01/02/2026
This is not an isolated outage or a sudden emergency.
It is the visible result of systems that have been failing our people for generations.
What is happening in Pimicikamak today — the loss of electricity, heat, and water under a declared State of Emergency — cannot be separated from what has come before.
Not from the fire emergencies that forced evacuations and displaced families.
Not from the youth su***de crisis that was also elevated to a State of Emergency in Cross Lake.
And not from the long arc of disruption our people have lived with for generations.
These are not disconnected tragedies.
They are cumulative.
When power fails, water freezes.
When water fails, homes become unsafe.
When homes become unsafe, families crowd together under stress.
When stress becomes constant — especially for young people — the impacts reach far beyond infrastructure.
This is the context too often missing from public conversation.
Indigenous people are frequently spoken about as though we are frozen in time — as though our struggles exist in isolation from modern systems, modern policies, and modern decisions.
That is not the truth.
Hydroelectric development permanently altered our rivers, shorelines, ice patterns, and food systems.
It disrupted travel routes, harvesting, and diet.
It replaced land-based stability with dependence on fragile infrastructure — infrastructure that continues to fail under northern realities.
At the same time, colonial governance systems imposed through the Indian Act replaced our traditional forms of decision-making.
Chief and Council were never our original governance.
They are administrative structures created by Canada — designed for management and compliance, not for the exercise of Indigenous law or self-determination.
For Pimicikamak, this meant the gradual displacement of Pimicikamak Okimawin — a governance system rooted in collective responsibility, accountability to the people, and relationship to the land — with a model accountable primarily to external funding structures.
Over many years, I have spent countless hours listening, studying, and engaging with some of the most experienced Indigenous political analysts and strategists on this continent. These conversations are public, documented, and widely available in long-form lectures, discussions, and policy analysis.
The consistent message across this work is clear:
colonial control did not disappear — it adapted.
Indigenous Nations have been steadily reshaped into administrative units — often functioning as fourth-level, ethnic municipalities — expected to manage infrastructure failure, social crisis, and poverty without jurisdiction, revenue authority, or real control over the systems affecting them.
Funding replaced treaty responsibility.
Programs replaced obligation.
Consultation replaced consent.
This is not about blaming individuals.
It is about naming structures.
When control flows through money, crisis becomes normalized.
When governance is constrained, prevention becomes impossible.
When poverty is administratively managed, accountability is blurred and mistrust grows.
In this context, youth su***de is not a cultural failure.
Fire emergencies are not accidents.
Power outages are not acts of nature.
They are symptoms of systems that disrupted Indigenous life — and then failed to replace what was taken with something stable, safe, and just.
Being solution-oriented means telling the truth clearly:
• Safety requires infrastructure built for northern realities
• Prevention must replace perpetual emergency
• Mental health cannot be separated from housing, water, food, and dignity
• Treaty obligations must be treated as living responsibilities
• Indigenous Nations must be supported to restore and strengthen their own systems of governance
Our people are not asking for sympathy.
We are asking for understanding grounded in reality — and action grounded in responsibility.
Survival should never be mistaken for consent.
And repeated emergencies should never be normalized.
We speak so these connections are understood.
We speak so our youth are not reduced to statistics.
And we speak because breaking cycles requires more than managing crisis — it requires confronting the systems that produce it.
Êkwa. And so it continues.
