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No meeting resulting from hunger protest Deninu Ku'e First Nation says focus should be on existing ideas to confront problems
in Fort Resolution
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 1, 2013
DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
A woman who launched a hunger strike in Fort Resolution won't be getting her demand - a meeting of the tri-council in the community in the near future.
Sharon Lafferty began her hunger protest on June 17 and ended it on June 20. During that time, she was consuming tea, water and broth.
At a meeting on June 23, the chief and council of Deninu Ku'e First Nation (DKFN) discussed a letter from Lafferty in which she made a number of recommendations to community leadership.
In particular, she called for a meeting of DKFN, the Fort Resolution Metis Council and the Hamlet of Fort Resolution as a followup to a June 11 public meeting on various community problems, including high cancer rates, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide.
In a June 24 letter to the hamlet, the Metis Council and Lafferty, the band wrote that "not one" of Lafferty's recommendations pertained to alcohol and drug abuse, which the band said was the original issue of the June 11 meeting involving the three councils, two GNWT ministers and RCMP officials. In a three-page letter from Lafferty to the three councils, she made many recommendations, such as creating a new recreation plan, establishing a community search system in case a person goes missing, making sure the mayor is more visible in the community, offering more training opportunities for women, instituting job sharing, requesting to the Roman Catholic diocese that nuns return to Fort Resolution, and more.
"At this time we do not feel a need to have another tri-council meeting," stated the letter from Chief Louis Balsillie.
The chief wrote the focus should be on ideas proposed at the June 11 meeting and promises made by Health and Social Services Minister Tom Beaulieu, Justice Minister Glen Abernethy, and the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority.
"She wants to be chief, mayor and Metis president in this community," Balsillie told News/North.
Lafferty, a band member, is disappointed with the DKFN decision to not hold a tri-council meeting.
"I had stopped my hunger strike because I had been informed that there was going to be a tri-council meeting and I was very happy with that because the community needs something," she said.
However, incorrect information had been provided to Lafferty, apparently because of a misunderstanding by someone who had spoken to the chief.
Lafferty said she won't be pressing further for a tri-council meeting and doesn't intend to start another hunger protest.
"We'll probably just have to proceed without it, unless the hamlet and the Metis speak to (Balsillie)
about it or write a letter," she said. "I was just going to (write) a disappointment letter, because it's for the community. There's nothing that is unrealistic."
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