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Aboriginal and Inuit Non-Mining Issues

Federal budget a step toward Indigenous reconciliation – by Stephen Bede Scharper (Toronto Star – March 30, 2016)

http://www.thestar.com/

“I commit to you that the Government of Canada will walk with you on a path of true reconciliation, in partnership and friendship.”

So vowed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he donned the traditional headdress accompanying honorary membership in the Tsuut’ina Nation earlier this month. The ceremony, held near Calgary, Alberta, involved over 100 Treaty Chiefs from across Canada.

Trudeau was also awarded the name Gumistiyi, “The One Who Keeps Trying.” As evidenced by the government’s inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women, as well as last week’s budget, which directs billions in new funding toward indigenous communities, Trudeau is indeed trying to signal a new federal relationship with Canada’s indigenous citizens.

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Matawa CEO “disappointed” in Ring of Fire omission in fed budget – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – March 29, 2016)

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

The CEO of the Matawa First Nations is disappointed that the Trudeau government isn’t into mining in the Ring of Fire, at least not according to this year’s federal budget.

Though David Achneepineskum is “pretty happy” with the $8.4 billion in planned spending to improve First Nations’ education, on-reserve water quality, social and healthcare infrastructure across Canada over the next five years, it was a headscratcher to him that nothing was laid out to move the undeveloped mineral belt forward.

Despite the Wynne government having a far friendlier government in Ottawa to deal with, their federal Liberal counterparts chose not to match Ontario’s $1-billion pledge for mining-related infrastructure in the James Bay region.

“Certainly I was disappointed there was no mention of the Ring of Fire in the budget at all, whether it’s today or whether they’re thinking about it in the future,” said Achneepineskumm, the head of a tribal council of nine Ojibway and Cree communities, which would be most impacted by mine development.

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Grand Council of the Cree Grand Chief shocked at First Nation opposition to land claim – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – March 18, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

Grand Chief Michael Coon Come said he was shocked by the wall of opposition from Ontario First Nations to the Grand Council of the Crees’ lawsuit to claim Aboriginal rights and title over a section of land on the Ontario side of the border.

The piece of land in question stretches from the southern coast of James Bay all the way to Lake Abitibi east of Timmins. Moose Cree First Nation is saying that is their traditional territory and an all rights and title to it belong to them exclusively.

Coon Come said that the Cree communities on the east coast of James Bay in Quebec are willing to come up with an arrangement where the rights and title to the land can be shared. But that didn’t stop the Moose Cree, the Mushkegowuk Council and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation all to denounce the lawsuit and demand that it be withdrawn.

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Land claim ‘pits Cree vs Cree’ – Chief Hardisty Jr. – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – March 11, 2016)

http://www.timminspress.com/

MOOSONEE – To say the Moose Cree First Nation is displeased by a lawsuit launched by the Grand Council of the Crees in Ontario Superior Court last week may be putting it mildly.

The council representing First Nations on the James Bay coast in Quebec, have launched a lawsuit asserting Aboriginal rights and title over a section of land on the Ontario side of the border that Moose Cree Chief Norm Hardisty Jr. is adamant sits within his First Nation’s traditional territory.

All Aboriginal rights and title to the land specified in the Cree Council’s lawsuit belong exclusively to the Moose Cree said, Hardisty. The chief is calling for the council to immediately halt its lawsuit, which he said is not only profoundly disrespectful but will only serve to “pit Cree against Cree.”

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NEWS RELEASE: NAN TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE IN PREPARATION FOR FIRST MINISTERS’ MEETING

VANCOUVER, BC: Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler will highlight the impacts of climate change across NAN territory and outline how First Nations must be fully engaged in Canada’s adaptation to a low-carbon economy as First Nation leaders prepare for the First Ministers’ Meeting in Vancouver this week.

