The Alberta government continues to show it has yet to learn from decades of miscommunication and tense relations with both First Nations in Fort Chipewyan following another bungled opportunity for cooperation in the area of health.

Alberta Health once again deeply angered both the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations when it refused to acquiesce to their requests to access sensitive information on cancer rates in the community prior to the data being made public.

The province not only failed to successfully execute a meeting with the community by refusing to provide them with a report ahead of time, but managed to make matters worse by holding a press conference announcing the results weeks later without informing the community.

To add fuel to the fire, the report - not a study, according to its author, Dr. James Talbot, Alberta’s chief medical officer - once again downplayed what other doctors say is clearly a cancer hotspot in the small community situated downstream from heavy industrialization.

Following complaints from the First Nations, Alberta Health also refused to fund further research into the higher-than-average levels of one extremely rare form of cancer affecting the bile duct.

Now both First Nations say they are going to find a way to fund their own health studies - something they have been requesting for over a decade - but have yet to confirm sources of funding.

Currently the only health study taking place in Fort Chipewyan is being done through a community-based monitoring program, led by the First Nations in partnership with researchers at the University of Manitoba (the very same ones behind the One River, Many Relations project). At present, that research primarily concerns wild food.

The saga mirrors the community’s ongoing dissatisfaction with the provincial and federal governments’ environmental monitoring program in the region. In response, both First Nations have begun to coordinate their own local independent monitoring program.