Launch of search for graves at former Yukon residential school triggers raw emotions
CARCROSS, Yukon- Emotions ran high in a Yukon First Nations community Monday as officials announced the search for unmarked graves would begin at a former residential school site. Yukon’s Residential School Missing Children Project said ground-penetrating radar would be used to look for gravesites at the Chooutla Residential School in Carcross, Yukon, about 70 kilometres south of Whitehorse. Carcross-Tagish First Nation Chief Maria Benoit said the search is important for the community in its bid to find answers and peace in the residential school tragedy, where countless children taken from their families did not return home. “We are starting something here today that has been in the making for a long, long time,” Benoit said of the project, which was announced in 2021 after the discovery of more than 200...
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‘A situation that’s unprecedented.’ Quebec confronted with over 150 wildfires
By Jacob Serebrin and Sidhartha Banerjee THE CANADIAN PRESS MONTREAL- As one Quebec city that had been threatened by wildfires lifted an evacuation order Tuesday, authorities turned their attention to communities in the northern and northwestern parts of the province where firefighters worked to beat back threats from out-of-control blazes. “We’re following all of this from hour to hour, obviously,” Premier Francois Legault told reporters in Sept-Iles, Que. “If we look at the situation in Quebec as a whole, there are several places where it is still worrying.” According to the province’s forest fire prevention agency, more than 150 forest fires were burning in the province on Tuesday, including more than 110 deemed out of control. Legault said the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region in northwestern Quebec is an area of particular concern, with...
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NEWS ALERT-Peter Khill sentenced to 8 years in shooting death of Six Nations’ Jonathan Styres
HAMILTON- Peter Khill will spend the next eight years in penitentiary for the shooting death of Six Nations ‘ Jonathan Styres. Khill shot and killed Styres in 2016 firing twice at the father of two, the second time while Styres was on his hands and knees defence lawyer Jeffery Manishen had told the court today ( Tuesday, June 6, 2023) Hamilton Justice Andrew Goodman pronounced the sentencing in the manslaughter trial this morning in front of a packed courtroom. Defense lawyer Jeffery Manishen had requested a four-year sentence in what he described as his client acting in self-defence when he found Styres in his pickup truck at his Binbrook home. Khill told the court he feared for his life. But Justice Goodman wasn’t buying the argument saying instead a self-defence...
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Hagersville sudden death ruled not suspicious, but under investigation
HALDIMAND COUNTY, ON – Haldimand Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) were called to Grant Kett Park Monday, June 5, 2022, at approximately 5:20 p.m., after receiving a report of a sudden death at Grant Kett Park on Sherring Street, Hagersville. OPP and Haldimand County Paramedic Services attended the scene where they found a 33-year-old who was pronounced deceased. The OPP West Region Forensic Identification Services (FIS) attended to assist with the investigation and the death was determined as non-suspicious. A post-mortem has been scheduled to determine the cause of death. The park was closed to the public for several hours to facilitate the investigation but has since re-opened. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Haldimand OPP at 1-888-310-1122. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers...
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Home Depot pulls Inuksuk garden statue over cultural appropriation concerns
By Jeff Pelletier Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Home Depot is removing an Inuksuk garden ornament from its store shelves after an Inuk customer raised concerns that the product appropriated Inuit culture. Josh Pamak, who is originally from Nain in Nunatsiavut but now lives in Halifax, said he saw the item while he was shopping for gardening supplies. The product was labelled as an “Inukshuk,” measuring 69 centimetres tall and with a $99 price tag. Edmonton garden decoration company Angelo Decor is listed as the manufacturer. Pamak said his first reaction on seeing the product was that he thought it was neat. But after some thought, he had a change of heart. “It’s a bit disheartening to see a major corporation like Home Depot selling something like an Inuksuk that comes...
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Rocked by extreme weather, climate change exposes `infrastructure gap’ in Canadian communities
By Natasha Bulowski Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Canada’s changing climate has rendered a crucial ice bridge to a small municipality near Montreal unreliable, and even studying possible fixes is costly for the small community, the mayor says. Until there is an alternative, residents must take a 50-kilometre detour to see a doctor at the village just across the Richelieu River, said Jonathan Chalifoux, mayor of Quebec municipality Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu. Chalifoux told the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on Thursday that his village can no longer rely on the bridge that connects his community to the village of Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu, northeast of Quebec on the Richelieu River, during the winter months. “It’s an art to create an ice bridge. With the changing climate conditions, it’s impossible to create the bridge,” said...
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Nunavut artists enter the spotlight at Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards in Ottawa
By Tom Taylor Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Four Nunavut musicians are up for Inuit Artist/Group of the Year honours at the 2023 Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards in Ottawa: Pangnirtung’s Joey Nowyuk, Baker Lake’s Shauna Seeteenak, Iglulik’s Angela Amarualik, and Rankin Inlet’s Brenda Montana. The award ceremony is slated for June 6 in the capital city’s National Arts Centre. It’s a big moment for all four Nunavummiut. Amarualik, who writes folk and pop music in Inuktitut and English, says the nomination rekindled her creative fire, which fizzled out during the pandemic. “Since after the pandemic it’s been really tough for me to write and do music as much as I did before,” she said. “I haven’t really been motivated much.” “This nomination makes me want to publish more music because...
