Neskantaga First Nation had to be evacuated again after a sewage flood at the community’s only nursing station, the northern Ontario community’s chief said on Thursday.
Gary Quisess said Neskantaga residents had to leave the community earlier this month for the second time this summer, just days after they returned home following a wildfire evacuation.
“It’s not a good feeling to be displaced and a hotel is not a long term facility for a community to stay in,” he said during a press conference at Queen’s Park.
“It’s heartbreaking. All of our plans, summer plans, are gone. Our community festival. Our family reunion, it’s gone. Youth retreat is gone. Everything.”
He said families from his community are staying in crowded hotel rooms in Toronto and they want to return to their homes as soon as possible.
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Overcrowded housing is already a problem in Neskantaga, he said.
“Now where we are today, it’s not suitable.”
Quisess said the fly-in community about 425 kilometres north of Thunder Bay declared a state of emergency after a contractor damaged the septic system under a nursing station, which is the community’s only health-care facility.
“Everything’s impacted with this human error. That’s not right.”
Quisess said the federal government should work with the community to address the situation at the nursing station so people can return to their homes.
“There are so many shortcuts with these contractors and that has to change,” he said.
“Our lives matter. We have treaty rights. We have inherent rights. We need the government to step up.”
Neskantaga officials said the damage caused raw sewage to back up and fill the basement of the nursing station.
NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, who represents the Kiiwetinoong riding in northern Ontario, said a total of 258 community members were evacuated from Neskantaga First Nation to Toronto.
“The people of Neskantaga First Nation have been once again been forced to leave their community because essential infrastructure has failed them,” he said.
The community was also evacuated in July as wildfires ravaged parts of northern Ontario.
Community members were also evacuated early last year for three months after the same nursing station was flooded with diesel.
They started returning to their homes in April 2025 after the nursing station was reopened.
Hey @ nacho business. Don’t forget going back to starvation and lower life expectancy. Along with worrying about a competing tribe lifting their scalps.
So the nursing station becomes like most of the houses on the Rez. And that is the reason to send the whole place back down south for another hotel holiday?
The natives were given money to build sewage systems that are not a treaty right. They took shortcuts (as evidenced by the systems failing)
BTW: Is the community paying for the hotel rooms? Probably Canadian taxpayers are. – we provided free transportation, accommodation and food, on top of the free sewage system, and they are still whining. Shame.
They do have rights. Same as the rest of Canadians, the right to spend their money fixing their problem.
Without the White man the indians would have to go back to teepees, bow and arrow, buckskin clothes, medicine man, and riding horses, imagine taking care of your own problems. Hmmm, might be on to a good idea, right?
I wonder if the indigenous are ever embarrassed that they always have to rely on us for everything. They are incapable of building their own housing, they live with unclean water, they rely on us for money for food. Don’t they have a sense of self-pride and want to one day say ‘we are independent and don’t need you anymore’?
Enjoy your hotel stay, food, transportation, being taken care of while many a firefighter left theirr homes and family to fight the fires for your whines and luxury. Shame!
Awwww poor babies! Be grateful you are alive as many a firefighter & citizen left their families and aren’t alive because of fighting fires,
evacuations and saving of citizens like you who won’t train to fight the monster of fire and be grateful/helpful!! Stop whining!
They’re chugs, who cares?? Too funny!!