COVID-19 Daily News Digest – September 18, 2020
B.C. policy on not sharing COVID-19 information with First Nations ‘reckless’ and ‘colonial’ say leaders
“If COVID-19 proximate case information does not represent information about a risk of significant harm to our communities, we don’t know what does,” said Marilyn Slett, chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Nation. “The idea that we need to have an outbreak – as we have just had in our community – before B.C. will share information, is reckless and colonial, and it goes against B.C.’s own laws and promises of reconciliation.”
‘Nobody has done anything’: Amazon indigenous group decries illegal mining
Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Service, however, last week appealed for the country’s Federal Court to require the government to urgently resume operations against illegal mining in Munduruku land, saying damage was ongoing.
“The situation is so serious that … if the rate of invasion observed since the beginning of 2020 continues without interruption, it is possible that the situation will collapse and become irreversible,” the service said in a press release.
N.W.T. premier releases new mandate letters for ministers
“Strengthening our government’s leadership” on climate change, increasing employment in small communities, and working to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples also feature prominently in the letters.
They also aim to help the government address the effects of colonialism and build a territory where “people of all racial backgrounds have the opportunity to succeed,” according to a news release accompanying the letters.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-premier-releases-mandate-letters-1.5728498
Manitoulin Island First Nations ready for COVID-19 case increase
This time, she says, they will be prepared.
“We would have to do something to protect our community,” Corbiere said. “We are still buying bulk food, [so] if we ever needed it we could have it.”
“We have hunters that are hunting and doing different things like that.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/manitoulin-island-racial-tensions-1.5727032
‘My hands go up to the people’: Chief Harris reflects on other Indigenous communities facing COVID
Chief Harris said he wanted to give a “great big hands-up” to one of the community’s young anglers, who offered to go fishing for the community’s elders. He donated enough fish for the elders and for their families as well.
“I am sure his late grandfather would be very proud of him and what he did,” Chief Harris said.
From mandatory masks to getting info in Indigenous languages, N.W.T. doctors answer COVID-19 questions
From blanket mandatory mask policies in the N.W.T., to how information can be found in Indigenous languages, the territory’s top doctors answered residents’ questions Thursday.
N.W.T. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Kami Kandola and territorial medical director Dr. Sarah Cook took your questions live Thursday morning on CBC’s The Trailbraker with host Loren McGinnis.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/n-w-t-top-doctors-take-your-covid-19-questions-1.5726996
Fiona Stanley: ‘The argument that we can either have health or the economy makes me angry’
Science is about evidence and data. Politics is about values and compromise. Are the two compatible? Well, they are when there’s a pandemic, aren’t they? Everyone is taking notice of data and evidence now. But we’ve had data about climate change, the effects of alcohol, and how best to run Indigenous services with Indigenous control – and it’s been ignored. I hope that with COVID-19, people will say, “Hang on, if we can do it for this virus, why can’t we do it for all the other big, wicked problems affecting us?”
Police in Thunder Bay, Ont., searched the COVID-19 status of every call for service from April to July
“It was determined it was for a proper purpose every single time” because Thunder Bay police had created a policy to search the COVID-19 status for every call for service, Holly Walbourne, the Thunder Bay police service lawyer, said at a police board meeting on Sept. 15.
Now the civil rights groups want to know why Thunder Bay police was the only police service in Ontario to create such an expansive policy on the use of the database.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/thunder-bay-police-covid-1.5728148