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Arsons, suspicious fires occurring at `alarming rate’ in Nunavik
By Cedric Gallant Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Of the 70 fires reported in Nunavik last year, 20 were arson or of suspicious origin, according to Kativik Regional Government civil security director Craig Lingard. “It is something we have noticed in previous years, and it is getting to an alarming rate,” Lingard said at a meeting of KRG regional council Tuesday that Nunavik Police Service took charge of files from 29 of the fires for investigation. This graph shows fire losses reported in Nunavik communities over the past five years. (Graphic courtesy of Kativik Regional Government) Arson is suspected to be the cause of two of the region’s most costly blazes that occurred in 2022, a residential fire in Kangiqsujuaq that had a material loss of more than $1.5 million, and...
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PC housing Bill limits environmental protections, scraps complete communities but farmers win key fight against developers
By Rachel Morgan Local Journalism Initiative Reporter At Queen’s Park Thursday, farmers won a crucial battle, pushing back decades of relentless growth that has seen much of Southern Ontario transformed into one of the world’s largest stretches of urban landscape. This connected built form that spans the Greater Golden Horseshoe arcing around Lake Ontario has been shaped over the past 150 years, as agricultural life was swallowed to make way for an industrial future. Despite the victory by farmers Thursday, to prevent agricultural land from being easily divided for further development, the PCs’ proposed Bill 97 still promises to erase almost two decades of planning progress that combatted the sprawl that had defined Canada’s only mega-region, where approximately one quarter of the country’s population resides. Since the late 1800s a...
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Wildfire tally tops 150 as thousands more evacuate northwestern Quebec
By Christopher Reynolds and Coralie Laplante THE CANADIAN PRESS MONTREAL- Wildfires in northwestern Quebec prompted thousands to evacuate the area over the weekend, as the number of blazes across the province pushed past 150 and firefighters and the military poured into a pair of regions to fight the encroaching flames even as that threat eased slightly Sunday on the North Shore. Some 5,500 residents of the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region, which borders Ontario, have been relocated, Public Security Minister Francois Bonnardel said at a news conference in Montreal. Another 4,500 people in the North Shore community of Sept-Iles and its outskirts were also forced from their homes due to two wildfires burning north of the city, but no further evacuations are planned at the moment, Bonnardel said. Rain is expected in the...
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Innu kids learn from their own as Labrador First Nations take control of schooling
By Sarah Smellie THE CANADIAN PRESS SHESHATSHIU, N.L- Inside a wide, white canvas tent behind the Sheshatshiu Innu School in Labrador, the first drop of sweet molasses dough falling into a bubbling pan of fat gives off an aroma that prompts a group of third graders to look up, almost in unison. Munik Aster, a pre-kindergarten teacher at the school, calls the scent “Innu heaven.” Aster is one of 11 Innu teachers who graduated last September from an Indigenous educator program offered through Ontario’s Nipissing University, in partnership with the Innu school board in Labrador. And she is a sign of a new approach to education in Labrador Innu communities that is yielding results. Inside the bright red and yellow hallways of the Sheshatshiu Innu School last month, teachers and...
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Quebec town evacuated while others return home as wildfire fight continues
By Sidhartha Banerjee THE CANADIAN PRESS MONTREAL- Another northern Quebec town was evacuated due to an out of control wildfire on Saturday as the federal government confirmed that Canadian Forces personnel would be deployed to help combat forest fires in the province. About 2,000 residents of Lebel-sur-Quevillon, about 620 kilometres northwest of Montreal, were the latest to receive a mandatory evacuation notice on Friday evening due to forest fires nearby. Lebel-sur-Quevillon Mayor Guy Lafreniere said Saturday saying the fire continued to threaten the municipality even though its spread had slowed overnight. There was heavy smoke throughout the town and forest fire prevention teams were doing trenchwork in the area to protect it. Residents were relocated to Senneterre, about 90 kilometres south of the community. In the North Shore community of...
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Inuit, environmental groups praise cruises for agreeing to avoid Eclipse Sound
POND INLET, Nunavut- A marine conservation charity and Inuit hunters are praising cruise operators for agreeing to avoid a Nunavut waterway where thousands of narwhal migrate each summer. The Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators recently said its members’ ships would not travel through Eclipse Sound this summer and instead go through the Pond Inlet strait. Oceans North and the Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization had requested the move as numbers of summering narwhal in the area off the northeastern coast of Baffin Island have decreased, which they say is due to increased shipping traffic. “Narwhal continue to decline in our area and have not bounced back to historical numbers as we had hoped,” David Qamaniq, chair of the hunters and trappers organization, said in a news release. “We thank...
