving support during COVID-19 pandemic
“There are a lot of teachings that Indigenous people have that get us through things. One of the ones that I respond to weekly is the belief in spirit, and to trust in the spirit that we will get through this. We have teachings for both spirituality and physicality, and that there is a balance between them.”
B.C. funding to help Indigenous communities stay connected during pandemic
Online Indigenous art workshop bringing community and creativity together
“I thought it would be a nice opportunity to just get my name out there to a bigger audience and just to connect to other like-minded people,” said Wabush-based artist Raenn Brown, who is originally from Postville, Nunatsiavut.
The workshops, called “De-ICE-olation,” are put on by the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership, in collaboration with the Inuit Art Foundation.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/online-indigenous-art-workshop-1.5545761
Government Of Canada Announces New Canadian Seafood Stabilization Fund
The funding announced will provide tangible assistance to help address the financial strain and instability that the fish and seafood processing sector is facing. As we grapple with these uncertain economic times, the Government of Canada will continue to work with provincial and territorial partners, industry, Indigenous communities, and stakeholders to identify impacts from the evolving COVID-19 situation
Association providing stimulus for Indigenous tourism businesses
For Mona Morris, applying for federal help comes down to time. Morris owns three businesses in Eskasoni First Nation and said she has to schedule time to file the application. She said because of the social distancing restrictions in the community she’s also helping with food orders, ordering items residents can’t find at the local grocery store.
PHU reports its fourth COVID-19 related death
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges of taking in evacuees from Kashechewan First Nation.
This is according to Mayor George Pirie, who said Wednesday during his daily health roundtable that the community does not see Timmins as a desirable location due to the widespread reach of the virus in the city.
Helping rural, remote and Indigenous communities
When we get to the other side of the pandemic, these supports will be adapted to address long-standing issues and inequalities that rural, remote and Indigenous communities face in accessing health care services.
http://www.pentictonherald.ca/opinion/article_bb7d634e-8a67-11ea-8b5e-db2dea6b4bba.html
Saskatchewan First Nations stay closed as province reopens
It’s a preventive measure backed by the Saskatchewan Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN).
FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron said he supports Indigenous communities doing whatever they need to keep their communities COVID-19 free
Saskatchewan reopen plan won’t start in two communities with COVID-19 outbreaks
Health officials reported the province’s sixth death Wednesday of a person in their 80s at a long-term care facility in La Loche, a remote village 600 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon that is at the centre of a cluster of cases in the region.
B.C. non-profit ‘busier than ever’ delivering critical hygiene products to communities in need
Soap for Hope has also partnered with B.C. RCMP Indigenous Policing Services and the First Nations Policing Program that identifies remote Indigenous communities with need and then transports the goods in by plane, boat or vehicle.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/soap-for-hope-covid-19-1.5549581
‘The public needs to know’: Calls for inquest into COVID-19 death at B.C. prison
“Canadian prisons remain sites of colonial violence against over-represented Indigenous peoples, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been weaponized against those who are incarcerated.”
Indigenous slam poetry event aims to empower northern youth
“I thought it would die out because it is a very public and a very outspoken type of art that requires a space,” he said. Instead, the pandemic has revealed the “resilience” of the community he spent years developing.
Northern Ontario First Nations want pause to mining permits until COVID-19 subsides
“Right now we are in the middle of a pandemic and pretty much my staff is all hands on deck dealing with this,” said Moonias.
“We don’t have the tools, the resources to look at permits. We are not like the government that has many different departments.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-mining-permits-ontario-covid19-1.5550033
Why we can’t tell you the full COVID-19 story
This is unlike any mass tragedy we’ve lived through. We knew the who, what, when, where of the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks within days. We knew within hours the names of the people killed when Flight 752 was shot down earlier this year over Tehran.
