Dear Editor.

Chief Spence’s “I’ll die for my people” is a con, and it undermines credibility in legitimate claims Indians and Inuits may have for more assistance from governments.

To suggest that caving in to Chief Spence’s hunger strike would be to save her life is an insult to Canadian taxpayers, who are being taken to the cleaners again.

The Attawapiskat Band is filthy rich with millions of dollars in assets, including close to 10 million in the stock market, and about 85 million in gross income each year. Chief Spence and her close friends and councillors are living high off the hog while the children she is responsible for live in sewer infested shacks. Gambling on the stock market with the millions of dollars put in her trust, money desperately needed for basic needs, education and health care, should be good for a few years in jail. Lawyers and politicians who knowingly and willingly allow this incredible travesty to perpetuate should be tried for the same crimes, and suffer the same consequences.

Chief Spence has violated trust between the Chief and the band members who depend upon her decisions for their very existence. Chief Spence has become a national disgrace. She is a criminal, and should be in jail for conspiracy to defraud, breach of trust, and child abuse.

Andy Thomsen

Summerland