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Federal government provides $5.9M for Indigenous clean energy projects in B.C
VANCOUVER- The minister responsible for the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada has announced the government is giving nearly $6 million for Indigenous communities in British Columbia to develop clean energy projects. Harjit Sajjan says the funding shows Canada is committed to working with First Nations to help them grow their economy and take advantage of opportunities in the technology sector. He says more than $3.9 million of the funding, provided by PacificCan and Indigenous Services Canada, will be given to the BC Indigenous Clean Energy Initiative to help 14 communities develop clean energy projects. Sajjan says the agency is also providing another $2 million for the Digital Horizons technology employment training program, which will be offered by the First Nations Technology Council. He says this program will train more...
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Federal government lawsuit accuses Wisconsin town of trespassing on tribal reservation
MADISON, Wis. (AP)-The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to force a northern Wisconsin town to pay unspecified damages for failing to renew access easements on American Indian tribal land. U.S. Attorney Timothy O’Shea filed the action in Madison on Wednesday seeking a declaration that without easements the town of Lac Du Flambeau is trespassing within the Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation. It seeks unspecified damages. The town’s attorney, Greg Harrold, didn’t respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment Friday. The lawsuit opens another front in a long-running legal dispute between the town and the tribe. According to court documents, the tribe granted the town road easements within it’s 86,600-acre reservation in the 1960s. The easements enabled non-tribal people to move...
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Planned production studio in Iqaluit will be ‘game changing,’ says filmmaker
IQALUIT, Nunavut- Nunavut filmmakers and videographers say construction of a large-scale TV and film production studio in Iqaluit will be “game changing” for the territory’s film industry. Iqaluit-based production company Red Marrow Media, co-founded by Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, is leading the project. They’re currently developing a yet-untitled comedy series, commissioned by CBC, APTN and Netflix. “It’ll be the biggest show that’s ever come out of Nunavut,” Arnaquq-Baril said, adding she could not yet share many details. “We’re excited to spend time in our communities on screen making people laugh, which is not something we get to do on the global stage very often.” CBC said in a news release the series will centre on a young Inuk mother trying to build a new future for herself in a...
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Flood education system with Indigenous knowledge, contributions: expert
By Amanda Rabski-McColl Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board student Rhaya Clyne says when she started Grade 9, she was shy and introverted. “I was scared of everyone talking and I had to hype myself up to talk.” However, some of those fears began to fall away when Clyne decided to participate in a school board program that provides opportunities for students to self-identify their Indigenous ancestry. In a video posted earlier this year on the Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board (DPCDSB) website, Clyne goes on to say that after having made connections with educator Jodie Williams and others at the board, “they have been allowing me to build and improve myself.” Through that, Clyne says she has learned how to use her voice more....
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Pair working to revive the lost skill of fish tanning
By Cedric Gallant Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Tattoo artist Arsaniq Deer and full-time fish tanner Janey Chang are helping to revitalize a lost skill in Nunavik. The pair recently hosted fish-tanning workshops in Akulivik and Ivujivik, as part of the Ilurqusitigut program (which means `through our culture’ in Inuktitut), the cultural subsection of the adult education program at Nunavik’s school board. “I’d never thought I’d be able to do this kind of work,” said Deer, seated next to Chang during a phone call from their hotel room in Akulivik. The workshops can be used to add credits toward participants’ high school diplomas. The plan is for them to be hosted in all 14 communities in Nunavik. This was the first time Deer joined Chang to help lead the fish-tanning workshops. The...
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Dirty water: Fisheries on West Coast may be vulnerable to money laundering
By Rochelle Baker Local Journalism Initiative Reporter The lack of transparency about who owns or controls commercial fishing licences, quota and vessels in Canada makes them attractive targets for criminals looking to launder money. That warning was issued by lawyer and former RCMP deputy commissioner Peter German in testimony at a House committee meeting this week. German, who authored two explosive “Dirty Money” reports for the B.C. government detailing the depth of money laundering in the province, spoke to the Standing Committee of Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO) as part of its ongoing investigation into foreign ownership and corporate concentration of fishing licences and quota. German stressed his expertise lies in scrutinizing money laundering, organized crime and corruption, not fisheries policy. However, he noted the lack of transparency and the federal...
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Kahnawake says no to proposed language law
By Eve Cable Local Journalism Initiative Reporter A no man’s land stood between two rooms of the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Montreal last Friday: on one side, Quebec held a public dialogue session surrounding the province’s French language laws in the context of Indigenous rights, and on the other, the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL) held an open session in direct opposition. “Today, the message that we have is that we’re not in support of this moving forward,” said Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) grand chief Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer in the Quebec room. Sky-Deer only briefly entered that room to deliver Kahnawake’s message that they would be actively opposing Quebec’s intent to propose a bill that protects Indigenous languages, because of the fact that the government has failed to collect...
