NDP candidate Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay) issued the following statement:
“The state of emergency in Neskantaga First Nation is shocking. The situation has gotten so bad that the community is evacuating elders and kids, at the community’s own expense, because of unsafe drinking water.
I’ve represented my region for years, and I always show up when communities I represent need help. That’s why I’m shocked by Bob Nault’s silence around this crisis. Neskantaga has had a boil water advisory in effect for 25 years. This is the longest advisory in Canada’s history. Nault’s represented it for eleven of those years and was the Minister of Indigenous Affairs for four of them.
I’ve been invited to visit communities Bob Nault represents – Grassy Narrows, where Jagmeet Singh and I met community leaders to see how we could support their efforts to secure a mercury home, Cat Lake, where people were facing a housing crisis in the dead of winter, and Eabametoong. These communities have struggled. He hasn’t even spoken about them or Neskantaga in the House a single time in his time in Ottawa. Bob Nault doesn’t deserve to keep representing them.
Luckily, people in Kenora have another option: voting for Rudy Turtle and the NDP on October 21. Chief Turtle is a fighter for his people, and he’ll go to bat for every community to make sure that every First Nations kid in the Northwest gets the chance to grow up in a safe, healthy home with good schools and clean water.”
