Page 15

Laughing at pain, poverty and oppression won't make them go away, but it will make those problems seem smaller and easier to handle. That seems to be the message that Don Burnstick brings with him when he speaks to young people.

You can see it working. At the end of a two-day youth conference at the Saskatoon Inn on Feb. 3, the hotel lobby was jammed with teenagers waiting for their rides back home. Burnstick was making his way to the parking lot after spending the two days as the undisputed star of the gathering.

Page 14

British Columbia's legislative attempt to protect Indigenous culture by limiting cross-cultural adoptions has hit a snag at the Supreme Court of Canada.

In a ruling that came just days after arguments were heard, the court awarded custody of a three-year-old boy of Aboriginal heritage to a non-Native couple in their 70s, ruling that the British Columbia Court of Appeals judge who reversed the trial judge's decision and awarded custody to the Aboriginal grandparent had over-stepped the limits of an appellate court's powers.

Page 13

Trapping has never been an easy life. But for an estimated 80,000 Canadians, half of them Native, trapping wild animals for fur is still a major source of income. That way of life is about to get a lot harder as the federal government forces trappers to switch to quick-kill traps to satisfy European animal-rights activists.

Page 12

Although the Atlantic regional office of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is not about to pull up the tent pegs and relocate overnight, it might happen in the not too distant future. At least that is what one chief of a New Brunswick First Nation hopes.

Page 11

Book tours and readings. They can be an author's best friend provided you sell oodles and oodles of books allowing you, as a Canadian writer, the option of ordering a better class of cable television. Or it can be your worst nightmare - you sell none and lose your precious television.

Page 10

It was a long hard battle for the members of the Chippewas of Nawash to win recognition of their fishing rights. And Chief Ralph Akiwenzie won't tolerate anyone who threatens them or the health of the fishery, he said.

"These rights are communal rights. They don't belong to any individual or group," he contends.

Akiwenzie made the remarks in response to the formation of an independent association of Native fishermen. The 45-member group includes fishermen from the Nawash reserve at Cape Croker on the Bruce Peninsula and the Chippewas of Saugeen to the south.

Page 9

The 18-month re-investigation into the severe beating Cecil Bernard George suffered at the hands of police during his arrest did not result in any charges being laid against members of the Ontario Provincial Police.

George was one of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation protesters involved in the blockade at Ipperwash Provincial Park in 1995. George was beaten into unconsciousness and suffered 28 visible wounds to his body apparently inflicted by clubs and by repeatedly being kicked, said sources.

Page 8

"It's the end of a colonial era and it's the end of a very long process," said John Amagolik, chair of the Nunavut Interim Implementation Commission.

Amagolik is referring to the Feb. 15 elections that saw 19 new members of the legislature form the first official government of Nunavut, the new territory of the eastern Arctic.

The process that started in 1971 towards the Nunavut land claim has involved some very difficult negotiations, he said. For the people that live in the eastern half of the north, it's the end of a very long process.

Page 7

The Alberta government's Limitations Act took effect on March 1 and people who are contemplating a lawsuit against the province for harm they may have suffered in residential schools, or as a result of state-sponsored sterilization under the province's old eugenics laws, should be aware the clock is now ticking.

Implementation of the private members bill which became law in 1996 was delayed until this year so the various government agencies could prepare for the change.

Page 7

For Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon, often described as the "Mr. Clean" of provincial politics, the inquiry looking into allegations of a vote-splitting plan hatched by Tory party insiders is revealing a mess that is starting to tarnish the premier's image.