“Changes to the natural environment are being observed across Nishnawbe Aski and the impacts are threatening the sustainability of our First Nations,” said Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. “We are encouraged that the Prime Minister has committed to hearing from Indigenous leaders and this meeting is a positive first step. NAN is prepared to contribute to the development of global solutions but the governments of Ontario and Canada must come to the table through a tripartite arrangement if progress is to be made.”

NAN territory encompasses approximately two-thirds of the Province of Ontario. The majority of NAN’s 49 First Nations are remote, accessible only by air and seasonal winter roads.

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Wynne wants feds, provinces to provide First Nations with safe drinking water (Victoria Times Colonist – March 1, 2016)

http://www.timescolonist.com/

CANADIAN PRESS – TORONTO – Ontario will push for a national agreement at this week’s First Ministers’ meeting in Vancouver to ensure First Nations communities have safe, clean drinking water, Premier Kathleen Wynne said Tuesday.

There are more than 150 boil water advisories or do not consume advisories in about 112 First Nations communities across Canada, some more than 15 years old. “It’s unacceptable to me that we have boil water orders in First Nations communities in Ontario, and that is the case across the country,” said Wynne.

“If we don’t find a way for the federal government, the provincial government and indigenous leadership to work together better on something as fundamental as provision of clean water, then I think that we should be very ashamed of ourselves.”

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Child Suicide Is A Crisis In [Aboriginal] Canada. Here’s How We Can Prevent It – by Joshua Ostroff (Huffington Post – February 17, 2016)

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

“It happened during the holidays, just a few days before Christmas.” Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in northern Ontario is recounting a recent tragedy, a type of story he’s had far too much experience retelling.

“The current system, as it is now, it’s not working. It’s unable to meet the needs of our families and communities,” he says in a voice flecked with anger and sadness. “We have 10-year-old kids taking their lives. Something is terribly wrong.”

Bearskin Lake is a remote Oji-Cree First Nations community of 472 on-reserve residents, more than 2,000 kilometres northwest of Toronto. It is an alcohol-free community of three settlements, accessible only by air, except for a few months when the winter road crosses Windigo Lake north through to Muskrat Dam.

It was here where a 10-year-old girl killed herself during the holidays, the youngest in a cluster of five youth suicides in the territory since December.

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Highway will complete Canada’s road network from coast to coast – by Jim Coyle (Toronto Star – February 15, 2016)

http://www.thestar.com/

For a half century and more, an all-weather Inuvik-to-Tuktoyaktuk Highway has been imagined, proposed, talked about in the Northwest Territories. Call it Jack Kerouac on the tundra, the chance to get on the road year-round and drive across a part of Canada glorious in its harsh beauty and still the last frontier.

The project, which began in 2014 and has put hundreds of surveyors, equipment operators and labourers to work, is expected to be completed in 2017-18. A series of photographs from the New York Times shows the land and people of a place apart, soon to be linked to the rest of the country.

Inuvik, with a population of about 3,500, is in the Mackenzie Delta above the Arctic Circle and is the current northern terminus of the Dempster Highway, connecting the Inuvik region to the Yukon highway system.

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Ring of Fire, stalled or not? Two MPP’s square off. – by Staff (BayToday.ca – January 27, 2016)

https://www.baytoday.ca/

The Ring of Fire mineral discovery has the potential to be a tremendous boost to Ontario’s rich and long mining economy that goes back to the 1800.

PC MPP Toby Barrett says the Ring of Fire, the world’s largest chromite deposit sits stalled. Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development and Mines disagrees. Because the project could mean huge benefits for North Bay, we present both sides of the argument.

First, here’s MPP Toby Barrett

As a rural southern MPP travelling the North – last week’s pre-budget hearings were my fourth tour over the past year – I am always struck by the commonality we share with our resource-based economies, whether it be farming or forestry, mining or steel.

