The Conservative government is politicizing decisions over which of the country's most impoverished and remote aboriginal communities will receive new elementary schools, suggests a note from an Indian Affairs official who works on the file.

Further documents released through an access to information request show the government hired public-relations firm Hill and Knowlton last year to manage the bad press Indian Affairs was facing regarding the state of on-reserve schools in Northern Ontario.

The issue erupted in the House of Commons yesterday, when Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl was so incensed by Opposition attacks over the memos - which suggest political considerations in choosing which schools to fund - he had to be reigned in by the Speaker.

"It should not matter what ridings they were in," NDP MP Charlie Angus said in the House. "What should matter is that these were the most desperately poor substandard educational facilities in North America."

Mr. Strahl responded by describing Mr. Angus as a "shameless self-promoter" spreading "a load of claptrap."

Commons Speaker Peter Milliken intervened, warning that personal references were "unnecessary."

Mr. Strahl was responding to questions over a March, 2008, memo written by John-Paul Fournier, the department's head of capital planning. The memo runs through a list of five Northern Ontario communities with school problems.

Regarding the need for a new elementary school in North Spirit Lake, north of Kenora, Mr. Fournier writes: "Chief has recently expressed concern about the continued delay of project start. The existing facility is a 30 to 40 year old wood structure. No real issue, just sitting in an opposition riding."

Mr. Fournier repeats the comment about an opposition riding in describing the school needs of Wabaseemoong, which is also north of Kenora. At the time, the riding was held by Liberal MP Roger Valley.

Mr. Valley was defeated in the 2008 election by Conservative Greg Rickford. Now that the riding is Tory blue, North Spirit Lake Chief Rita Thompson says the school is going ahead.

"We are getting a school now," she said in an interview, noting she received the news after last fall's federal election. The chief said she has been lobbying the department hard for a new school since she was elected in March, 2008. She describes the current school conditions as "dire," noting that the building just reopened after being shut down for over a month.

"The furnace keeps going out," she said.

The issue was raised in the House by Mr. Angus, who has long campaigned for new schools for native communities in his sprawling riding of Timmins-James Bay. Mr. Angus, who obtained the documents through an access to information request, said the minister is failing in his duty to aboriginals.

"We work with first nations to set the priorities," fumed Mr. Strahl. "I do not base it on which riding it belongs in. I base it on need."

The government documents include a March, 2008, e-mail exchange over the growing profile of the schools issue in the Commons and the media.

It states that Maryse Pesant, the department's director general for communications, hired public-relations firm Hill and Knowlton to work on the file.

"Anybody who would look at the pictures of those poor children and figure that they could win a public relations war against kids who are begging for a school, I mean, I can't figure out that kind of thinking," Mr. Angus said.

—Bill Curry, The Globe and Mail, February 26, 2009