On Feb. 11, the University of Toronto’s Sexual & Gender Diversity Office, as part of an LGBTQ Film Series, will be showing the film Two Spirits, written and directed by Lydia Nibley.

The 65-minute film features a generous and loving member of the Navajo/Diné community named Fred Martinez who was nádleehí, a male-bodied person with a feminine nature, a special gift, according to his ancient Navajo culture. Martinez was the victim of a hate crime at the age of 16, becoming one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered.

 
John Joe Sark, a member of the Mi’kmaq Nation traditional government, is petitioning the federal government to change the name of the Port-la-Joye—Fort Amherst historic site near Charlottetown, saying it’s an insult that a national park in Prince Edward Island is named for a military general who wanted to kill aboriginal people with smallpox. Sark wants the name of General Jeffery Amherst removed from the park name, reports the Canadian Press. Amherst’s goal was to eradicate Aboriginal peoples. He supported using blankets infected with smallpox to kill them.

The 2016 Talking Stick Festival will be held in Vancouver Feb. 18 to Feb. 28, and it’s shaping up to be quite the event. The festival explores Aboriginal culture through the arts, and this year will include battling birds, a celebration of powwow culture, slam poetry and much, much more.

The Moose Hide Campaign has headed to Ontario at Cambrian College. Started in B.C. a couple of years ago, the campaign is a grassroots movement to include men in the battle to end violence against Aboriginal women and children.

People are to wear the small pieces of moose hide as a conversation starter. It’s a symbol of their commitment to honor, respect and protect the women and children in their lives.

Sarah Kaelas was distributing the moose hide squares at the Wabnode Centre for Aboriginal Services on Feb. 5.

Pope Francis will travel to Mexico Feb. 12 to Feb. 18 and is expected to issue a decree that authorizes the use of Indigenous languages in mass celebrations. Francis is expected to present the decree Feb. 15 during a mass dedicated to Indigenous people in Chiapas state, where there will be readings and songs performed in three different Indigenous languages. It’s a controversial move in Roman Catholic circles. Francis, though, has approved translations of the liturgy.

 
Internal government documents show that it will cost $2 billion to eliminate mould and chronic overcrowding on reserves in Manitoba, about 13 times more than the $150 million the federal government promised for all First Nations across Canada this year, reports the Canadian Press.

Reports from Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, obtained under access-to-information legislation, say the housing situation in Manitoba has worsened as infrastructure funding has been redirected to other areas.

MMIW pre-inquiry meetings to be held in Edmonton, Calgary

The B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union signed a solidarity accord Feb. 4, which commits its opposition to pipelines running through 130 First Nations’ territories. Representing thousands of employees, the union affirm its support of the Save the Fraser declaration, which bans Northern Gateway or other similar pipeline projects from crossing the territories of signatory nations. The accord, said the union, was years in the making.

If members of the Northern Secwepemc te Qelmucw (NStQ) treaty group ratify their treaty Agreement-in-Principle on Feb. 11 they will receive land transfers from the province.

The Nations in the Cariboo region of British Columbia are negotiating a treaty with the province and Canada, but under incremental treaty agreements with B.C., 3,760 hectares of Crown land will go to Tsq'escen' First Nation (Canim Lake), Stswecem'c/Xgat'tem First Nation (Canoe/Dog Creek), Xat'sull First Nation (Soda Creek) and T'exelc First Nation (Williams Lake) in advance of a final treaty.

February 5, 2016

Deborah Ginnish travelled almost the entire country to have a say in what the Assembly of First Nations has set as its conditions in moving forward on a national public inquiry on murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

“Even (Wednesday) night driving in on a taxi (from the Edmonton International Airport), these are the highways and roads, and you think about the women, who have gone through here and have gone missing. It’s just empty and cold,” said Ginnish, who came from the Membertou First Nation, in Nova Scotia.