New justice minister arrives amid bail debate, vows fresh look at judicial vacancies
By Stephanie Taylor THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA- Canada’s new justice minister plans to tell his staff and department to move “expeditiously” to address judicial vacancies, an issue that had dogged his predecessors and resulted in a reprimand from the country’s top judge. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau picked Toronto MP and former human rights and constitutional lawyer Arif Viranito replace David Lametti when he unveiled his new cabinet this week, in a shuffle meant to renew the Liberal benches after nearly eight years in government. Virani, an Ismaili Muslim who came to Canada as a refugee from Uganda in 1972, is one of seven rookies entering cabinet. But jumping straight into the dual role of justice minister and attorney general makes him the biggest mover of the bunch. “The prime minister...
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Haudenosaunee mark 100th anniversary of Deskaheh’s fight
DESKAHEH: 100 years of defending soverignty Haudenosaunee Confederacy delegation in Geneva By Lynda Powless Writer GENEVA SWITZERLAND – A delegation of Haudenosaunee marked 100 years of defending Haudenosaunee sovereignty and the man who led it, Deskaheh, in Geneva last week. A century ago, Cayuga Royanni Deskaheh/ Levi General travelled to the League of Nations in Geneva in 1923 to protest Canada’s subjugation of the Haudenosaunee people. Today, in 2023, Cayuga Royanni Deskaheh /Steve Jacobs and a Confederacy delegation travelled to Geneva not only to continue to draw attention to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s fight for sovereignty recognition but to participate in the 100th anniversary of Royanni Levi General’s trip. Fueled with support from Haudenosaunee Deskaheh/ Levi General made the long trip in 1923 only to find the United Nations wouldn’t grant...
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Six Nations partners to build new housing five-plex
Six Nations is taking another shot at its long list for housing by building a new multi family unit on Harold Road. The unit is aimed at bringing down Six Nations growing housing wait list. There are 251 families and individuals on Six Nations housing waitlist. Six Nations CEO Darren Jamieson says the community will grow by 40 per cent in the next decade. He also expects most members would prefer to live on the reserve, so making spaces for homes and people is a priority. Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) approved $1.7 million to build a second five-unit building on Harold Road at its General Finance Committee meeting on July 17. The new building is adjacent to and exactly the same as the building currently in development. Habitat for...
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Six Nations Public Works to start work on flooding
Six Nations is tackling flooding on the territory for residents at its own cost. The 2019 Community Plan identified flood remediation as one of the community’s top priorities, a priority reinforced in a 2022 survey. As a result Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) staff developed the Mackenzie Creek Drainage and Flood Remediation Plan. SNEC approved putting part of that plan in motion at its General Finance Committee meeting on July 17 at a cost of just over $646,000. Ontario and Canada will fund up to two thirds of the cost through the Small Communities Fund, which will amount to about $430,000, but Six Nations is on the hook for the other approximately $215,000. The Environment Task Force established a Drainage Working Group, which identified the highest priority area for flood...
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Six Nations Elected Council to hold celebration for returning North American Indigenous Games participants
Six Nations athletes will have to wait until they return triumphant from the North American Indigenous Games to have support from Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC). Elected Chief Mark Hill supported organizing some kind of return celebration at the Political Liaison Committee meeting on July 10. Councillor Sherri Lyn Hill introduced new business to finalize SNEC’s support after weeks of discussion surrounding the athletes and how to support all athletes in the community. Hill said about 52 Six Nations Athletes are among more than 500 attending the games to compete in 16 sports at 21 venues in Halifax, Nova Scotia from July 15 to 23. Councillor Hill said a community member wanted to see the issue finalized, but previously SNEC had considered paying transportation to the airport, the registration fee...
