Robin Campbell, minister of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, said he will be consulting with Aboriginal communities before finishing up a land-use plan for southern Alberta. “I’ve asked my department to take a second look at some things because I want to make sure we’re doing it right and that we’ve engaged all of the stakeholders,” Campbell told the Calgary Herald. The upcoming South Saskatchewan plan covers all of southern Alberta, which includes 13 First Nations and one Métis nation.

Brion Energy Corp.’s Dover oil sands project was given approval by the Alberta cabinet on March 13 after the company and Fort McKay First Nation reached an out-of-court agreement.  The Dover oil sands project is a 250,000-barrel-a-day steam-driven bitumen project. Brion is 60-per-cent owned by PetroChina; Calgary-based Athabasca Oil Corp. has the rest. Brion still requires an approval from the province’s environment department, a process that normally takes two to four weeks following the cabinet decision.

Premier Allison Redford stepped down on March 23, turning over the reins of the province to David Hancock. She announced her intention on March 20. Redford was a strong proponent of controversial pipeline projects that were being protested by First Nations and Energy Minister Diana McQueen said the government will continue to back proposals from Enbridge, Kinder Morgan and TransCanada. Redford came under heavy criticism for her $45,000 price tag on her South African trip for President Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

The release of a report about the state of cancer in the Fort Chipewyan area has First Nations leaders incensed despite Alberta Chief Medical Offer Dr. James Talbot’s claim that the government’s hand was forced through a request for information put in by a third party. “This is gross negligence. The leaders of Fort Chipewyan have been requesting a thorough analysis on incidences of cancer in our community for years.

Sometimes emotional trauma emerges years after the fact. This was the case for Margaret Larocque. The Cree woman was in four different residential schools over the course of nine years.

Alex Janvier is best known as a successful visual artist. When he speaks in public, art is usually the topic of the talk. However, on March 27, Janvier spoke not as an artist, but as a survivor of the residential school system to a panel of church leaders at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final national event in Edmonton.

Edmonton
March 27-30, 2014

Gladstone inducted as honourary witness for TRC

Jim Gladstone (centre) with Truth and Reconciliation Commission members Dr. Marie Wilson and Chief Wilton Littlechild was inducted as an honourary witness at the seventh and final national event in Edmonton. Gladstone, from the Blood reserve, is world champion in calf roping and a lawyer, with expertise in the oil and gas sector.

Celebrating forgotten birthdays in style

The Métis fiddlers from Prince Charles school performed at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s birthday party on the final day of the seventh national event. The birthday celebrations recognize all those children who attended residential schools but never had their birthdays marked.

When her tribal council at Soda Creek started looking at the social dysfunction and chaos in its Northern British Columbia community in the 1990s, there was no escaping its source. “All roads led back to the residential schools,” said Bev Sellars.