It’s been a decade since a Vancouver Sun article described the Downtown Eastside as “Four Blocks of Hell”, complete with hypodermic needles and “sex-trade detritus” on the ground, and urine-drenched alleyways.

While the article was primarily intended to spotlight a pilot clean-up project for the area, it mostly succeeded in advertising the waste and decay of this neighbourhood.

Vancouver ALIVE (Aboriginal Life In Vancouver Enhancement) Society founder Scott Clark observes that the ghettoization of residents in the DTES is particularly detrimental to Indigenous peoples.

March 10, 2016.

The second Speech from the Throne delivered by Alberta’s New Democratic government is short on detail and offers nothing new for the province’s Indigenous population.

“In my view, the Throne speech was very thin on tangible ways (First Nations are) going to be participating,” said Treaty 7 Grand Chief Charles Weasel Head.

March 10, 2016. Leo Arcand, artist from Alexander First Nation, learned Wednesday that his sculpture titled Courage was presented to U.S. President Barack Obama by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Trudeaus were in Washington for a state visit. Arcand learned the news from Bearclaw Gallery, in Edmonton, where his work is on display. Gallery assistant Hope Wright said Bearclaw was contacted by the prime minister's office a few weeks ago and asked for information and photographs. Trudeau’s office eventually made a number of purchases.

March 10, 2016. The University of Alberta has changed its home page. There is now a new hot button, marked by the symbol of a buffalo.

March 10, 2016. The province is looking for the next official trustee for the Northland School Division. NSD announced Thursday that Colin Kelly, appointed by the province in 2010 to serve as official trustee, plans to retire.

Dr. Yvonne Boyer expects that her second phase of research into mental health services received by Indigenous inmates in federal prisons will show that Canada is not fulfilling its Constitutional obligations.

Boyer is wrapping up more than two years of research that indicates there’s a “huge problem” with mental health care within Canada’s federal prison system. Upon completion of this phase, Boyer hopes to get more funding that will allow her to look at the Aboriginal and treaty rights to health that Aboriginal people are entitled to.

The Onion Lake Cree Nation will once again be laying out the welcome mat for a prestigious provincial multi-sport competition.

It will host the Saskatchewan First Nations Winter Games, which begins on March 27 and continue until April 1.

But since the Games continue to grow – more than 3,000 athletes will be participating this year – the majority of the events will be staged in Lloydminster, the city which has the unique distinction of being in two provinces.

March 10, 2016, Alberta Senator Elaine McCoy, a former PC provincial cabinet minister, is among six senators who have formed an independent, non-partisan working group “the objective (of which) is to promote a properly functioning independent, non-partisan Senate,” according to a news release issued Thursday. The group is calling for a change from “partisanship that has been blindly one-sided and lacked impartiality” to a body of government that reviews and revises legislation in an independent, non-partisan manner.

March 10, 2016. Folk Lordz and Fort Edmonton Park will be presenting the first ever Stories on the Hills, which focus on the traditions of the Cree, Blackfoot, Nakota and Métis people. These will be shared through a variety of traditionally-inspired contemporary performances in live music, traditional dancing, an improv spectacle, and a live painting on stage. "The Indigenous peoples of this area lived and breathed the land in a way we today don't often recognize.