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Six Nations Cannabis Commission still no bank account
The Six Nations Cannabis Commission has made money for the first time since it was founded in 2019, but it still doesn’t have a bank account. Kathy Mair, the Six Nations Cannabis Commission’s (SNCC) chief commissioner told Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) at the Political Liaison meeting Monday ( July 24) she’s been speaking with banks, but hasn’t had any luck securing an account. “I’ve met with every bank across Canada, including credit unions,” she said. “Everybody takes me along and everybody says they can help and then something comes up and they can’t,” she said. “Nobody is willing to go against the banking charter.” Within the last few months the SNCC has also signed its first cannabis retailer, she said and two others have followed. Mair said others have...
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Come rain or sunshine Six Nations annual Pow Wow drawing crowds!
By Lisa Iesse Writer SIX NATIONS OF THE GRAND – The 44th Champion of Champions Pow Wow is back and took Six Nations by storm this weekend. While hundreds of people packed the bleachers, a long parade of dancers made their way into the arena as drums beat and singers’ voices filled the air. Organizer Charlene Bomberry had a huge smile for the success of the second powwow since COVID-19 shut the world down. The powwow moved from its longtime home base at Chiefswood Park last year to Ohsweken Speedway . A move Bomberry said served the needs of the growing event. The park site, she said had become just too small to host the event. The move last year came with growing pains but she says she is happy...
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100 years of fighting
It wasn’t an easy task. Today, it is still unknown to many. But the international fight for Haudenosaunee rights began at Six Nations of the Grand River over a century ago. And it began quietly. They held bake sales and dances and came up with ways to raise money to help. Unbeknown to audiences, and even some residents of Six Nations, the Pageant, a play based on Haudenosaunee history that continued to the late 1990s, itself began as a subversive activity with money raised going to the fight for autonomy. Fear that Canada was encroaching on the authority of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was quietly sparking action from all corners to solicit support even before the HCCC was removed from office by armed RCMP in 1924 and a Canada controlled band...
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Hamilton pleads guilty to sewage leak
HAMILTON – As the long-awaited clean up of Chedoke Creek restarts, the court flips the city a $2.9M bill in fines and damages. Ontario’s Ministry of the nvironment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) is holding the city accountable for letting 24 billion litres of sewage and stormwater leak into Chedoke Creek. More than two years of talks and negotiating has followed, but has the sewage-gate saga ended? Time will tell if this latest turn of events leads to a resolution that clears the waters. To date, Chedoke Creek and Cootes Paradise remains contaminated with bio-hazardous wastes from billions in litres of sewage and stormwater. On Thursday (July 20), the city issued a press release confirming they pleaded guilty to the charges, and will pay fines and damages totalling about $3 million....
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Powless continues successful run adding NAIG gold medal to collection
By Sam Laskaris Writer Six Nations’ Darcy Powless managed to do it again. During the past couple of years Powless has been involved with numerous championship squads or clubs that have managed to earn some hardware at prestigious competitions. Powless’ most recent addition to his medal collection occurred this past Saturday. He was an assistant coach with the Ontario boys’ under-19 lacrosse squad that captured the gold medal at the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG), which were primarily held in Halifax. Ontario downed British Columbia 11-9 in the championship final. “It was a really good game,” Powless said. “It was back and forth for the whole game.” Powless had originally agreed to serve as the head coach for Ontario’s team at NAIG. But these latest multi-sport Games in Nova Scotia...
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Ohsweken squad to compete at national fastball championships
By Sam Laskaris Writer The Ohsweken Redmen have a rather hectic August coming up. For starters, the local men’s squad will be participating at this year’s Canadian Native Fastball Championships, which will be staged Aug. 4-6 in Calgary. The Ohsweken squad had placed second in the senior men’s category at the 2022 national tournament held in Prince George, B.C. The local team also participated and placed second at the 2019 Canadian championships, when it was called the Ontario Smoke. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both the 2020 and 2021 national tournaments were cancelled. Darrell Anderson, who will manage the local team in Calgary, is obviously hoping this is the year his charges can go a step further and win the national tourney. But he realizes that will be no easy...
