Northern Ontarians are being failed by a utility system that leaves them without running water or electricity for years at a time \u2013 something most Ontarians would never tolerate, says Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSeveral weeks ago, I stood in this house to remark about the tragic suicide of 13-year-old Karlena Kamenawatamin from Bearskin Lake,\u201d said Mamakwa in the legislature on Monday. \u201cI mentioned how Karlena and her family had gone over seven years \u2014 seven years \u2014 without running water or electricity in their home, a state of affairs that would outrage anyone if this happened to them or their family. Ontario Hydro Remotes had made the decision to cut the electricity to Karlena\u2019s family for reasons beyond their control.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mamakwa urged the government to support Indigenous-led efforts to expand access to the hydro grid, offering a better quality of life and more opportunities for remote communities. \u201cOntario Hydro Remotes currently operates in 24 fly-in First Nations communities in northern Ontario, but clearly, something is not working,\u201d said Mamakwa. \u201cOne solution may be the Wataynikaneyap transmission project. Wataynikaneyap means \u2018line that brings light.\u2019 It\u2019s a project of 22 First Nations that will connect 17 remote First Nations communities that are still reliant on diesel fuel for power. \u201cBetter lives and more opportunity for youth in the far north is something I believe all members in this house can support, so that all other Indigenous youth will not have to grow up the way Karlena did.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In his response to Mamakwa\u2019s question, Minister of Indigenous Affairs Greg Rickford refused to commit to supporting the new transmission project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Northern Ontarians are being failed by a utility system that leaves them without running water or electricity for years at a time \u2013 something most Ontarians would never tolerate, says Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa. \u201cSeveral weeks ago, I stood in this house to remark about the tragic suicide of 13-year-old Karlena Kamenawatamin from Bearskin …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[1782],"class_list":["post-16350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials","tag-kiiwetinoong-mpp-sol-mamakwa"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 00:30:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16351,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16350\/revisions\/16351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}