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Northern Communities feel climate change impact – by Geoff Shields (Wawatay News – January 10, 2016)

http://www.wawataynews.ca/

On December 14, 2015, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change was held in the Le Bourget suburb of Paris. Representatives of the Canadian Government were present at the talks, however the fact that there were no representatives of the First Nations peoples was of great concern to Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day.

Day expressed his concern in a letter sent on November 23rd 2015 to the Prime Minister and Provincial Ministers prior to the meeting.

One of the rapidly accelerating effects of global warming which is impacting on the Northern Communities is that on the road system in his letter Day stated that “ Our Peoples in the North are all too aware that warmer winters have already negatively impacted their livelihoods, many communities depend on winter roads for food and materials.

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Are isolated reserves too small to succeed? – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – January 8, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Shoal Lake 40 First Nation got good news before Christmas: the promise of a $30-million road connecting the reserve hard by the Ontario-Manitoba boundary to the Trans-Canada Highway about 15 kilometres away.

The promise corrects an old injustice. Almost a century ago, when the growing city of Winnipeg needed drinking water, Shoal Lake was identified as the source. A canal was built, creating an island on which Shoal Lake 40 was located.

Thereby isolated, band members needed a boat to reach the mainland or an ice road in the winter. The reserve also lacked a water-treatment plant. Bottled water had to be shipped by barge or across the road. Shoal Lake 40 has been under a drinking-water advisory for 17 years.

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Liberals to fund water plant for Neskantaga First Nation in 2016 – by Jody Porter (CBC News Thunder Bay – December 29, 2015)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Northwestern Ontario First Nation has been without clean drinking water for 20 years

Neskantaga First Nation, in northwestern Ontario, finally has a written commitment from the federal government to build a new water treatment plant in the remote community, which has been without safe tap water for 20 years.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett made a promise to fund the water treatment plant at a meeting earlier this month with Neskantaga Chief Wayne Moonias.

The written confirmation of the commitment came in response to a media request from CBC News, after a flurry of meetings with department officials in the days leading up to the Christmas break.

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Attitudes of ‘coldness, indifference’ behind thousands of residential school deaths: TRC report – by Mark Kennedy (National Post – December 15, 2015)

http://news.nationalpost.com/

More than 3,000 aboriginal children died at residential schools, often of causes that could have been prevented, and the failures of those responsible for properly safeguarding the students bordered on criminal, according to a special report on the scandal.

In its final report to be released Tuesday, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) provides a detailed account of the known deaths. The recorded figure is 3,201 but the actual number is probably much higher because of incomplete records, and the commission notes the death rate was much higher than among children in Canada’s general population.

Its report documents how the children were buried in gravesites, many unmarked, that were not in their own communities. Today, many of those gravesites sit untended – the final injustice to the children.

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Globe Editorial: First Nations need a lot more than just a missing women inquiry (Globe and Mail – December 9, 2015)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Tuesday featured two big announcements from Ottawa regarding Canada’s First Nations. The start of a consultation process to create an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women received the most attention.

But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s five-point plan to reset the relationship with native Canada is the larger story. That’s because the MMIW issue, important as it is, cannot be seen in isolation. It grows out of something bigger and deeper.

When Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett was asked what the goal of the inquiry would be, she mentioned preventing a repetition of the tragedies it is to investigate.

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Trudeau’s embrace of First Nations laudable, but throwing money at their problems isn’t the answer – by John Ivison (National Post – December 9, 2015)

http://news.nationalpost.com/

“The right thing to do.” Justin Trudeau is using that line from last week’s throne speech to justify a raft of measures he hopes will improve the lives of indigenous people.

But there are few signs the policy and spending implications of the commitments the prime minister made Tuesday to chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) have been thought through. In a speech, he promised he would be their “partner.”

The chiefs — foremost among them the clearly delighted National Chief, Perry Bellegarde, already quite cozy with Trudeau — gave him repeated standing ovations. And no wonder: the new prime minister has already agreed to give them pretty much everything they want.

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