Federal health funding to improve facilities, services

A new protocol agreement in British Columbia is all about collaboration, and realizing the goals of the Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education and Training Policy Framework and Action Plan, penned in 2012.

The agreement was signed July 8 by Advanced Education Minister Andrew Wilkinson, First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) President Tyrone McNeil and Indigenous Adult and Higher Learning Association (IAHLA) Chair Verna Billy-Minnabarriet in Vancouver.

 
On July 7, Catherine McKenna, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, joined the Council of the Haida Nation President Kil tlaats ‘gaa Peter Lantin to announce more than $650,000 in infrastructure investments in Gwaii Haanas.

The investments will support projects that directly benefit the Haida’s use of the area, as well as new visitor experiences.

 
The University of Victoria is setting up shop in Saskatoon, bringing a Master’s degree in Indigenous language to the prairie city.

UVic already offers a successful—and the only—master’s degree in the country specializing in Indigenous language revitalization, and it has drawn people from across Canada.

Now the program travels east from British Columbia to the University of Saskatchewan.

Urban reconciliation welcome
 
In the 1950s and ‘60s I grew up in the west end of Toronto where I attended public and high schools in the now defunct Etobicoke School Board.

As a child, I really did not understand that I was being treated differently from my classmates simply because I was recognized as an Indian.

As an adult, I have come to understand that my negative treatment was the result of the same social attitudes that were responsible for the residential school system and its deplorable treatment of Aboriginal students.

Quinn Meawasige believes that the 145 recommendations that came from a coroner’s jury earlier this week have firmly at the centre of them the seven young people who died over an 11-year period in the city of Thunder Bay.

“I think their stories were very much a part of the inquest,” said Meawasige, member of the Ontario First Nations Young People’s Council, which participated in the inquest and contributed to the recommendations considered by the five-member jury.

The Iroquois Nationals will be among those looking to dethrone the only team that has ever won the world boys’ under-19 field lacrosse championship.

The 2016 tournament, which runs July 7 to July 16 in Coquitlam, B.C., will feature 14 entrants.

The United States has captured the gold medal at all seven previous world tournaments. The event was first held in 1988.

Early on and in recent times the tournament was held every four years. But there has also been as little as three years and as many as five years between events.

Grassy Narrows First Nation and supporters continue to hike up the pressure on Premier Kathleen Wynne and the Ontario government to clean up the Wabigoon-English River systems of toxic mercury waste.

On July 7, prominent environmental, labour and social justice leaders marched through downtown Toronto to the Ontario Legislature where they delivered a canoe filled with letters and petitions representing more than 35,000 people.

They were met with a strong police presence and a fence barring entry to the legislative buildings.

The Blueberry River First Nation now has substantial evidence their traditional territory is being infringed upon.

In fact, it’s being more than infringed upon, according to a report released by the First Nation, with help from the David Suzuki Foundation, and EcoTrust Canada.

The three parties worked together to develop The Atlas of Cumulative Landscape Disturbance, and uncovered disturbing statistics about the commercial use of Blueberry River First Nation’s traditional lands.

Scholar and politician succeeded despite Indian Act restrictions

At a time when his people were so restricted by the Indian Act they were barely surviving, Len Marchand began his rise to the highest ranks of power in this country.

“He was born into a world of Indian agents, where his people could not vote, and where a university degree or serving in the war meant losing your status and the right to live on the land,” wrote Lori Marchand in a tribute to her dad on his 80^th birthday.