Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to end all boil water advisories on First Nations within five years.

The budget delivered by his government on March 22 committed $1.8 billion to strengthen on reserve water and waste water infrastructure and $141.7 million to monitor water on reserve. Both commitments are over a five-year period beginning in the 2016-17 fiscal year.

March 28, 2016.

An anthology that examines reconciliation will be launched on Wednesday in Edmonton’s downtown public library.

In This Together: Fifteen Stories of Truth and Reconciliation will kick off Edmonton Public Library’s Exploring Reconciliation series.

“Reconciliation has been so wonderfully engaged with and received in the city, from all the leaders … right through to the citizens,” said Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail, editor of In This Together and outgoing historian laureate for Edmonton.

Maskwacis Elder shortlisted for Emerald Award

Margaret Froh is confident that the Metis Nation of Ontario is ready to be led by a woman. Froh announced on March 21 her intention to seek the position of president. She says she was encouraged to run by retiring MNO President Gary Lipinski, who has also endorsed her candidacy.

Froh presently serves as both in-house legal counsel and associate chief operating officer to the MNO, as well as teaches Indigenous governance at the Banff Centre in Alberta. She says she’s is ready to take the next step.

In response to the growing crisis of dwindling Indigenous languages, members of an art group with a social action agenda have come up with an interesting—though intensified—way to create new Indigenous speakers.

Members of the Onaman Collective—Erin Konsmo, Christi Belcourt, and Isaac Murdoch—have launched “Language Immersion House” projects across Canada. The original three were held in Ontario, while a fourth, the Nehiyawewin Cree Language House, is coming up April 8 to April 10 in Edmonton.

Organizations focused on violence in Indigenous families and communities are among those to receive new and renewed provincial funding.

As part of the Family Violence Framework, Human Services Minister Irfan Sabir announced Thursday that his government is investing $3.5 million in one-time funding to support programs that protect women and girls, Indigenous, immigrant and rural communities, as well as programs targeted at men and boys.

Gordon Alfred Rogers, 59, of Red Deer, has been charged with two counts of first degree murder in relation to the deaths of Jeanette Jean Chief and Violet Marie Heathen.

Rogers was charged Wednesday by investigators from Alberta (“K” Division) and Saskatchewan (“F” Division) RCMP.

It is disheartening that plays such as Judith Thompson’s The Crackwalker, which premiered 36 years ago, are still deeply relevant today. Because of some darkness within us, the dreadful experiences of physical and substance abuse, internalized racism and infanticide that The Crackwalker explores are realities that remain with us.