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<\/p>\nAnishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige told The Canadian Press the community members made a narrow escape. She said they took care of each other after provincial and federal agencies failed to warn them of the blaze and provide evacuation support.<\/p>\n
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The 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 essentials like food and clothing.<\/p>\n
\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
Several other First Nations in the province, including Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, are also raising funds for the community at their powwow this weekend.<\/p>\n
Collins First Nation Chief Helen Paavola told The Canadian Press she heard from Gull-Masty for the first time since the fire broke out on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sparing anybody at this point because I\u2019m angry now, and every day that goes by I become angrier because I\u2019m hurting, my people are hurting and we have nowhere to go,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t belong here. We belong back home in the bush.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019s thankful for the support her community has received from Anishinabek Nation, and from other communities who have donated when governments didn\u2019t step in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s unbelievable, but that\u2019s the Anishinaabe way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Meaghan Daniel, a lawyer who represents Collins First Nation, wrote a letter to Gull-Masty on Thursday calling on her department to provide the community with emergency, recovery and reconstruction supports available to recognized communities under the Indian Act.<\/p>\n
While residents of Collins are recognized as First Nations people under the Indian Act, 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
In an emailed statement, Indigenous Services Canada spokesperson Eric Head said the federal government will provide aid to address the community\u2019s immediate needs. He said work is underway with federal and provincial partners to identify those needs and co-ordinate supports for community members.<\/p>\n
The department did not answer questions about whether it will reimburse Anishinabek Nation for evacuation and relocation supports or help Collins First Nation rebuild, or if the minister has spoken with leaders from the community.<\/p>\n
It did not say if it will recognize Collins First Nation under the Indian Act.<\/p>\n
Paavola said the government ought to.<\/p>\n
Gull-Masty was noncommittal when asked Thursday if the federal government would provide funding to Collins 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
NDP Leader Avi Lewis said on social media late Friday the federal government \u201cmust recognize Namaygoosisagagun\u2019s status, reimburse them for the services they should have provided and give them the resources they need to recover from this disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conservative MP Billy Morin, who previously served as the chief of Enoch Cree Nation, accused the minister of dragging her feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wrong when people are faced with their homes burning down and their lives on the line that government officials don\u2019t react to say, \u2018We\u2019re going to do everything in our power to help you,\u2019 and they cite policy and technicalities not to help them,\u201d he told The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re late to respond to people whose lives are on the line.\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
The community is only accessible by boat or train.<\/p>\n
Daniel and Debassige said all community infrastructure has burned, including homes, shared buildings and cultural belongings, along with the forest area residents rely on for sustenance. Daniel said the evacuation was so swift, community members fled with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.<\/p>\n
Paavola said it was a miracle her members didn\u2019t perish, including the youth who helped with the evacuations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did this on their own, and without any help. So nobody can come and swoop in and say, \u2018We helped,’\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a miracle that they survived and that they\u2019re all here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The community has built itself without any federal funding or supports available to recognized First Nations. Instead, Daniel said, it has relied on the determination, ingenuity and sacrifice of its members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is self-determination at its very heart,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless Canada acts immediately, it will compound a historical injustice with a humanitarian one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paavola said the community has retained its connection to the land and teaches its children to do the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had paths, dirt paths, that we walked down. Our ancestors walked on the same path,\u201d she said, adding they hunt, fish and gather berries and medicine to survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what am I going to miss? I\u2019m going to miss my whole life, because that was our lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Debassige said the community was not warned by the provincial government that the fire was near the community. Paavola said a community member spotted a helicopter that turned around when it approached the blaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand what kind of heartless person, what kind of heartless ministry, could leave my members there to burn,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can\u2019t say that they didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ontario\u2019s Natural Resources Minister Mike Harris told reporters Friday the fire ignited very close to the community and spread rapidly. He said what matters most is that community members got out safety.<\/p>\n
He said the smoke in the area made it difficult for the province\u2019s planes to access the site and it took them more than two days to understand what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to work with Collins,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have not seen fire behave like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chiefs gathering in Ottawa this week for an Assembly of First Nations meeting passed an emergency resolution calling on Indigenous Services Canada to offer supports for Collins First Nation evacuees and the rebuilding effort.<\/p>\n
The resolution also seeks an independent review of the Collins First Nation evacuation after the community was left to fend for itself.<\/p>\n
Debassige said Thursday that if the community had waited for outside help, the conversation now would be about how to recover the bodies of children, elders and adults, instead of rebuilding.<\/p>\n
Paavola said her community should not be penalized just because it\u2019s isolated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should not be judged as a people that don\u2019t want to move forward with progress, because progress doesn\u2019t mean that we have to move forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat it means for us, it means continuing to hand down our traditions, to hand down our ways of life to our future generations. For us, it\u2019s a way of life.\u201d<\/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":"Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige told The Canadian Press the community members made a narrow escape.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-809854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809854","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=809854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}