SNIFF CRISIS PUT IN PM'S LAP

Native Leaders To Confront Cabinet Over Solvent Abuse

The solvent-abuse crisis gripping a Manitoba reserve will be thrown in
the laps of Prime Minister Paul Martin and his top cabinet ministers
when they meet in Winnipeg on Friday.

Two grand chiefs vow to give Indian Affairs Minister Andy Scott a
strong message about the solvent crisis on Pauingassi First Nation.

An exclusive Free Press story Sunday revealed that 20 per cent of the
reserve's 450 residents, including half the children, are addicted to
solvents such as gasoline or glue.

"I'm going to hand him (Scott) a copy of the article," pledged Chris
Henderson, grand chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization.

"There clearly seems to be a lack of any sense of urgency on the part
of the federal government," Henderson said.

Ron Evans, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said he too
will discuss the issue with Scott and drive home the argument that
natives need self-government to solve their problems. Officials said
yesterday the problem on Pauingassi has been developing over the past
15 years, but it was made public when social worker Eric Kennedy
invited the Free Press to the reserve for a first-hand look at the
problem.

Kennedy, a social worker and supervisor of the Southeast Child and
Family Services office in Pauingassi, said the problem has completely
overwhelmed the agency and other social and health services.

The addiction rate is highest among teenagers, with 62 of the
community's 120 children under 18 addicted, he said.

The solution is complex and long-term, but Kennedy complained he's
received little help in his effort to establish a cultural camp
program to help reconnect the addicts with themselves and their traditions.

He said he believed that developing their self-respect as aboriginals
was the only effective way to get them to go straight and walk proudly
with their people.

Kennedy said some neighbouring reserves offered to send elders to
Pauingassi to help, and a resident of The Pas also wanted to know what
she could do. He said Indian and Northern Affairs has told him there
is no more money for new treatment programs and the province's
response was noncommittal.

Evans, the former chief of Norway House First Nation, said the problem
of solvent abuse is not uncommon on reserves, but it tends to be the
most severe on isolated fly-in communities such as Pauingassi.

However, he rejected any suggestion that remote reserves be
consolidated and relocated closer to roads and urban life to enhance
economic development opportunities.

"They tried that in Davis Inlet and it didn't work," Evans said.

Davis Inlet was an Innu community with rampant alcohol abuse and one
of the highest suicide rates in the world when Ottawa decided three
years ago to solve the problem by relocating the residents to new
homes in Labrador.

The experiment cost $200 million, but it failed to reverse the chronic
social problems.

Evans said he believes the problems at Pauingassi reinforce the view
that aboriginals must solve their own problems and they can do that
only through self-government.

But critics say aboriginal leaders have to heal themselves before they
can fix their societies.

Don Sandberg, an aboriginal policy analyst with the Frontier Centre
for Policy Alternatives, an independent think-tank, said corruption is
as rampant as alcoholism on reserves and much money earmarked for the
people is being redirected. Sandberg said some reserves have used
money intended for social programs to pay down debt or for other purposes.

The federal government must improve the governing models for reserves
and introduce transparency and accountability, he said.

Former prime minister Jean Chretien planned to do just that through
the Governance Act, but it was shelved by Martin after he assumed power.

MP Pat Martin (NDP-- Winnipeg Centre) said he believed the addiction
epidemic on Pauingassi was "a manifestation of government policy gone
wrong."

Martin said the historic injustices suffered by aboriginals virtually
ensured they would become dysfunctional, struggling on the fringe of
society.

The government's attempts to turn aboriginals into whites through
residential schools and by other means failed miserably "and left us
with a wasteland of broken lives."

Pauingassi Chief Harold Crow was unavailable for comment
yesterday.

Nelson Keeper, vice-chief of Little Grand Rapids First Nation, said
his reserve tried to tackle the problem of solvent abuse by passing a
bylaw declaring solvents illegal.

Keeper said the RCMP enforced the bylaw with arrests, but the federal
government wouldn't prosecute. He said the band tried other means of
solving the problem, but came to the conclusion it was necessary to
arrest offenders and force them to get help.