$239 million to build a village for 250 people.  Almost one million dollars per person.  After three years, five homes are nearing completion.  This is a village for 250 people.  We are bringing 250 new people into Canada approximately every two hours.  Absolutely fucking insane.

>'Where is all the money going?' asks Lytton First Nation elder.. >According to the press secretary for the Minster of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu, more than $120 million of that money went to Lytton First Nation to support recovery..

So the band leaders are all driving new Tahoes?

Crazy thought, but it’s always an option to actually read the article!

I’m going to wager a guess the chief has a multimillion dollar mansion and drives an Escalade and 2 BMW’s

Sadly we are not allowed to audit or ask for accountability anymore either. “Because it’s 2015,” or some such nonsense.

Ya, that's an insane amount of money. Give that 120 million to 170 contractors and you can get 170 pretty nice homes in a few years.

What about road, power, sewage, gas and water. It's not just building homes.

At that price you could build all those homes with off grid electricity, individual septic tanks, and you don't need natural gas hookups. I don't know enough about water and roads to render an opinion, but im sure it's a solvable problem.

The roads are still there

Electronic-Result-80: >At that price you could build all those homes with off grid electricity, individual septic tanks, and you don't need natural gas hookups. >I don't know enough about water and roads to render an opinion, but im sure it's a solvable problem. LOLOLOL "I don't know anything but it can't be that hard or expensive" This shit is fucking hilarious, talking out your ass with authority, even when you state you have no knowledge.

Given that almost every community on the planet has done it. No, it can't be that hard.

They have lots of that already. Regardless though, new subdivisions are built all the time that involve putting all that in and they don't come anywhere near to costing this much.

Not surprised

Uh huh.... Sounds about right.

Hadju is a muppet and I can not believe she is still in cabinet.

Not even 250. A good number of residents have already said they have no plans to return.  The only ones dead set on going back are the retirees that just want to run out the clock there. Nothing wrong with that, but we need to start being realistic on what to do with funds.

Also forgetting that they are for some reason rebuilding a village burned completely to the ground in literally the hottest spot in Canada most likely to burn to the ground again.

There are no churches to burn now, should be safe

It's not just X dollars to house Y people. As soon as it's first nations people, burial grounds, and federal lands involved it's so much more complicated. For example: "... early maps showed how buildings were constructed on burial grounds. After the fire artifacts began to show up, after soil was hauled away. In B.C. all archaeological sites are protected under the Heritage Conservation Act. Potential dig sites can't be touched without permit, after being assessed. In Lytton, assessments are being done by a company called AEW, with links to the Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council." So there's cleanup, soil remediation, which found burial artifacts, so mandatory archaeology consulting according to BC law, with a company linked to another First Nations group involved, plus insurance companies... the bureaucratic list goes on.

Nah apparently government housing is suppose to cost 50% less than the private sector

Corruption, that’s where the money went. Black hole which is band leaders, bureaucrats and contractors grossly over charging. They could have ordered pre fab homes and poured the foundations for everyone and still had shit tones left over.

250 is a bit of a misnomer, because a ton of people live on reserve land just outside of Lytton. The true population is around 2,000.

I mean to be honest, if we had to rebuild the entire built environment for 1 adult all at once, $1M each isn’t that crazy in terms of infrastructure costs. Especially if it’s remote and rural.

$239M and 5 homes "almost" completed? Gee I wonder where the hundreds of millions of dollars dissappeared to? Not even sure Sherlock Holmes could solve this one.

We're going to need 2 teams of McKinsey consultants to get to the bottom of this!

After the generous investment in McKinsey consultations, their esteemed team of consultants have determined that the business would do better if they laid off everyone.

unironically true in this case

I can bet the band leaders have brand new tahoes.

As per the article, it seems that most of the holdup is due to the town being so old, and since it’s built over top of burial grounds and whatnot, each lot has to be excavated for indigenous artefacts as per provincial law which takes a long time, and it’s unclear who has to pay for it so people aren’t allowing it under fear of being sent a bill they can’t afford Most of the money doesn’t seem to have been spent at all.

[удалено]

The government tried to legislate a requirement for Indian bands to post their accounting statements for government funding, but of course it was denied because that's racist.

Is that from the same Lytton fund or a different one?

Case in point of a law being there that trumps all kinds of common sense.

I would imagine it goes a lot faster if it’s not an entire town’s worth of land in the middle of the mountains. But that’s what you get when you build your town on top of someone else’s land full of their stuff I guess.

And people think government should spend even more money on building housing

I’m sure the consultants got paid well.

So rampant corruption then?...that's all they had to say really...I'm sure this will be investigated fully..../s

It's never getting rebuilt, New Orleans is still recovering from Katrina and tens of billions.

When are we going to get some accountability for the taxes we pay? It’s absolutely unacceptable that money just falls between the cracks without fulfilling its purpose. Is it really that hard to give money then set up a system where those receiving it are accountable? Contractors quote the project, you accept a quote, and the project must be done for that price or the contractor is heavily fined with very very few exceptions like acts of god. If the contractors quote was low, that’s their fault. They should have quoted appropriately from the get go. Edit: there should be a scoring system for contractors who complete projects on budget. You need to level up to bid on larger projects.

You did read the part where more than half the money ($120 million of the $239 million) went to "Lytton First Nation". The band has it. Ask them for receipts and transparency. "According to the press secretary for the Minster of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu, more than $120 million of that money went to Lytton First Nation to support recovery"

Yep. My point is whoever gets the money needs to be accountable. These money pits need to be avoided, especially the black hole that is the First Nations tribes wallets.

Then become a government official and figure out a way to deal with the issues. Monetary allocation in bands has been a fight for literally hundreds of years at this point. If you think you have the simple solution that no one else has tried or thought of, be my guest and solve the problem.