With this pandemic, governments and health authorities in many areas of our country are not releasing basic demographic data on factors such as age and race, or even when Canadians died or where.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/editors-note-covid-victim-stories-1.5550115
Opinion: A terrible triage: How COVID-19 speaks to a future for Indigenous Elders
Beyond this emergency, however, what does this “response” portend to the future of health care for the elderly and particularly for Indigenous elders? The answers are not encouraging. Many Indigenous elders, particularly those who have rarely “walked in both worlds”, have little choice but to undergo a forced migration from their ancestral homes to urban communities where health care and assisted-care facilities are far more accessible.
Pawâkan Macbeth: Cree culture meets the Bard in a new variation for a new world, via Zoom
The play, written and directed by University of Alberta fine arts grad, Reneltta Arluk, takes Shakespeare’s Scottish play and gives it a uniquely Canadian and Indigenous spin that explores the same timeless themes as the Bard, including “What makes us human
COVID-19 devastates Indigenous communities
While the Native population only comprises 6 percent of the total population of New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Grisham reported April 12 that 25 percent of the state’s COVID-19 cases were Indigenous people, including the Diné and several Puebloan nations. While some of the discrepancy is due to higher rates of testing by the Diné /Navajo Nation compared to that in neighboring states, that alone cannot explain the fact that the rate of infection on the Navajo reservation is 19 times that in the state of Arizona.
Evicted indigenous people in Manaus struggle to stay safe amid COVID-19 crisis
Now, with the city of Manaus accounting for the country’s fourth-highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 and a growing number of confirmed cases, the ability of evicted indigenous people to make a living has become even more challenging amid scarce jobs and limited income sources.
Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans
Post-contact diseases were crippling not so much because indigenous people lacked immunity, but because the conditions created by European and U.S. colonialism made Native communities vulnerable. The virgin-soil-epidemic hypothesis was valuable in countering earlier theories that attributed Native American population decline to racial inferiority, but its singular emphasis on biological difference implied that population collapses were nothing more than historical accidents
COVID-19 BRINGS NEW THREATS TO NICARAGUA’S INDIGENOUS INCLUDING INTENSIFIED LAND INVASIONS
Nicaragua’s Failed Revolution also exposes how government officials are complicit in land invasions through direct involvement in illegal land sales and the formation of parallel governing bodies to circumvent Indigenous autonomy.
Organized Indigenous Communities and Indigenous Knowledge Can Prevent the Spread of Covid19
Mayan guides such as Otilia Lux de Coti, Clara Nimatuj Ajqui and Felipe Gómez are recognizing, first, that the coronavirus is not the cause of the crisis facing the world at the moment, but rather, it is the harvest of what the capitalist system has sown throughout the centuries, and more rapidly during the XX century and the two decades of the XXI century. Mother Earth can no longer tolerate the permanent pressure of the depredation of natural goods in a system where the greedy, white, conservative investor has chosen excessive accumulation at the cost of undermining human, animal, plant and mineral life.
Special programme: Brazil torn between lockdown and denial over Covid-19
Guayaquil, Ecuador’s worst-affected city. Although Brazil has the highest number of cases in Latin America, Ecuador holds the sad record for the highest number of deaths per inhabitant. We report on the situation in Guayaquil, the economic capital of Ecuador, where the desperate situation exposes the failings in the government’s handling of the health crisis.
How Taiwan is helping Canada fight COVID-19
While the bulk of the donation will be used to assist Canada’s frontline medical personnel, a portion of it will be provided to Canada’s Indigenous communities,” it said.
https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/how-taiwan-is-helping-canada-fight-covid-19-1.4918497
Métis treasurer wants a seat at the table amid COVID-19 crisis
On April 22, she wrote to Carolyn Bennett, minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, requesting that Métis Nation of Saskatchewan’s federal funding be put on hold and for the group to be placed under third-party management until it has demonstrated financial responsibility to the people it represents, and until internal governance issues are resolved.
New app to provide COVID-19 info to Manitoba First Nations
Grand Chief Arlen Dumas said in a news release he’s pleased to launch the app, found in the app store as Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, as a way to connect with First Nations leadership and citizens.
https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/new-app-to-provide-covid-19-info-to-manitoba-first-nations-1.4916723