Duceppe vows to help isolated Algonquin community
Last Updated: Sunday, December 11, 2005 | 10:15 PM ET
CBC News
They live in a territory in northern Quebec at the end of a series of long, bumpy roads.
The community has no running water or any other infrastructure. Electricity produced by diesel generators costs a fortune, so use is limited and children are bused to another town to go to school.
"It's one thing to read a paper or hear people talking about a situation, but it's quite different to see the real situation," he said while visiting the community.
Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe
Duceppe said he will ask other party leaders to pressure the next government to help bring Kitcisakik into the 21st century.
Ottawa is holding up a project to build a new town complete with water, power and a new school, said Ghislain Picard, the Quebec regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
Liberal Leader Paul Martin has had a copy of the project since April of 2004, "and yet the community hasn't received any kind of indication as to where the federal government wants to go," Picard said.
But Kitcisakik is not covered by the federal Indian Act, so it is unclear which government – federal or provincial – is responsible.
"The Algonquins of Kitcisakik are the only Algonquin band to still live a nomadic existence," the Algonquin Nation website says. "The families spend much of the season out on their hunting territories," with the only permanent buildings being a health-centre and the church.
The Kitcisakik territory is located where the Ottawa River flows into Grand Lac Victoria, 66 kilometres south of Val-d'Or, Que.
