It is the hope of the Monto installation organizers that the list-minute addition to the three-day Edmonton Folk Festival in early August will result in dialogue.

“There needs to be some difficult conversations and openness created,” said Dawn Marie Marchand, one of the Monto organizers. “During the Folk Festival, the different worldview was apparent. One lady told me that our people just need to ‘get over residential school and move on’.”

The idea for the installation came about at a Wicihtowin Art and Culture Action Circle meeting Marchand attended.

A Daughter of the Year award for April Wiberg is fitting for the cause she has been recognized for: remembering lost daughters through the Stolen Sisters Awareness Movement.

Wiberg organized the first Stolen Sisters Awareness Walk in 2007. Since then, her organization has worked in partnership with local Edmonton groups and in conjunction with the Native Women’s Association of Canada’s Sisters-in-Spirit vigil to raise awareness of Indigenous women and girls who have been murdered or gone missing.

First Nations are seeking legal advice on Bill 22, the province’s Aboriginal Consultation Levy Act.

“Treaty rights are not being fully recognized. It’s not just about hunting, fishing and trapping. This is about governance and nation to nation partnership, it’s about developing models for co-management and co-governance of our lands and resources,” said Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam.

It is the recommendation of Justice Bart Rosborough that the province examine what the Kasohkowew Child Wellness Society claims to be a disparity in funding for children in care on reserves and if that disparity exists that the province enter into negotiations with the federal government.

The chair of the Alberta Aboriginal Commission on Human Rights and Justice is pushing for a meeting with the head of the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team following a spate of RCMP-involved shootings of Aboriginal men. Two of the three incidences in August resulted in deaths.

“A letter will be sent to them … regarding our concerns that when they consider and are studying these incidents by the police that they consider that racism might be a motivation or an important factor in how the police respond,” said Commission Chair Muriel Stanley Venne.

OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Networks is hoping that a recent partnership with the Canadian Blood Services in Edmonton, Vancouver, and Thunder Bay has raised awareness that there is a desperate need for Aboriginal stem cell donors.  

“Matching donors to patients happens on a genetic level with stem cells, so the likelihood of someone finding a match depends on the type of heritage that they have,” said Olga Pazukha, communications specialist for the OneMatch Network. “If anyone ever needs a donor, that donor is going to be of Aboriginal descent.”

An Aboriginal-owned corporation that is a major player in the Alberta oil sands industry has a new name and look.

Following a two-year rebranding process, Acden was born, replacing the Fort McMurray-based Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Business Group.

A dispute over development gets physical

Read more: http://www.ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/dispute-over-development-gets-physical