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Established in 1983 to serve the needs of northern Alberta, Windspeaker became a national newspaper on its 10th anniversary in 1993.
On a rooftop in Toronto’s busy downtown, a native garden with a sweatlodge, traditional plants and an area for a healing circle connects the city’s Native clients with their culture.
Designed by Levitt Goodman architects, the recently opened garden completes a three-year re-development project undertaken by Native Child and Family Services of a deserted office building at 30 College…
Windspeaker: What one quality do you most value in a friend?
Gerald Auger: Trust. I am in an industry where I have to follow my instincts to determine who I want around me and I always ask myself “Why are they wanting to be around me?” I am so used to having people take me for granted because of my caring and giving qualities and for who I know in the industry. I am at a point in my…
A Seattle-based filmmaker is trying to explore the many worlds in which Indigenous people walk.
“I’m very interested in finding these stories of contemporary Native people,” said Tracy Rector. “We are a huge part of urban communities and we’re trying to figure ourselves out.”
Her most recent work, UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong, is a 14-minute documentary about the West Coast…
It’s been three years since the United Nations ratified the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also marks three years since Canada was one of only four countries globally to reject the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Since then, Australia and New Zealand have reversed their decisions and now endorse the declaration, and the U.S. has implied that it…
If the future of a country is its youth, then Canada’s future is increasingly Aboriginal. Canada’s Aboriginal youth population is growing at three times the national average. It is and will be a force to be reckoned with. But whether these youth are a force for positive change and economic growth will be determined by the actions all of us take.
Improving Aboriginal education is not an…
One of funny man Charlie Hill’s best jokes deals with the Caucasian preoccupation with digging up or building on Indian burial grounds. Charlie Hill is the well-known Oneida comedian from Wisconsin who has been tickling the American funny bone with his Native humor for more than 30 years.
This particular joke goes something like “White people always blame Native people when their house…
Clement Chartier remains frustrated with his people’s plight to be included en masse in residential schools compensation payments. That frustration became evident in his fourth appearance before the senate, this time making his presentation to the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples on Sept. 28.
Chartier, president of the Métis National Council, said, “As I mentioned on the three…
For 11 years, Xstine Cook has been trying to realize her goal to honor a woman struck down by violence.
Gloria Black Plume’s body was found in an alleyway in the South East area of Ramsay in Calgary. She had been stomped to death.
“I actually lived down the block when it happened and for some reason it really deeply affected me,” Cook said. “For four nights I went down to the…
THE EABAMETOONG FIRST NATION
made headlines in October when Chief Lewis Nate sent up a flare for all the world to see in his attempt to get help for his embattled community. The community is remote, about 300 km northeast of Thunder Bay in Ontario, accessible only by plane, and home to only 1,200 people, but it has seen its share of violent activity this year, with three…
Not everyone is entirely pleased with the work undertaken to date by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Conservative Senator Carolyn Stewart-Olsen from New Brunswick expressed displeasure when TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair and commissioners Chief Wilton Littlechild and Marie Wilson appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples on Sept. 28.
“Not to…
There is no turning a blind eye to the fact that young Indigenous woman in Canada are five times more likely to have their life ended by violent death.
Métis artist Jaime Black has created a project that may just elevate the awareness of that fact and bring some comfort to the families of the missing Aboriginal women throughout Indian Country.
Red Dresses, simply put, can make a…
Neither Health Canada nor the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) are speaking out about the resignation of Rod McCormick.
McCormick, a Mohawk psychologist and professor of counseling at the University of British Columbia, made it known when he was in Edmonton in September that he had resigned his position as a mental health consultant with Health Canada. He was tasked with co-…
THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS REPORTS
that Aboriginal populations are vulnerable to H1N1 because Canada hasn’t made improving Aboriginal living conditions a priority. Or so says the chair of Canada’s provincial chief medical officers of health Dr. Isaac Sobol.He is Nunavut’s chief medical officer of health. Sobol was speaking to a Senate committee discussing Canada’s pandemic…
Dear Editor:
Being a past Band councillor and board/committee member for my First Nation, I have come to the realization that it does not matter how many bylaws, policies, rules and procedures a First Nation has, it does not mean a darn thing if they are not followed.
I was first elected to my council in 1992 and from then I have spent a lot of my time caring about my First Nations…
So here in Canada we expect that our leaders will be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Or, in more refined terms, will be able to juggle many files on many fronts simultaneously. So you can imagine our disappointment with the Harper Conservatives. Apparently, there is only one ball in the air for them. And that’s the “get a majority and disregard any other priority,” agenda item. And…