"Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has turned down a request by the embattled Kashechewan reserve in northern Ontario to relocate within its traditional hunting grounds, reserve officials say.
Solomon has called on the Tories to honour a 2005 deal worth $500 million reached with the previous Liberal government to build a new community within their traditional hunting grounds in 10 years.
"It was approved and booked" by former finance minister Ralph Goodale, Liberal MP and former Indian Affairs minister Andy Scott told the Canadian Press Friday.
Prentice had repeatedly said the people could choose to relocate, but following the release of the survey earlier this month, a spokesperson for Indian Affairs told CBC News the cost projections had forced the ministry to take a second look.
Ottawa moved the community, against the residents' will, to the low-lying land in 1957.
Flooding and tainted water have prompted three evacuations since 2004.
The evacuations came as the community struggled with squalid housing, domestic violence, addiction and a number of reported suicide attempts.
Prentice himself has called conditions on the reserve "deplorable.""