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.
APTN NATIONAL NEWS REPORTS THE HARPER GOVERNMENT
has cut $60 million from Aboriginal organizations’ core and project funding over three years, with Inuit groups hit the hardest.
The news organization had obtained a copy of an Assembly of First Nations analysis based on federal numbers as of Jan. 7. “First Nations organizations absorbed 65.5 per cent worth of cuts… Métis…
THE COASTAL FIRST NATIONS AND THE COUNCIL
and hereditary leadership of the Gitga’at First Nation have launched a constitutional challenge against British Columbia to compel the province to exercise its decision-making power over the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. The petition says B.C. is required to review the impacts of the project and make a decision as to whether it should…
A GENETIC MUTATION RESPONSIBLE FOR GLYCOGEN STORAGE
disease type IIIa has been identified in Inuit in northern Quebec by a team of Canadian and Japanese researchers. They reported their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Glycogen storage disease type IIIa is an inherited metabolic disorder that interferes with the body’s ability to release sugar from…
ALDERVILLE FIRST NATION HAS WON A MINISTER'S AWARD
for Environmental Excellence for its efforts in protecting the Black Oak Savanna from development and restoring the rare ecosystems. The 150 acres of former farmland is home to more than 20 species at risk and 163 species of birds. The award was presented by Glen Murray, minister of the Environment and Climate for Ontario, on Jan. 20.…
Art Sterritt regrets that his desire to meet with former Assembly of First Nations national chiefs Shawn Atleo and Ovide Mercredi was made public before he had a chance to pick up the telephone, but he notes that Atleo and Mercredi, now advisors with Pacific Future Energy, could have got in contact with him.
“We have a couple of people who’ve come in, gone to work for an oil company and…
Need to look up a word in the Plains Cree language? There’s an app for that.
Well, not quite, but there will be a software package available in the near future.
Plains Cree is the first language that is part of the project “21st Century Tools for Indigenous Languages,” which “aims at developing software tools that support the revitalization and the continued use of Indigenous…
Indigenous rights activist fought colonialism
After signing up to work in Africa with CUSO right out of university, Marie Smallface-Marule was primed to defend Indigenous rights on a global scale.
Only 22, the first woman from the Kainai Nation in southern Alberta to earn a post-secondary education – with a degree in anthropology and sociology – stepped into the unknown by…
Not even two weeks after Perry Bellegarde was elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Ottawa passed Bill C-428, the Indian Act Amendment and Replacement Act, legislation strongly opposed by First Nations.
“The federal government is unnecessarily adversarial,” said Bellegarde. “They’ve moved beyond free, prior and informed consent. They don’t respect the duty to consult…
Yet another court ruling has come down telling Ottawa it needs to consult with First Nations, but there’s a difference with the decision rendered by Justice Roger Hughes on Dec. 19.
In the Mikisew Cree Nation’s challenge of the federal government’s decision to push through Omnibus bills C-38 and C-45 in 2012, the court tells Ottawa when that consultation needs to take place.
“Up…
Two weeks after a ruling that the class action lawsuit known as the ‘Sixties Scoop’ was allowed to proceed, the federal government filed a notice of appeal.
On Dec. 2, 2014, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed an appeal by the federal government to halt the class action lawsuit. On Dec. 17, the appeal of that decision was in play.
“The federal Crown has sought leave to appeal…
The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke has added one more law that challenges federal authority in its community.
“It’s a jurisdictional dispute. We are the elected council in the community … we have operated outside the scope of Indian Act. We have taken mandates from the community and developed in their own jurisdiction and territory so we’ve been creating laws … for many years,”…
The Urbane Indian
I am a playwright, amongst a few other related professions. More specifically, a First Nation playwright, a contemporary storyteller, a teller of tales both dark and amusing.
I, like many of my fellow literary artists, spend my career writing about the issues and problems faced by our present day Native population. For many, it’s a way of dealing with the…
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is promising a scathing – and sweeping - report on the federal government and Canadian society.
“Our work of truth telling and truth collecting was not easy. We had challenges throughout,” said TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair, at the Special Chiefs Assembly in December in Winnipeg. He said he expected this to be the last time he addressed the…
Isolation. Seg. The Hole. The Cooler. Special Handling Unit (pronounced “shoe”).
There are many terms for the segregation cells for prisoners banned from mingling with their peers behind bars. But a new lawsuit is seeking to curb the “over-reliance” on solitary confinement in Canada, particularly in cases when no offence was committed to warrant isolation.
Prisoner advocates John…
The new national chief for the Assembly of First Nations has put Ottawa on notice.
In his acceptance speech, Perry Bellegarde said, “Business as usual…that is not on. First Nations people will oppose any development which deprives our children of the legacy of our ancestors. We will no longer accept poverty and hopelessness while resource companies and governments grow fat off our lands…