"The preparedness of the province (of Saskatchewen) was wherever the outbreak happens, they would trigger help there. So they didn't help us for the first month. When the outbreak happened in La Loche, then we started seeing their presence. But for one month, we were just getting frustrated."

Rick Laliberte, heads up the Incident Command Centre for the twenty-four First Nations, Metis and municipal communities in northern Saskatchewan, leading the fight against the rapid outbreak of COVID-19 there in the last six weeks. In this interview with National Chief Perry Bellegarde, Laliberte explains how inaction by higher levels of government helped to bring together the local communities and First Nations of Northern Saskatchewan to tackle one of the fastest spreading outbreaks of Coronavirus in Canada. The two discuss what has succeeded and what more needs to be done.

Rick Laliberte is the incident commander for the Northwest Communities Incident Command Centre. He is also a former federal Member of Parliament for northern Saskatchewan. www.the155.ca

A special thanks goes out to the Red Dog Singers of Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan for providing the theme music for this podcast.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced in Ottawa by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions. davidrcmcguffin@gmail.com