Aboriginal people are under siege, and don’t know what is about to hit them. We at Windspeaker want Aboriginal people to be well warned before it’s too late to do anything about it, so let’s lay it out here. The Harper Conservatives are on the attack to take Aboriginal interests out at the knees and it begins with government’s intention to slash funding to tribal councils and other organizations that work on the behalf of grassroots people.

First Nations, led by Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), have filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal against the Thunder Bay Police Service.

The historian who alerted media earlier in September to vandalism of a glacial rock he said to be covered in Aboriginal carvings and images, is dismayed his word is being called into question by the archeological community.

The official results of the 2012 Métis Nation Saskatchewan General Election have been confirmed by Ian Craven, Chief Electoral Officer.

Elections were conducted province wide for each of the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer for the Provincial Métis Council.  In addition there were elections in five of the twelve regions for Regional Representatives around the province.

The successful candidates for the Provincial Executive are as follows:

Taane Mete has been a leading dancer in New Zealand for more than two decades and is co-artistic director of Okareka, a prolific company that creates compositions that inspire and provoke audiences around the world.

The hearing for Shell Oil Canada’s proposed Jackpine Mine Expansion project begins Oct. 29 in Fort McMurray and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation will be actively involved. ACFN has been fighting the proposed Jackpine Mine expansion and the Pierre River open pit mine tar sands projects for over a year. “We are rightfully concerned about how Shell’s proposed Jackpine Mine expansion project will impact and infringe our rights. Our lands and way of life are supposed to be protected by Treaty and Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act,” said ACFN Chief Allan Adam in a news release.

The federal government has delayed the release of the final woodland caribou recovery strategy until at least Sept. 30. According to the mandatory timelines set out in the Species at Risk Act, once the overdue draft strategy was released in August 2011, the final recovery strategy should have been posted in November 2011. The public comment period was extended until February 2012, after which another legal deadline to release the final strategy 30 days later was missed.

A formal complaint was filed in August with the federal Competition Bureau claiming Enbridge is misleading the public with promotional videos about the proposed Northern Gateway tanker route. Lori Waters, a BC woman who has a graduate degree specializing in scientific animation and owns a biomedical communications company, claims Enbridge erased more than 1,000 square kilometres of islands along the proposed Northern Gateway tanker route. Since her claim was made, Enbridge removed the image from one of its videos and made the existing disclaimer more prominent in another.

Tall Cree First Nation has formed a partnership with Native American Resource Partners Canada Inc. to create Tall Cree Energy, which will pursue the development of resource projects both on and off Tall Cree’s reserve lands. In forming Tall Cree Energy, the First Nation has secured both the industry expertise and investment capital necessary to evaluate and fund associated exploration and development costs. Tall Cree Energy will initially be focused on oil and gas opportunities and, if successful, will also evaluate mid-stream and other energy related investments.

The Métis local in Fort MacKay is asking that the municipal council of Rural Municipality of Wood Buffalo consider changing the spelling of the community’s name to Fort McKay. “The First Nations already identify themselves as the Fort McKay First Nation. The Métis community already self-identifies as Fort McKay. If you drive down Highway 63, all the signs say ‘Fort MacKay,’ so it’s a clarity issue we would like to get support on,” President Ron Quintal of the Métis local told council in an August municipal meeting. The community’s name is also spelled wrong as the town was named after Dr.