Remember Africville

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2 Critical Response Paper 3 Remember Africville is a 1991 film by Shelagh Mackenzie that documents the often forgotten story of the destruction of Africville and the forceful relocation of its inhabitants. Africville was a thriving predominantly Black community in Nova Scotia from when it was founded in the 1800s, until it was destroyed by the city of Halifax in the 1960s. Under the guise of acting in the citizens best interest, Africville was bulldozed and demolished with hardly any consultation or consent from the residents, which had devastating consequences for the people living in the community (Mackenzie, 1991). Remember Africville acts as both a memorial commemorating Africville and what the community meant to so many Black Canadians, …show more content…

In the case of Neskantaga, much like many other communities, the lack of clean water is due to failures in their water treatment plant, which has not been properly maintained due to the inadequate funding that the community has to both repair and run the facility. The government did initially pay to have the water treatment plant installed in 1993, however, in 1995 the treatment plant failed and has not produced clean water since (Johnson, 2020). Despite the hundreds of people that have been impacted by this for decades, the concerns of the community have gone effectively unaddressed by the government, who have started but never completed projects that would fix this issue for Neskantaga. Meanwhile, a nearby diamond mine along the same river that Neskantaga gets its water from operated for all twelve years that it was open without experiencing challenges filtering water (Scott & Cowen, 2020). This demonstrates that it is not an issue of the government's ability to provide clean water, but rather their unwillingness to fund money and resources into Indigenous

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