Legal technicalities should not be what determine if First Nations children on reserves receive services comparable to their offreserve counterparts.

The truth gathering does not end with the collection of
documents.

“Creating archives is important, but creating archives
only is not enough,” said Doudou Diène, chair of the
International Coalition of Sites and Programs of Conscience in Senegal.

“(You need) to transform knowledge from archives to
induce transformation, individual and collective
(mindset) transformation.”

Dear Editor:

The chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Justice Murray Sinclair, is quite right in calling for sensitivity in dealing with student Persons of Interest in the residential school Independent Assessment Process, but quite wrong in suggesting the issue of student-on-student abuse was not on the minds of those who negotiated the settlement agreement. (Sensitivity
needed, Windspeaker, February 2011)

GLOBAL NEWS IS REPORTING THAT

Dear Editor:

Drinking and driving is real admirable.

Quote: “It is nice to see our leadership struggle
because it makes them appear more human.”

Let us lower the standards and make excuses for someone who knew they had a problem with alcohol and chose to get behind a wheel. Someone who chose to run from the cops and someone who chose to refuse to take a breathalyzer test, and was lucky that he did not run over and kill someone.

Dear Editor:

Where is the support from our chiefs when it comes to federal tax exemption?

How did it happen that Assembly of First Nations’ employees are tax exempt and the rest of us who work off reserve are still being bullied and harassed by Revenue Canada to pay income tax?

How is it they can legally withhold the child tax credit from households they deem are in arrears of federal taxes and penalize children?

The federal budget that was presented March
22 was an uninspired mess. We guess the
Conservatives didn’t think to try too hard,
considering the threat of a Spring election that was
in the air long before the glue on Finance Minister
Jim Flaherty’s newly re-soled shoes was set.

The tradition of Canada’s Finance Minister
buying a new pair of shoes before budget day dates
back to the mid-1900s. So when Flaherty opted
instead to re-sole an old pair of shoes, well, the
writing was on the wall.

An exciting new program which allows prospective teachers to learn at a campus near their home community has brought renewed optimism to the education of Aboriginal students.

The Aboriginal Elementary Teacher Program is a product of the University of Alberta and students graduate with a bachelor degree in education, whether they study on campus in Edmonton or in one of the off-site collaborative programs.

Few Aboriginal educators are found in the northern parts of the province, said Angela Wolfe, associate director of ATEP.

The number of Aboriginal students at a northern Alberta high school has increased dramatically in the last 10 years and is only expected to continue to grow.

High Level, a community of 4,000, has one public high school with a student population of 430 in grades seven through 12.

Ten years ago, about one-quarter of the student body at High Level Public School was classified First Nations, Métis or Inuit. Now, that number has jumped to 50 per cent.

A literacy project adapting well-known fables to the Siksika First Nation cultural context and published in an illustrated volume has earned a prestigious Calgary Mayor’s Excellence Award.

Sequoia Outreach school, in partnership with Digital Press, Siksika Elders and Blackfoot Crossing, was recognized for the publishing of Collected Stories: The Three Buffalo Snuff and How the Kiayo Got a Short Tail, adapted by Caitlyn Storm, Bella Saddleback and John Healy with illustrations by Kristen Daniels.