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Community focused with a grassroots appeal. Established in 1993 to serve the needs of the Indigenous people of Alberta.
Alberta will still be sending a rather large contingent to this year’s North American Indigenous Games, but the provincial entry will be attending without many of the athletes who qualified.
Ron Buffalo, who serves as the chef de mission for the Alberta squad, said several athletes who earned the right to represent the province at this year’s NAIG, scheduled for July 20-27 have…
Juno Award winners A Tribe Called Red (above) will highlight this year’s Calgary Folk Music Festival. The group, which hails from Ottawa, consists of two-time Canadian DMC Champion DJ Shub, DJ NDN and DJ Bear Witness, and mixes traditional pow wow vocals and drumming with cutting-edge electronic music. The lineup will also showcase other North American Indigenous performers including Eya-Hey…
Youth participants, volunteers, and Bridges team members during the Grand Entry, facing Elder and honoured guest Randy Bottle who opened the day with a prayer and supportive words for the youth.
Aboriginal youth showcased
On April 12, Bridges Social Development hosted its annual Aboriginal Youth Explosion at Mount Royal University’s Wyckham House. This…
Turning a negative experience into positive action
Chevi Rabbitt (second from right) recently received the 2014 Hate Crime Awareness Youth Award from Minister of Justice and Solicitor General Jonathan Denis. In response to being assaulted in the university area in 2012 by three men who yelled anti-gay remarks at him, Rabbitt organized the first “Hate to Hope March and…
As a young man, Dale Belcourt went through a difficult period. Born in the Lesser Slave Lake area, he spent much of his childhood passed between families in Vancouver. But it was when he returned to Alberta at the age of 14 that his life began spinning out of control and he was in and out of institutions. It was in one of those institutions that he discovered he could paint. His art work…
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi has proclaimed March 27, 2014-March 27, 2015 as the Year of Reconciliation. It is the first time in the city’s history that a year-long proclamation has been made.
Nenshi’s announcement was made at the final national event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Indian Residential Schools held in Edmonton in March. Nenshi had letters of support from…
The statistics are staggering: 68 per cent of children in government care in Alberta today are Aboriginal.
“When the residential schools were winding down in the 1960s, the child welfare system simply became a place where they replaced the residential school system and damaged a lot of our culture,” said Bernadette Iahtail, executive director of Creating Hope Society.
Iahtail and…
Driftpile First Nation Chief Rose Laboucan anticipates changes in federal health care will soon be coming, but she didn’t hear that from federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose.
Laboucan, representing Treaty 8, was joined by Chief Charles Weaselhead from Treaty 7 and Chief Rusty Threefingers from Treaty 6, also leaders of the Health Co-Management Committee, in a closed-door meeting with…
Nearly a month after the Enoch Cree Nation closed its golf course and historic cultural grounds because of the fear of unexploded munitions, a meeting called by Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada on May 1 with the band and the Department of National Defence has yielded very little new information – and has brought the band no closer to re-opening Indian Lakes Golf Course and…
Eriel Deranger, from Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (left) and Crystal Lameman (right), from Beaver Cree First Nation, flank singer-songwriter activist Neil Young at the Cowboy Indian Alliance’s “Reject and Protect” protest in Washington at the end of April. The protest was aimed at TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Alberta to the Texas Gulf coast. The…
Aboriginal offenders now face a better chance of receiving a court sentence that fits their personal circumstances.
In April, the provincial government announced that it would provide $200,000 to Native Counselling Services of Alberta to coordinate and undertake Gladue Reports. Gladue Reports were created as a result of a Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1999 and further enforced in…
Don Langford thinks the government is moving in the right direction when it comes to changes to the child intervention system, but he is not totally sold on the amendments proposed in Bill 11.
“I support the minister … but I’m concerned about how much push back will he get from the rank and file, from his ministry….How much do they support him?” said Langford, executive director with…
Sherri Rinkel Mackay (standing) teacher from Glenbow School, in Cochrane, directs students from Pakan school, in Good Fish Lake (from left)) Alainna Favel, teacher Kim Faithful, Raelee Cardinal, and Lakeisha Halfe in the Warrior Paint project during Education Day at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s seventh and final national event in Edmonton. Last year, the First Nations and Métis…
The new Masson Family Endowment and Masson Family First Nations Transition Program Award at the University of Lethbridge will support both the university’s First Nations Transition Program as well as individual FNTP students. Alumnus Richard Masson, who established the fund, said, “I started with pretty meager financial resources, so I’m a big believer in helping students out financially.”…
Syncrude has reached a major milestone by passing the $2-billion mark in business conducted with Aboriginal-owned companies. Syncrude first began tracking the amount of goods and services procured from Aboriginal-owned companies in 1992 as part of its commitment to business development in its Aboriginal Relations Program. “Even before we began production in 1978, Syncrude’s founding president…