Parliamentarians convened a first-of-its-kind inquiry into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act on Monday, the same day the Assembly of First Nations national chief expressed concerns over the act’s ability to label activists as criminals.
A Northwest Territories MLA is calling for the territorial government to stop hiring non-Indigenous people for one year.
Hay River South MLA Rocky Simpson called for the change in the N.W.T. legislature Monday in a question to the Minister of Human Resources, Caroline Wawzonek.
“We need to be bold if we want to see change,” he said.
B.C. high school students will soon be required to complete Indigenous-focused coursework in order to graduate.
The requirement is scheduled to take effect in the 2023-24 school year, the provincial Ministry of Education said in a news release Friday.
The new graduation requirement is being implemented “in collaboration with the First Nations Education Steering Committee,” according to the province.
The mild-mannered police response to the weekend blockade of downtown Ottawa by thousands of protesters opposed to pandemic restrictions reveals a racist double standard in how law enforcement agencies treat civil disobedience, some observers say.
Had Indigenous activists made the same threats, broke the same laws, and engaged in the same level of disruption they’d probably be met with a heavy-handed crackdown, Mi’kmaw lawyer and professor Pam Palmater told APTN News.
“I have no doubt that this is pure racism involved,” said Palmater. “Are people allowed to threaten the life of the prime minister? I’m wondering about that because I guarantee you if that was an Indigenous person or a Black person, they’d be sitting in jail.”
How many arrested for derailing trains?
WARNING: This story contains distressing details
The group overseeing the search for unmarked graves at the former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ont., is getting over $10 million from Ottawa, but says it isn’t enough to help them do their work.
Over a dozen churches were set on fire throughout Canada over claims that ground-penetrating radar discovered what appeared to be an “unmarked mass grave” of indigenous children “as young as three years old” in Kamloops, yet not one body has been exhumed and the radar signatures of “graves” may just be tree roots and stones.
In one of the first arrangements of its kind in the country, an Indigenous police force has taken over policing of a small non-Indigenous town in Alberta – a move leaders from both communities say could become a model for both reconciliation and rural policing in the province.
The parties reached the agreement on New Year’s Eve, on the last day of negotiations, which included the Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, and representatives of class-action lawsuits related to Indigenous child welfare. The federal government will reveal details of the non-binding agreement on Tuesday.
‘This is great progress but it’s just a small stepping stone to ensuring that every status Indian living on an Indian reserve has access to clean drinking water,’ said Chief Emily Whetung on N2N.
Out of the 40,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries who attended the November United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, very few were indigenous leaders and activists, many of whom are experts at conservation and regeneration.
Yeah right.
Canada’s Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister says the federal government will soon release a volume of the residential school records it’s been criticized for withholding to a national archives centre.
The University of Concordia is hosting a conference called “Decolonizing Light: Centering Indigenous Concerns in Science” in partnership with the Centre for Engineering in Society and several Native American groups.
The goal of the conference and its larger Decolonizing Light Project is to “decolonize science” and to develop “a culture of critical reflection and investigation of the relation of science and colonialism.”
h/t Marvin
Lauren Southern’s movie claims that there’s no evidence of a Catholic Church cover-up.
(This story may be triggering for some readers. The Indian Residential School Survivors Society can be reached at 1-800-721-0066 and there’s a 24-hour crisis line at 1-866-925-4419.)
The latest funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage brings the total investment from the federal government to $14.6 million this year, according to the FPCC.
The potential $50 million to $100 million cost of a Canadian papal visit isn’t far off the amount the Catholic Church still owes residential school survivors, say advocates.
They say that bill — estimated at slightly more than $60 million — must be paid and all documents about the schools disclosed before one dollar is committed to bringing Pope Francis to Canada for an expected apology. One Vatican expert says that’s highly unlikely, but survivors say they’ll keep pressing.