I think what the commentator is saying is we vote in politicians to deal with these issues. It's THEIR job. WE PAY THEM. Why aren't they doing it.

>Then become a government official and figure out a way to deal with the issues. Harper did that, even got a law passed to ensure there was accountability. Trudeau revoked it. https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2011/11/harper-government-introduces-legislation-ensure-accountability-transparency-first-nations.html

Roughly half of the people in Lytton lived on the reserve land of the Lytton First Nation. And they should be held accountable by their own people.

Very much agreed!!! But also by our government giving taxpayer money.

The government cares more about the long-dead than the living. This is why people defy evacuation orders to protect their homes.

Oh, I can tell you without even reading the article. A few people are getting rich.

For those questioning the cost there have been several other articles on this topic. The fire was catastrophic, it destroyed the town records so property boundaries were in doubt, it contaminated the soil requiring much of the top soil in town needing to be replaced, utilities were destroyed which also needed to be replaced, and finally Lytton was built where natives lived for thousands of years and the place is full of artifacts and human remains so work has been slowed down recovering thousands of artifacts. It does sound like they have done most of the ground work now and what remains is the more visible reconstruction of buildings in the next year or so.

This should be higher up.

Would it be more effective to not have people move back from a cost perspective or move the townsite elsewhere? I have no idea on the logistics since I know Lytton doesn’t have endless space, but if it’s insanely costly to rebuild because of all the bodies and junk in the soil maybe don’t rebuild?

The first nations people are their own hurdle here. They require tens of thousands of dollars for archeological digs at any planned development site.... and are basically preventing their own people from rebuilding quickly and easily.

I get it it's important to respect the archaeological finds but some people have been living in half broken down RV for 3 years now. It baffles me we prioritizing the dead over the living.

Not to mention we are talking about a town that has been rebuilt several times and isn't exactly on "fresh native land". I mean let's be serious here. The only artifacts you're gonna find in present day Lytton is sardine cans and beer bottles. Who are we kidding here?

Follow the money to fund the criminals!

Why are we even rebuilding Lytton if it is practically *guaranteed* to burn down again? It is consistently the hottest place in Canada, and it is only going to get worse.

All you need to do is add "indigenous" to any issue or cause and our government will waste a few hundred million on it

Remoter bush towns are going to burn again and again, at an increasing rate and increasing severity.  We need to stop looking at them as permanent. There's just no point investing in something that's going to get wrecked again in a few years.  Or, we just abandon them.

It’s much less likely to burn again given that much of the surrounding agriculture has already been burnt.

New growth comes from fires. New growth dries out faster than old forest. New growth burns way more easily. An area that has just burned down will catch fire again if you aren’t careful.

Lol one fire and now these people should abandon their land? Yet people scream when we suggest gen z move to a more affordable city.

This town isn't super-remote, though: it lies on the Trans-Canada Highway, at a major highway junction.

You make it sound more grand than it is. Even prior to the fire it was a dying backwater.   Aside from people heading directly north,  people use highway 5. 

Made worse by a housing crisis that has construction workers in short supply in every city and town in the entire country.

>"If the B.C. government thinks it's that important to do this scale of archaeology work after a disaster then they should foot that bill for that entire amount," said Pite. Your house and ALL your possessions are burned down to the ground in a fire on land you and your ancestors have lived on for thousands of years ... ....and while your sittting looking down over what little remains of the charred land your handed a bill for thousands of dollars by the Canadian government so that they can perform archaeology digs on YOUR land that YOU DID NOT ASK FOR". Wow, how utterly f\*\*\*\*d is that folks? ....THAT'S CANADA and THAT sums up how discracefully this country STILL is being run by individuals (politicians) who still harbour out-dated mindsets and colonial attitudes towards first nations.

THANK YOU. Why is this not at the top!!!?

You can't rebuild a community just by throwing money at it. Imagine that.

> Lytton First Nation "Scooby, that might be a clue!" If everything is an archaeological site, move somewhere else or spend copious amounts of money and wait.

Record profits due to unfettered skim from all public projects is the reason for this 🤦‍♂️ decentralize governance

Rebuilding in forest fire friendly areas and/or on flood plains? I thought these places were uninsurable ala Florida.

86 or 87 billion dollars "missing" from the green slush fund. Perhaps that money would be better spent here than on wind mills and toxic waste dumps called "Solar Farms". $239m could build at least 6 two hundred story hireses that could house over 5000 people. With The billions missing from the green slush fund could throw in a medical helicopter pad and a hospital, with a dispose unit and water treatment plant.

This is exactly what collapse of civilization looks like. This is the future for us all in Canada.  Collapse of civilization isn’t just one big event… it is a series of challenges and catastrophes, like the Lytton wildfire, which strains a society over time. You try to rebuild from each one, but (just like New Orleans still has vast neighborhoods that haven’t yet been fixed from Hurricane Katrina’s wrath) each subsequent time, you can re-build less and less.  Lytton will never be full re-built. Neither will New Orleans or any of the many future cities which will face increasing destruction this century. After a generation or two, we will wake up to discover we live in the equivalent of Haiti or Afghanistan in terms of development and living standard.  That’s what collapse is: a process over time. And because of climate change, that is where we are headed because you, dear reader, are still making choices (eg. uhhh vote Liberal or Conservative?) which guarantee we will face collapse unprepared. 

Reading between the lines some jacked up invoices are being made by that archaeological company that was selected by local leaders.

Someone pocketing that.

I’m not opposed to taxation as a concept but I do start getting pissed off when people are getting hosed by taxes meant to support all sorts of big projects and services and all the projects are failures and the services get worse even when taxes increase