The north wind blew into Toronto on Nov. 25, and riding in on a gust was a huge talent called Tagaq. The Inuit throat-singer took to the stage during the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards and took the audience's breath away with an aggressive performance of her contemporary take on the traditional women's vocal game.

A standing ovation greeted the performance, but she couldn't see it, blinded by the lights in the John Bassett Theatre. It wasn't until she was off stage that she heard how well received her performance was.

If you think the international powwow and the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards gala are the only activities worth talking about during Canadian Aboriginal Week in Toronto, you've got another think coming. In recent years, people involved in a variety of industries have taken advantage of the huge draw of festival week setting the time aside to hold gatherings of all sorts.

Starlight Tour: The Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild
By Susanne Reber and Robert Renaud
Random House Canada,
427 pages, $35 (hc)

Tanya Tagaq Gillis was in her fourth year of the bachelor of fine arts program at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design when she began to develop the distinctive sound that has garnered the attention of music fans both in Canada and further afield. Missing her home in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, she would listen to the tapes of throat singing her mother had sent to her and began to try to recreate what she heard. What developed was a unique amalgamation, with Tagaq's soft, sweet vocals meshing with the rhythmic sounds of throat singing.

Those who follow the goings-on in the House of Commons knew that a storm was brewing when Ted Quewezance took his place in front of the microphone and patiently waited for Jim Prentice, Conservative Party of Canada Indian Affairs critic, to finish his presentation to the chiefs-in-assembly on Dec. 8.

Quewezance, the former chief of the Keeseekoose First Nation in Saskatchewan, had seen his name bandied about during Question Period a few weeks before when the Conservatives were badgering the Liberals about charges related to missing band trust fund money.

It will be close to one year before most of the compensation money that will be paid to survivors of residential schools will be distributed, but those over 65 years of age will receive payment much earlier.

"There will be an early payment to the elderly, meaning in this case 65 and over, in a matter of weeks," said Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), in early December.

Over and over again in Ottawa in early December, the message was "get out and vote."
With close to $9 billion worth of commitments-when you combine the figures from the residential school compensation agreement and the promises made during the First Ministers' Meeting (FMM) in Kelowna-the only thing left to bring it all to fruition is the election of a government that will follow through. That was National Chief Phil Fontaine's message and it was repeated frequently throughout the three-day special chiefs' assembly that wrapped up on Dec. 8.

At a special assembly held in Ottawa in December, a resolution that essentially endorses the agreement reached at the first ministers' meeting (FMM) in Kelowna on Nov. 24 and 25 was passed unanimously by consensus, if you don't count the Quebec chiefs who abstained en masse.
Resolution 3 is a carefully-crafted three-page document that took a great deal of negotiation to finalize.

Two Aboriginal groups held protests outside the site of the first minister's meeting (FMM) on Nov. 24 and 25.

The first day saw friendship centre employees and supporters vying for attention against a protest mounted by federal correctional officers who were there to criticize Prime Minister Paul Martin because his government has not satisfied their demands for better pay and working conditions.

Only one region-British Columbia-actually sat down and signed an implementation agreement (the Transformative Change Accord) with the province and federal government after the two-day first ministers' meeting (FMM) on Aboriginal issues was held in Kelowna Nov. 24 and 25. For the rest of the country, things will be worked out in the coming months and years.