Toronto’s Indigenous community is mourning the loss of two young men who were killed in two separate incidents within the space of two weeks. Quinn Taylor was 29, and Kiowa Wind McComb was 20 years old.

Taylor was shot to death in Toronto’s Chinatown on Spadina near Nassau Street early on the morning of Jan. 31. McComb (Ojibway/Cree) was the victim of a stabbing on Feb. 9 in Toronto’s Jane and Lawrence area.†

Taylor’s mother Brenda MacIntyre (Ojibway/Odawa), a well-known traditional singer in Toronto, learned of her son’s death on social media.

The speeches were short at this year’s Valentine’s Day Strawberry Ceremony for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The group of 400 people gathered at Toronto Police Headquarters at Yonge and College streets was considerably smaller than in previous years, likely due to the bitter minus-28 degree temperature.

Cups of water and several hundred strawberries, the women’s medicine,

were distributed to the accompaniment of traditional Anishinabek teachings by Whitebird.

The Métis Nation-BC and the Adoptive Families Association of BC signed a memorandum of understanding Feb. 9 to help find permanent homes for Métis children and youth currently in the care in the province. There are more than 4,000 Aboriginal children and youth in care, including more than 1,000 Métis children, reads a press statement. The MOU wants to safely reduce this number while supporting these children in their families, extended families, kin, neighborhoods, and communities.

Paddy Hajdu, MP for Thunder Bay, Ont., said First Nation students arriving in the city to attend school are made to feel less welcome than refugees or other minorities arriving to the city. “It’s appalling, it’s ashaming for my community, but for our country as well, that Indigenous young people who come to Thunder Bay to study are subjected to racism that includes things like people flinging things out of cars at them or demeaning hate speech that they face,” Hajdu said. An inquest is currently underway into the deaths of seven First Nations students in Thunder Bay.

Katzie First Nation and the City of Pitt Meadows in B.C. have created three historic agreements over the page 18 months that focus on communications protocols and the provision of water, sewer, and fire protection services. The process began with the intention of replacing expired service agreements. The communities crafted the new service agreements, and strengthened their relationship by participation in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) First Nations - Municipal Community Infrastructure Partnership Program.

The federal government will not appeal a decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that found Canada discriminated against First Nations children by underfunding child welfare services on reserves. The government made the announcement Feb. 22. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the ruling demonstrates the present system is failing, which is unacceptable in this day and age. “We believe that this decision is pointing us in the right direction, as a country, and we will not seek a judicial review of the decision.

Greenpeace is supporting the Waswanipi Cree Nation, as well as scientists and environmental organizations, as they urge Premier Philippe Couillard to protect the last pristine forest on Cree ancestral territory.

Greenpeace said proposed logging roads and clearcuts, currently under government review, threaten more than 113,000 hectares of forest, south of the Broadback River.

An Ontario Provincial Police officer demonstrated ignorance of treaty relationships and rights when he pulled Nigigoonsimikinkaaning First Nation Chief Will Windigo over for having a quartered moose in his truck, he said, and that disturbed him more than the aggressive treatment of the officer against his hunting party.

Windigo said his truck was pulled over last fall, but the officer was unaware Treaty 3 members have hunting rights within the entire 142,000-square-kilometre territory.

St. Albert residents asked to weigh-in on Healing Garden design

February 18, 2016

One more avenue for opioid users to access naloxone kits is one more opportunity to combat the growing numbers of fentanyl-related deaths. 

On Thursday, the provincial government announced that pharmacies across Alberta can provide take-home kits free-of-charge for those with prescriptions. Naloxone can be used to temporarily reverse an overdose of fentanyl or other opioids, allowing a person time to get emergency medical help.