Before we re-enter the mess that has emerged out of the decision by the Loon Lake fire department to not attend a deadly fire at the Makwa Sahgaiehcan First Nation, let us be clear about a few things.
The fire chief and department clearly had no way of knowing that the lives of two-year-old Harley Cheenanow and 18-month-old Hailey Cheenanow were at risk when it made its decision.
The arrival of the fire truck from the community 10 kilometres would not have likely made a difference, anyway. By the time RCMP arrived, the reserve home was so engulfed in flames that saving the children would not have been possible anyway.
Chief Richard Ben of Makwa Sahgaiehcan band was given full and fair warning that fire protection services were being cut off in January over a $3,360.89 bill for services that was in arrears. An acknowledgment of this reality can be found in a letter bearing Ben’s signature.
There were funds available from the federal government some — $40,000 — dedicated to paying for exactly these services. While Chief Ben maintains the money was used for preventative fire measures like smoke detectors, the bills had to be paid to ensure this reserve of 1,000 people was properly protected in the event of a fire.
There was a working fire truck on the reserve itself. That it didn’t have the proper fittings for the hoses or that it might not have started on this cold February night because the shed it was once housed in burned down are issues that the Chief and Band council needed to address long ago.
And, finally, the Town of Loon Lake has no obligation to provide fire services beyond its own jurisdiction, meaning there was no legal reason why its firefighters had to attend. Moreover, with no joint agreement in place, there was the messy matter of no insurance coverage if the volunteer members had been hurt.
So by all measures, the right thing happened that faithful night the two children died when the Loon Lake fire department chose not respond to that 9-1-1 call?
Notwithstanding what you just read, my guess is a lot of you — even those of you who say you don’t fault the Loon Lake fire department for acting the way they did — have your nagging doubts.
How could this possibly be the right outcome? No matter how remote a chance there might have been to save the toddlers — babies who clearly bore no responsibility for the decisions made by the adults who were supposed to be there to protect them — a fire truck should have been there to do whatever it could.
That is the way it is supposed to be in rural Saskatchewan. We look out for each other — especially in the middle of a cold winter’s night. We look out for our neighbours and especially our neighbour’s children.
This is not to condemn the volunteers with the Loon Lake fire department for their decision, but it is to say that neither they nor any other volunteer firefighters should ever again be put such a no-win situation again.
To ensure they aren’t, we need to do a whole lot of things differently.
We need to ensure that reserves are affording their people as much fire protection safety as the can. That means better building-code standards on reserves, required smoke detectors in homes and better parenting to ensure such preventable tragedy don’t happen.
We need a system where payments from reserve are ensured. Maybe payments to local firefighters should come directly from the federal government. Or how about a joint provincial government/Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority Fund that could properly insure volunteer firefighters (both from towns and First Nations) and arbitrate any disputes?
Whatever it takes, we must find a better way.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
