Northern chiefs decry COVID-19 silence – Winnipeg Free Press
‘We’re in a forgotten portion of Canada’
OTTAWA — Northern Manitoba chiefs are growing increasingly concerned over numerous unanswered questions from Ottawa about COVID-19.
“I feel as if the government isn’t taking First Nations health seriously,” Chief Eric Redhead of Shamattawa First Nation told the Free Press.
“We’re in a forgotten portion of Canada,” said Redhead, whose community is 750 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.
Indigenous Services Canada, which runs health services on reserves, has arranged weekly phone calls with northern Manitoba leaders about the coronavirus, conscious of federal shortfalls in the 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu.
