Members of a First Nation in British Columbia are hoping a short film will help its residents become more active and eventually turn its community into a tourist attraction.

The film, which is titled All Trails Are Indigenous, was released last week. The movie, just over seven minutes long, was shot this past October on the Simpcw First Nation.

The entire film can be viewed through this link https://vimeo.com/155172362

It seems a curious misstep for the Liberal government, so adroit at building its brand as enlightened, fair and just, to simply fail to address the serious—and proven—discrimination in child welfare funding on reserve.

Why didn’t they just get that monkey off their backs in the federal budget March 22? Why didn’t they just choose to get out from underneath the political burden of it, an ugly stain that’s going to dog Trudeau’s record for at least three years to come?

It makes no sense. Something is missing from this equation.

In a budget that runs a deficit of $29.4 billion, Cindy Blackstock does not understand why the federal government drew the line at $71 million for this upcoming fiscal year for child welfare services on reserve.

Indigenous leaders are pleased, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has followed up on his campaign promises with funding. The federal budget delivered by the Liberal government on Tuesday committed $8.4 billion to Indigenous peoples over the next five years.

But while one Indigenous leader sees this budget as a strong step forward in closing the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, another Indigenous leader says he is unclear as to exactly how this budget will impact urban Indigenous peoples. More than 70 per cent of Indigenous people live off-reserve.

CBC is reporting that 82-year-old Wolverine, a leader of the 1995 Gustafsen Lake standoff in B.C., has died. William Jones Ignace, a Secwepemc man, spent five years in jail for his role in the standoff when 20 First Nations occupied sacred, unceded land near 100-mile House. The confrontation lasted 31 days, and this year people called for a national inquiry into the force brought to bear on the occupiers. Ignace, who will be forever remembered as Wolverine succumbed to cancer on March 22.

“We have been betrayed by our elected leader," said Hereditary Chief Yahaan of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe of the Lax Kw'alaams. He said elected Mayor John Helin did not hold a community-wide meeting to secure a mandate to write “the highly questionable letter to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which offered qualified conditional support for the LNG project on Lelu Island.

"Our community voted unanimously to reject Petronas’s proposed LNG project,” Yahaan said.

RELEASE:   Today's federal budget is a significant step in closing the gap in the quality of life between First Nations peoples and Canadians and beginning the process of reconciliation, Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Perry Bellegarde says.
 

Doreen Nutaaq Simmonds went with her son and a friend to see Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie “The Revenant” and realized she was in the film, or at least her voice was, reported the Alaska Dispatch News. In a scene from the film, a poem is read quietly in the background as the Pawnee tribe helps DiCaprio’s character build a shelter. Her friend whispered to Simmonds “Hey! I can understand that!” The poem was in the Alaskan Inupiaq language. Simmonds’ son suddenly realized the poem was being read by his mother. “That’s you, Mom,” he said.

A 28-year-old woman was found March 10 just after midnight on a street in Thunder Bay. She was naked and screaming for help. Her mother is now accusing the local police of ignoring the crime committed against her daughter, because she is a First Nations woman and an addict, reports the CBC’s Jody Porter.

The remains of Delaine Copenance, missing since Feb. 28, were discovered in Lake of the Woods in Kenora, Ont. Ontario Provincial Police confirmed the discovery March 22. OPP would not confirm if foul play was suspected. A forensic identification unit and the coroner had been sent to the scene at the end of Water St. at the dock. Searches were conducted in both Kenora and Winnipeg, but a ground search for the 16-year-old was called off March 14. The family has asked for privacy to grieve the “devastating loss of their daughter, sister and granddaughter and friend.”