Alberta achievers to receive national awards

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TORONTO-The 2004 National Aboriginal Achievement Awards will be held in Calgary on April 4 and three of the 14 award recipients hail from Alberta. The list of recipients was released on Jan. 13 by the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (NAAF) in Toronto. The NAAF hosts the annual awards ceremony.

Provincial minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, Pearl Calahasen, will pick up the award in the public service category. Calahasen is the first Metis person to be elected to the Alberta legislature. She has represented one of the largest constituencies in the province since 1989. She was born and raised in Grouard and earned a bachelor of education from the University of Alberta and a masters from the University of Oregon.

Muriel Stanley-Venne wins the National Aboriginal Achievement Award in the law and justice category. She is best known for her advocacy of women's rights and was one of the first seven commissioners appointed to the Alberta Human Rights Commission in 1973. This Metis woman is the founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women, whose mission it is to promote opportunities for women.

Dr. Carl Urion wins the award in the education category. He is a scholar who actively promotes the development of Indigenous education. After earning a PhD in anthropology from the University of Alberta, he became that institution's director of the office of Native Affairs and was at the forefront of influencing universities to increase access and support for Aboriginal students. As an Aboriginal academic, he was one of the first role models in a university setting, who through his teaching and research set a new standard for Aboriginal students. He is now a Professor Emeritus at the university and still very much involved in writing and research.

Other award recipients are Cape Dorset carver and printmaker Osuitok Ipeelee in the arts and culture category; author and ethnologist Basil Johnson; actress and star of North of 60 Tina Keeper; chief and entrepreneur Clarence Louie; Coast Salish artist Susan Point; broadcaster Suzanne Rochon Burnett; environmentalist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, surgeon and president of the Quebec Medical Association Dr. Stanley Vollant; and University of Saskatchewan research associate in the department of chemistry, Lee Wilson.

Engineering student Kristinn Frederickson, this year's youth recipient, receives a $10,000 scholarship for his studies.

Quebec leader Andrew T. Delisle, Sr., a past chief of the Mohawks of Kahnawake, is this year's Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

The National Aboriginal Achievement Awards are an awards system created in 1993 to recognize the outstanding career achievements of 14 Aboriginal people in diverse occupations.

The gala evening will take place at Calgary's Jubilee Auditorium and will feature video vignettes of the 14 achievers and performances by Aboriginal entertainers. Individual tickets cost $303.50. It includes the ceremony and post-show gala reception, the individual's name to appear in the gala program, recognition in the foundation's annual report and tax receipt for $250.

The awards ceremony will be broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a national network special and on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

A jury comprised of past achievement award recipients from across Canada select the 14 recipients. This year's jurors are Judith G. Bartlett; John Kim Bell, president and founder of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation; Alberta businessman Mel E. Benson, a winner from last year; Roman Bittman; Dr. John J. Borrows; Gary Bosgoed; Lillian E. Dyck; Frank Hansen; Leetia Ineak; Leroy Little Bear; Chief Sophie Pierre; Mary Richard; Marie Ross; Konrad H. Sioui and Dr. Jay Wortman.