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<\/p>\nThe council, a body of 39 First Nations, recognizes Collins, also known as Namaygoosisagagun, as a First Nations community and is supporting its members by providing hotel stays and essential supports like food and clothing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe don\u2019t know if we\u2019re going to be reimbursed, but that doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Debassige said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur concern is about supporting this community when the federal and provincial government have failed them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meaghan Daniel, a lawyer who represents Collins First Nations, wrote a letter to Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty on Thursday calling on her department to treat the First Nation the same as any other community and to provide it with emergency, recovery and reconstruction supports available to recognized communities under the Indian Act.<\/p>\n
Residents of Collins are recognized as First Nations people under the Indian Act but the community itself is not. Its leaders have pressed Ottawa for official recognition for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, if Namaygoosisagagun is denied access to the emergency and rebuilding supports available to recognized First Nations, it will not simply suffer a slower recovery. It may lose forever the opportunity to rebuild the community its members spent decades creating,\u201d Daniels wrote in the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those circumstances, the question is not merely whether recovery will be delayed. It is whether Namaygoosisagagun will have a future in the place it has called home since time immemorial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty was noncommittal when asked Thursday if the federal government would commit funding to the First Nation. She said the community exists in a policy gap because it lacks status.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working very closely with the province. The province has expressed that they will be providing that support but I think we have a role to play in that space,\u201d Gull-Masty said. \u201cI am looking to take that next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel said the First Nation does not have the luxury of waiting while jurisdictional and administrative questions are sorted out, and that every day that passes without clarity affects the future of an entire community.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2026.<\/p>\n
Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The council, a body of 39 First Nations, recognizes Collins, also known as Namaygoosisagagun, as a First Nations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,20739,2465,2466,82],"class_list":["post-808310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-ottawa","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}