Jonathan speaks out on Makwa Sahgaiehcan house fire tragedy
- Fraser Needham | February 20, 2015
The Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation continues to mourn the loss of two children killed in a house fire on the reserve earlier this week.
A two-year-old boy and 18-month-old girl were killed as the result of injuries suffered in a house fire in the northern Saskatchewan community in the early morning hours of February 17.
Adding to the pain of the tragedy is the fact that the nearby Loon Lake Fire Department did not respond to a call for help.
Loon Lake volunteer fire chief Larry Heon says he did not respond to the call because Makwa Sahgaiehcan owes the town for unpaid fire protection services.
He says the First Nation was sent a bill on January 30 saying fire protection services would be discontinued unless the account was paid.
Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations Interim Chief Kimberley Jonathan says she is very upset a financial dispute between the two communities resulted in the Loon Lake Fire Department refusing to attend to the blaze.
“That a person would phone 911…that there is entrapment, there are people entrapped in the house, and for a unit not to respond to that, to turn around and go to sleep because of an issue of principle…There was a discrepancy between the nation and the Loon Lake Fire Department were involved in, that would result in a human being able to turn and go back to sleep as two of our babies die…”
It is not clear whether if the Loon Lake Fire Department responded to the blaze, the lives of the two children could have been saved.
The local fire department says it typically arrives 10 to 15 minutes after police respond to a call.
RCMP say the house was engulfed in flames when they arrived.
Jonathan adds jurisdictional disputes between communities should never result in emergency services not being deployed in the most efficient manner possible when a situation arises.
“I know I pay the 911 charge on our phone and so having paid that I would expect that the jurisdiction doesn’t end at the reserve line in terms of humanism and in terms of keeping our people safe.”
The federal government says it gave the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation $40,000 for fire protection services in the 2014/15 fiscal year.