{"id":289697,"date":"2022-01-07T11:56:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T11:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/ontario-asks-for-military-help-at-first-nation-overwhelmed-by-covid-19.html"},"modified":"2022-01-07T11:56:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T11:56:49","slug":"ontario-asks-for-military-help-at-first-nation-overwhelmed-by-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/ontario-asks-for-military-help-at-first-nation-overwhelmed-by-covid-19.html","title":{"rendered":"Ontario asks for military help at First Nation overwhelmed by COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ontario has asked for the military to be sent to\u00a0Bearskin Lake First Nation\u00a0to help the northern community with its rapidly growing COVID-19 outbreak.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The formal request comes\u00a0five days after Chief Lefty Kamenawatamin publicly asked Ottawa for military support.\u00a0Pressure on the federal government\u00a0has been growing throughout the week<\/a>, as case counts have risen and staff have become overwhelmed, despite assistance from other\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>nearby First Nations.<\/p>\n

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At least 200 people in Bearskin Lake \u2014 a community of roughly 400, some\u00a0600 kilometres north from Thunder Bay \u2014\u00a0have tested positive for the virus in the last 10 days. More than half of the community is in quarantine.<\/p>\n

“Bearskin Lake First Nation has fewer than 20 staff members trying to assist hundreds of community members who are unable to leave their homes to obtain necessities, including firewood for heating, food, and medicine,” said Ontario Solicitor General Slyvia Jones in a letter to\u00a0Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Grand chief calls for military help:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Derek Fox, the grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and a member of Bearskin Lake, is calling for the federal government to deploy members of the military to help battle a major COVID-19 outbreak in the remote First Nation. 7:09<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The letter asks for the support to begin immediately and continue 14 days from the date of deployment, with an option to extend by up to two weeks, or until the outbreak is manageable with\u00a0local resources.<\/p>\n

The letter also makes note of the growing number of COVID-19 cases in First Nations across Ontario, including outbreaks in Ginoogaming, Aroland and Attawapiskat.<\/p>\n

“The [provincial emergency operations centre] is also aware of additional First Nation communities in Ontario that are experiencing similar COVID-19 related emergencies who may also be in future need of federal assistance for similar tasks,” said the letter.<\/p>\n

The federal government has not yet publicly responded.<\/p>\n

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Article source: https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/thunder-bay\/bearskin-lake-military-assistance-1.6306959?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ontario has asked for the military to be sent to\u00a0Bearskin Lake First Nation\u00a0to help the northern community with its rapidly growing COVID-19 outbreak.\u00a0 The formal request comes\u00a0five days after Chief Lefty Kamenawatamin publicly asked Ottawa for military support.\u00a0Pressure on the federal government\u00a0has been growing throughout the week, as case counts have risen and staff have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-289697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}