Welcome to AMMSA.COM, the news archive website for our family of Indigenous news publications.
Established in 1983 to serve the needs of northern Alberta, Windspeaker became a national newspaper on its 10th anniversary in 1993.
New plaques commemorating a 600 year-old Aboriginal village site were recently unveiled before a group of eager Ontario secondary school students.
Students packed into the library where a special ceremony was held at Scarborough's Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School on Nov. 14 to recognize an ancestral Huron-Wendat village that was unearthed during a 2001 archeological dig. The school is…
A wink and a wave from Pope Benedict XVI was all that members of Indian Brook First Nation (Nova Scotia) needed to make their trip to Rome in October worthwhile.
Forty-eight people made the 10-day trip. The group included 14 survivors from Shubenacadie Indian Residential School and half a dozen day school survivors.
There were also elders, family members of school survivors, and…
Canada's Native population lives in lucky times. Today's film and television glows with fairly accurate Aboriginal representation. Some days it's like you can't turn on the television without seeing Gordon Tootoosis, Adam Beach, Tantoo Cardinal, Graham Greene or Gary Farmer staring back at you.
Not that many decades ago, almost all the Indian faces on screen were not in fact Indigenous…
The United States made history on Nov. 4 when its citizens elected Barack Obama, an African-American, as their president.
He did it for his Democratic Party in convincing fashion as well, winning the popular vote handily, and the Electoral with more than 360 votes compared to Republican John McCain's 170-plus.
As that country worked to overcome its troubled racial history with the…
On Nov. 13, the Premier of British Columbia danced with the children of Tla-o-qui-aht in celebration of a new kind of treaty agreement their leadership had negotiated with the province.
Gordon Campbell was wrapped in a black shawl bordered with the small, painted hand-prints of the young people before he signed what is being hailed as the first-ever incremental treaty (ITA).
He…
In 1929, with a decision in the landmark "Persons Case," women became legally recognized as "persons" under Canadian law.
Nearly 80 years later, Beverley Jacobs is still fighting to ensure that Aboriginal women receive that same level of respect.
On Nov. 7, Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), received one of the country's highest honours, the…
After the October resignation of Justice Harry LaForme as chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), closed door meetings have been held to decide how the commission should proceed.
The meetings, held on Nov. 7 and Nov. 20, were facilitated by Justice Frank Iacobucci, who was instrumental in the development of the Indian Residential Schools…
After the October resignation of Justice Harry LaForme as chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), closed door meetings have been held to decide how the commission should proceed.
The meetings, held on Nov. 7 and Nov. 20, were facilitated by Justice Frank Iacobucci, who was instrumental in the development of the Indian Residential Schools…
After the October resignation of Justice Harry LaForme as chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), closed door meetings have been held to decide how the commission should proceed.
The meetings, held on Nov. 7 and Nov. 20, were facilitated by Justice Frank Iacobucci, who was instrumental in the development of the Indian Residential Schools…
A report released in November by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is "probably extremely misleading to the uninformed," contends Westbank First Nation Chief Robert Louie.
Report author Mark Milke, former director with CTF and presently director of research for the Frontier Centre, makes no new recommendations in the report entitled "Life is Better in the Cities: How Canada's Aboriginal…
THE CHIEFS OF ONTARIO
honoured Sam George at a gala and benefit concert held Nov. 19 during their Special Chiefs Assembly in Toronto. Sam George was lauded for his work in seeking justice for his brother Dudley George and the community of Kettle and Stony Point. Dudley was shot by a police officer while involved in a land protest at Ipperwash Park in 1995.
"Sam George has set the…
GLOBE AND MAIL COLUMNIST
Margaret Wente has pushed the envelope with her commentary on Aboriginal peoples before, but nothing like when she came charging to the defence of McGill University Chancellor Richard Pound for his remark that Canada was a land of savages 400 years ago; a comment that resulted in Canada-wide condemnation.
Wente said the remark was stupid, because in today's…
An open letter for Remembrance Day:
On a day when Canadians from all walks of life paused and reflected on the supreme sacrifices of so many men and women who fought and died for our freedom, the First Nations Leadership Council (British Columbia) joined with them in recognizing and saluting the contribution of veterans, and specifically First Nations veterans, to serving their country…
We have to take issue with a column published by The StarPheonix on Nov. 7 written by Doug Cuthand, who, in his backhanded way, was attempting to congratulate President-elect Barack Obama on his historic win on Nov. 4 in the United States.
The column begins "It is said that when something is useless and worn out, it's given to the coloured folks."
Cuthand writes that George Bush has…
Outside the community centre in an artsy tourist town near Calgary, a white horse stands easily, indifferent to the burden laid across her back: a magnificent spotted loon skin spread upon a tanned animal hide.
The horse takes no heed of the hundreds of people milling about her, speaking animatedly, except to lower her head when a child breaks from its parents to come and pet her nose.…