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Windspeaker Publication

Windspeaker Publication

Established in 1983 to serve the needs of northern Alberta, Windspeaker became a national newspaper on its 10th anniversary in 1993.

  • August 23, 2016
  • Andrea Smith Windspeaker Contributor OTTAWA

A new film based in Nunavut is teaching people about gender norms in the north. The film, called “Two Soft Things, Two Hard Things,” focuses in on a Pride Day event in Iqaluit, celebrating the LGBTQ2 community there—lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer and two-spirited.

Directors Mark Woods and Mike Yerxa heard about it and flew up to the area to catch the action, finding an opportunity to…

  • August 23, 2016
  • Andrea Smith Windspeaker Contributor

Aimee Craft’s years of hard work are being acknowledged this month. Craft is an Indigenous lawyer (Anishinaabe and Metis) and assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. She is being recognized by Canadian Lawyer Magazine as one of its “Top 25 Most Influential.”

The magazine received 135 nominations; then polled readers for its final results. There are five categories in total,…

  • August 23, 2016
  • Shari Narine Windspeaker Contributor KINGSTON, Ont.

“In any type of a revolution, we always say, it’s the poets and the musicians and the gifted that take the lead and frame the new thinking in advance of everyone else,” said Stephen Kakfwi, president and CEO of Canadians for a New Partnership.

The Tragically Hip lead man and singer Gord Downie did just that Saturday night when he addressed concert goers in his hometown of Kingston – and…

  • August 16, 2016
  • Shari Narine Windspeaker Contributor BIGGAR, Sask.

The shooting death of 22-year-old Colten Boushie has rocked the province of Saskatchewan. Claims of racism are widespread, and paint the RCMP, a farmer charged with second-degree murder, and the people of Saskatchewan all with that same racist brush.

Boushie and four others drove into farmer Gerald Stanley’s rural property near Biggar to ask for help with a flat tire on their truck,…

  • August 8, 2016
  • Dianne Meili

Iskatewizaagegan Elder taught sacred ecology

 

Wisdom keepers like the late Ogimaamakoons, Ella Dawn Green, generously provided sacred knowledge to bolster the Annishinaabe certainty that human beings are more than just consumers of the earth’s resources.

Green joined other Iskatewizaagegan (Shoal Lake) Elders to speak of Gimiinigoowizimin – a term that…

  • August 3, 2016
  • Shari Narine Windspeaker Contributor OTTAWA

August 3, 2016.

The chief commissioner for the national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls says she and the other four commissioners accept the “serious responsibilities” that have been given to them.

This morning, British Columbia judge Marion Buller was named as chief commissioner for the inquiry. She is joined by Michele Audet, Qajag Robinson, Marilyn…

  • July 12, 2016
  • Windspeaker Staff

A new protocol agreement in British Columbia is all about collaboration, and realizing the goals of the Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education and Training Policy Framework and Action Plan, penned in 2012.

The agreement was signed July 8 by Advanced Education Minister Andrew Wilkinson, First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) President Tyrone McNeil and Indigenous Adult and…

  • July 12, 2016
  • Windspeaker Staff

 
On July 7, Catherine McKenna, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, joined the Council of the Haida Nation President Kil tlaats ‘gaa Peter Lantin to announce more than $650,000 in infrastructure investments in Gwaii Haanas.

The investments will support projects that directly benefit the Haida’s use of the area, as well as new…

  • July 12, 2016
  • Windspeaker Staff

 
The University of Victoria is setting up shop in Saskatoon, bringing a Master’s degree in Indigenous language to the prairie city.

UVic already offers a successful—and the only—master’s degree in the country specializing in Indigenous language revitalization, and it has drawn people from across Canada.

Now the program travels east from British Columbia to the University of…

  • July 11, 2016
  • Letter to the Editor

Urban reconciliation welcome
 
In the 1950s and ‘60s I grew up in the west end of Toronto where I attended public and high schools in the now defunct Etobicoke School Board.

As a child, I really did not understand that I was being treated differently from my classmates simply because I was recognized as an Indian.

As an adult, I have come to understand that my negative…

  • July 11, 2016
  • Shari Narine Windspeaker Contributor THUNDER BAY, Ont.

Quinn Meawasige believes that the 145 recommendations that came from a coroner’s jury earlier this week have firmly at the centre of them the seven young people who died over an 11-year period in the city of Thunder Bay.

“I think their stories were very much a part of the inquest,” said Meawasige, member of the Ontario First Nations Young People’s Council, which participated in the…

  • July 11, 2016
  • Sam Laskaris Windspeaker Contributor COQUITLAM, B.C.

The Iroquois Nationals will be among those looking to dethrone the only team that has ever won the world boys’ under-19 field lacrosse championship.

The 2016 tournament, which runs July 7 to July 16 in Coquitlam, B.C., will feature 14 entrants.

The United States has captured the gold medal at all seven previous world tournaments. The event was first held in 1988.

Early on…

  • July 11, 2016
  • Barb Nahwegahbow Windspeaker Contributor TORONTO

Grassy Narrows First Nation and supporters continue to hike up the pressure on Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario government to clean up the Wabigoon-English River systems of toxic mercury waste.

On July 7, prominent environmental, labour and social justice leaders marched through downtown Toronto to the Ontario Legislature where they delivered a canoe filled with letters and…

  • July 11, 2016
  • Andrea Smith Windspeaker Contributor Blueberry River First Nation, B.C.

The Blueberry River First Nation now has substantial evidence their traditional territory is being infringed upon.

In fact, it’s being more than infringed upon, according to a report released by the First Nation, with help from the David Suzuki Foundation, and EcoTrust Canada.

The three parties worked together to develop The Atlas of Cumulative Landscape Disturbance, and…

  • July 11, 2016
  • Dianne Meili

Scholar and politician succeeded despite Indian Act restrictions

 

At a time when his people were so restricted by the Indian Act they were barely surviving, Len Marchand began his rise to the highest ranks of power in this country.

“He was born into a world of Indian agents, where his people could not vote, and where a university degree or serving in the…