The University of Guelph recently announced a $1 million commitment from the RBC Blue Water Project to support teaching and research initiatives in water and ecosystem monitoring, as well as treatment and conservation on First Nations reserves. “Water contamination is one of the most important health-related environmental problems facing First Nations communities,” said president of the University of Guelph, Alastair Summerlee.

Elder, healer, medicine teacher awarded honorary diploma

The wait is over for Eric Roy, but there is still plenty of work for him to do in order to realize his National Hockey League dreams.
Roy, an 18-year-old Métis defenceman, was selected in the fifth round, 135th over-all, by the Calgary Flames in this year’s NHL Entry Draft.

Inductees announced

Three Aboriginals are among those who will be inducted into the Ontario Lacrosse Hall of Fame later this year. Two of these individuals, Randall Jacobs and Travis Solomon, both of Akwesasne, will be inducted posthumously.

FNHA to begin operating in BC in October

Blasphemy
Author: Sherman Alexie
Published By: Grove Press
Pages: 465

Review by Christine Smith

Author Sherman Alexie never fails to make you laugh when you read one of his books. Blasphemy is an anthology of 15 of his classics, such as “War Dances,” “The Toughest Indian in the World,” and “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”, and a compilation of 16 new stories.

The first university to apologize to Indian residential school students will house the National Research Centre, which will tell the story of Indian residential school survivors.

The statement of apology and reconciliation issued by University of Manitoba President Dr. David Barnard was one factor in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s decision to award the research centre to the university. Barnard issued the heartfelt apology in October 2011 at the TRC’s Atlantic National Event held in Halifax.

Three weeks after states of emergency were declared on the Siksika First Nation and Stoney Nakoda Nations, impacted community members have received $4.5 million in help from the provincial government. Flooding caused by torrential downpours and overflowing river banks left communities devastated.

One of Canada’s largest cities is the first to proclaim a “Year of Reconciliation” in an effort to mend its “bitter” relationship with the Aboriginal community.

The reconciliation year in Vancouver began on National Aboriginal Day, June 21, and will run until June 20, 2014.

In a summit that took place downtown on June 20, Mayor Gregor Robertson presented Kwagiulth chief, Dr. Robert Joseph, with a framed Year of Reconciliation proclamation.

The proclamation states that the city seeks to find ways to heal “the bitter legacies left by the residential school system.”

Citing new reasons, but coming to the same conclusion, the Alberta Court of Appeal has upheld the decision rendered by two lower courts that found Métis harvester Garry Hirsekorn guilty of hunting in southern Alberta without a license.

In a decision rendered July 4, Justice Marina Paperny stated, “… The trial judge (and) the appeal judge … both concluded that no Métis community had a sufficient presence in the Cypress Hills area to ground the asserted right to hunt there. I have reached effectively the same conclusion (although … for slightly different reasons).”