One-stop location to help the homeless
Homeless Connect, hosted by Homeward Trust Edmonton, took place Oct. 21 at the Shaw Conference Centre downtown. This bi-annual event provides free services, such as haircuts, to people experiencing homelessness and those at risk of becoming homeless.

As long as federal funding does not reflect the true number of Métis residing in Alberta, Métis organizations will continue to lose out on important dollars.

“Alberta as a province holds the largest Métis population in the country. Therefore, when it comes to national funding formulas of any kind, it stands to gain the most, I suppose, when it comes to resource allocations,” Lorne Gladu, chief executive officer of Rupertland Institute, an affiliate of the Métis Nation of Alberta, recently told the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples.

Greg Berland and Christie-Dawn Ladouceur were two of the 62 Belcourt-Brosseau Métis Awards winners to be personally recognized at a supper and ceremony held at Edmonton’s Mayfield Inn on Sept. 22.

“The grant enabled me to cover costs for my tuition and books as an apprenticing automotive service technician,” said Berland. “Without it I don’t think I could have done it - maybe but at a price and with more financial stress.”

A similar story came from Ladouceur, an Edmonton Métis in her final semester working towards a Master in Counseling Psychology.

Child care service providers from across the province still have little knowledge about Indian residential schools and the intergenerational impacts that feed into the startling statistic that the majority of children in care in Alberta are Aboriginal.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation does not share Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Minister Diana McQueen’s enthusiasm for the new arms-length Alberta Environmental Management Agency.

“Not really much has changed … when you have the minister of Alberta environment over seeing, directing, even approving financing. She basically holds all of the strings for the entire project,” said Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for ACFN Chief Allan Adam.

The Red Deer Native Friendship Society is blaming racism and misunderstanding after its proposal for an Aboriginal cultural centre and affordable housing project in Red Deer’s northeast was shot down at a public hearing earlier in October.

“At the public hearing the underlying issues were racism and the use of classic NIMBY (not in my backyard), unrealistic issues,” said Tanya Schur, executive director with the Red Deer Native Friendship Society.

The first weeks of November saw the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation fighting battles on two fronts: in the beginning of the week in Fort McMurray at the Joint Review Panel hearing for Shell’s Jackpine mine expansion and then on Nov. 9 in the Alberta Court of Appeal in Edmonton.

“Now we’re…double arguing,” said Eriel Deranger, spokesperson for ACFN. “The issues of concerns that we (raised) to the Alberta Court of Appeal (were) very similar to the arguments and evidence we (raised) at the hearing.”

“Let it be known,” reads a statement from the Council of the Haida Nation, that the “Hereditary Chiefs Council and the Council of the Haida Nation are in no way involved in artificial fertilization through dumping of iron compounds in the ocean around Haida Gwaii.” The statement was in response to news reports that 100 tonnes of iron sulphate and 20 tonnes of iron oxide were scattered 370 kilometres off the coast of Haida Gwaii for a project undertaken by the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. The $2.5-million exercise was done to see how the iron might enhance declining salmon stocks.

Jody Raybould-Wilson, BC Assembly of First Nations regional chief, appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs on Oct. 17 to make a presentation on Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act.