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.
Page 17
NASIVVIK
Great institutions devoted to the promotion of human rights exist in many countries, with awesome-sounding charters backing them up to protect their citizens.
In light of this, it's a wonder that human rights are in any way broken or disregarded. Yet, violations of them happen all too often, many people victimized from unlikely places, including…
Page 17
PRO BONO
Dear Tuma:
I am just wondering if this practice is allowed: There will be elections for chief and councillors soon on our reserve. The receptionist is the chief's daughter and she is making campaign posters and letters for her father from the band office where she works. She is also handing them out to the public, not to mention the fact that she is using…
Page 17
MEDIUM RARE
A few years ago, a journalist at CBC Radio asked in private if I had ever, personally, experienced racial profiling. I blinked. I pointed out the reason that I was being interviewed by CBC Radio at that time was precisely because I was an Aboriginal person and I would be asked to comment about only Aboriginal issues.
CBC's reporter wasn't interested in…
Page 16
Joshua Fraser
-Vice-president, Youth
Aboriginal Peoples' Commission
Recommends:
History of the Ojibway People
by William W. Warren
Minnesota Historical Society Press-1885
I first read History of the Ojibway People as research for a paper I was writing on Ojibway people for a college senior-level Indigenous anthropology course.…
Page 16
Without Reservation:
Indigenous Erotica
Edited by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm
Kegedonce Press
213 pages (sc)
$24.50
Without Reservation is a collection of poetry and prose by Aboriginal writers from Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, Samoa, and Australia, co-published by Canada's Kegedonce Press and New Zealand's Huia Publishers. The subtitle…
Page 15
Album-
Ain't No Turnin' Back
Song-I'm A Lucky One
Label-Independent
Producer-
Jonathan Garlow
Rap group Tru Rez Crew had a good night in Toronto on Nov. 28, performing as part of the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, and then going home with awards in both of the categories in which they were nominated. The new TRC CD Ain't No Turnin'…
Page 14
Lucie Idlout could not think of a more appropriate person to anoint her as the new queen of Canadian Aboriginal music.
Idlout was presented with her award for best female artist at this year's Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards by Leela Gilday, who won in that category last year. Idlout and Gilday hail from the North, Idlout from Nunavut and Gilday from Yellowknife.
…Page 13
The 10th annual Canadian Aboriginal Festival was staged Nov. 28 to 30 in Toronto at SkyDome, and was arguably the best to date.
The festival is considered North America's largest Aboriginal multi-disciplined arts event, with a powwow featuring about 1,000 dancers in the grand entry alone. About 35,000 people attending the three-day event.
Festival co-ordinator Ron…
Page 12
Jani Lauzon has brought life to puppets on a long list of children's shows from Mr. Dressup to Tales from the Longhouse. She recently won a Gemini for her role as the puppet Seeka in Wumpa's World in the Best Performance in a Pre-School Program or Series category, the first time a Metis professional puppeteer has won the award.
Windspeaker: What one quality do you most…
Page 11
It was approaching 5 p.m. on Day 2 of the three-day confederacy scheduled by the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa Dec. 9 to 11. The chiefs had begun plowing through a backlog of unfinished business, much of it put on the backburner for the last year or so to allow the organization to focus on the battle against the First Nations governance legislation.
Some chiefs…
Page 11
Just a few months after he was appointed chief of staff of the Assembly of First Nations, Manny Jules resigned.
He was conspicuously absent from the chiefs' meeting on Dec. 9, the opening day of the Confederacy of Nations in Ottawa. It turned out there was very good reason for his absence.
"The First Nation Fiscal and Statistical Management act is good for my…
Page 10
It was a jubilant Chief Victor Buffalo who spoke to Windspeaker on Dec. 3. Less than two hours earlier, lawyers representing his Samson Cree Nation had persuaded the Federal Court of Canada to grant their request to call outgoing prime minister Jean Chretien as a witness in their billion-dollar breach of treaty and trust case against the government.
Mr. Justice Max…
Page 9
Chiefs across the country are outraged by the Indian Affairs policy that puts them into third party management if they run a deficit.
Under-funded programs and the costs of administering a community in a remote location are not taken into account, several chiefs said during the Assembly of First Nation Confederacy held in Ottawa Dec. 9 o 11.
The department of Indian…
Page 9
The Assembly of First Nation (AFN) came close to self-destructing during the early hours of its December 2003 Confederacy in Ottawa. A fight over how business is done at AFN meetings broke out shortly after the assembly began, and the dispute brought the organization dangerously close to the edge of a cliff, with either one of the two largest regions ready to call the AFN quits…
Page 8
All is well between Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Phil Fontaine and Ontario Regional Chief Charles Fox, they say, but Fox is still fixed in the sights of another member of the AFN's executive board-Rick Simon.
"Regional Chief Charles Fox and I met today. We buried the hatchet, so to speak," Fontaine said Dec. 9 during the AFN Confederacy in Ottawa. "I'd…