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 10
Ken Deane has appealed police adjudicator Loyall Cann's decision that he must resign or be dismissed from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) for discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act.
"We can't fire him now," OPP Superintendent Rick Kotwa said. "He has a right to appeal and we have to follow the process."
The appeal will eventually be heard by the…
Page 10
The recently departed premier of Ontario, Mike Harris, filed a statement of claim alleging libel against Bell Globemedia Publishing, Inc., the corporate owner of the Globe and Mail on Feb. 15.
Harris is asking the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to award him $15 million in damages, saying five sentences in a Dec. 14 story contained "false and defamatory" information.…
Page 10
A number of Aboriginal leaders have come together to repeat their call for action against a Quebec Superior Court Judge who they claim discriminated against an Aboriginal women during his handling of a case to decide custody of her twin daughters.
The complaints against Judge Frank Barakett were lodged in October 2000 by the Assembly of First Nations, the Quebec Native…
Page 9
Quebec Crees have approved one of the most lucrative development agreements ever signed by an Indigenous group, but a painful debate over the deal has left bitter feelings in the nine far-flung communities of James Bay.
Crees voted to accept the landmark $3.4-billion deal with Quebec in a series of referendums that has left lingering questions about a mediocre turnout and…
Page 8
A two-day gathering of chiefs that is not an officially-sanctioned Assembly of First Nations meeting has an agenda that could drive a permanent wedge between warring First Nations factions.
The agenda includes a lengthy leadership forum and the announcement of a "First Nations declaration" and "the presentation of a First Nations political agenda."
AFN sources say…
Page 6
National Chief Matthew Coon Come has been saying for a long time that the way the Canadian public views spending on Aboriginal people has been skewed by political spinning and racist attitudes.
A report issued recently by the national chief's staff uses government numbers to make the case for that claim.
The Assembly of First Nations fact sheet, entitled The First…
Page 6
It's a plaintive cry of the political right in Canada that has become a familiar mantra in the mainstream national media and elsewhere in the country.
They bleat, $7 billion each year is "spent on Indians," with the unspoken message that it's too much and something must be done and soon.
Never is a word written about exactly how much of that money gets chewed up by…
Page 5
Little notice has been taken of the fact that the terrorist attack of Sept. 11 was apparently carried out by right-wing fanatics representing an ultra-conservative, reactionary, and patriarchal ideology. If we are to believe the information that we are receiving from the U.S. government, the attackers were of Muslim background belonging to extremely "fundamentalist" factions with…
Page 5
Dear Editor:
I just had to write this short letter to let you know I was so happy to read your article in the Windspeaker paper. I'm one of the Bill C-31s. I'm so happy to see someone trying to do something about it. Us Native women lost so much when we married white men, and white women gained so much marrying Native men, which was so unfair from the beginning.
I…
Page 5
When we think of traditional food, some folks get a vision of a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a family box of fries. However, we are going to go right back to square one, back to a time when we didn't have any teeth, or should I say babyhood. It was kind of hard to chew the old bird then, wasn't it?
To many of us who came from families who lived partially off of…
Page 5
Dear Editor:
I am an Aboriginal nurse working with the Kwakiutl District Council Health Office. The cutbacks in health care across the country will definitely have an impact on Aboriginal people.
Many First Nations members are reluctant to go to a physician at the best of times. They do not like to bother people for things, and sometimes are reluctant to ask for…
Page 4
Once again, I find myself in a position of having to move house and body, and like many people who occasionally find themselves nomadic, I look with foreboding at my shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books that line my walls. I have never actually counted them, but I'm sure they are high up into the high hundreds, maybe even the thousands. Eventually, they will all have to be…
Page 4
There's a story in this month's issue and we want to emphasize an important point that's made between the lines.
The story is about the process of adding regulations to legislation after the fact, a development that Canadian Alliance co-chair of the Joint Committee of Scrutiny of Regulations Gurmant Grewal has a big problem with.
He says the government is happy to…
Page 3
As the alternate member of Canada's Olympic men's curling team, Ken Tralnberg got his chance to throw a few rocks at the 2002 games in Salt Lake City. When he wasn't in the lineup, the Dene man originally from northern Saskatchewan was supposed to have the best seat in the house to watch his Kevin Martin rink take on the world and bring home the gold.
In the final against…
Page 3
Sources are saying the Indian Affairs minister has given the Joint Ministerial Advisory Committee (JMAC) an "absolute deadline" of March 8 to finalize its recommendations on what should be in the First Nations governance act.
After that the JMAC report will go to the Justice department for drafting and probably be introduced for first reading in the House of Commons in…