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Rivermen split first two playoff contests versus Merchants
By Sam Laskaris Writer The Six Nations Rivermen opened their 2023 playoff schedule with back-to-back games this past Friday and Saturday. And the Rivermen, the local Senior B men’s lacrosse squad, had drastically different results in those two outings. For starters, the Six Nations squad hit the road Friday and squared off against the host Brooklin Merchants. The Rivermen muscled their way to a convincing 14-7 victory in that match, which was held at the Luther Vipond Memorial Arena. Members of the Six Nations club, however, certainly did not like the way things transpired the following night. The Merchants downed the Rivermen in Game 2 of their best-of-five Ontario Series Lacrosse (OSL) semi-final series 8-3. Despite only scoring a season-low of three goals in Saturday’s outing, held at the Iroquois...
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Six Nations Police had their hands full when a transport truck overturned
Six Nations Police had their hands full when a transport truck overturned at Fifth Line turning onto Chiefswood Road Monday (July 17) holding up traffic for most of the day. (Photo by Jim C. Powless)...
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‘Heartless’: Miller criticizes Manitoba government’s decision not to search landfill
By Kelly Geraldine Malone THE CANADIAN PRESS The federal minister of Crown-Indigenous relations is criticizing Manitoba’s government for standing in the way of a search for the remains of two slain Indigenous women believed to be in a landfill, as others say the jurisdictional battle is leaving the victims’ families and the City of Winnipeg in limbo. “We are willing to play a role, a very important role in this,’ Marc Miller said Wednesday at the Assembly of First Nations general meeting in Halifax. “But the reality of where we’re working is that the government of Canada can’t nationalize the garbage dump or the waste disposal system of the City of Winnipeg.’’ Dozens of protesters have blocked the main road of the Brady Road landfill demanding a search of a...
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Forensic audit not about casting blame, but addressing concerns, says committee chair
By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter The Assembly of First Nations has moved one step closer to conducting a possible 10-year forensic audit. Chiefs on the second day of the AFN’s annual general assembly in Halifax July 12 voted in favour of an emergency resolution titled “Review of the past 10 years of Assembly of First Nations/National Indian Brotherhood audits’’. It allows the Chiefs Committee on Charter Renewal to begin the work to prove that an independent audit of the advocacy organization is required. Setting a scope for such an audit became necessary, said committee chair Khelsilem, because of a “lot of accusations, innuendo, different kinds of conversations’’ around the financial matters of the AFN. Before being ousted as national chief on June 28, RoseAnne Archibald had called for...
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Six Nations Elected Council administration plan updated
By Lynda Powless Editor A plan, almost four years in the making, detailing changes to band administrative services is coming together with current and future projects aimed at closing the gaps in services on Six Nations. Darren Jamieson, CEO of Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) updated SNEC at its General Finance meeting Monday (July 17th). Jamieson has made the updated plan his priority for the past almost four years of the current council’s term. He says it shows changes to what SNEC considered community priorities like restructuring staff and departments to “optimize responsiveness” as well as movements in housing, infrastructure and more. His report included a 10-year succession plan and financial plan. Jamieson plans to pass the plan on to the community at this council’s first General Assembly. It will...
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Rain doesn’t dampen spirits at 96th annual Border Crossing
By Lisa Eisse Writer NIAGARA FALLS ONT – Not even hate speech or rain could stop the 96th annual Jay Treaty Border Crossing celebrations Saturday (July 16) marking Indigenous rights to cross the international border freely. The annual event began with a parade across the Rainbow Bridge from Niagara Falls NY to Niagara Falls, Ont., and moved northwards. The border crossing is organized annually by the Indian Defense League of America (IDLA) in commemoration of the Jay Treaty of 1794 marking Indigenous rights to continue to cross the border uninhibited. Not even incidents of hate speech prevented parade participants from making their way across the bridge. Event organizer and IDLA president Shirley Squire told Turtle Island News there were a few people who made hateful comments as the parade participants walked...
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The Feather Report – Black & White and Red All Over
Black & White and Red All Over Photos by Carl Pascoe & Rachel A. Powless By Rachel A. Powless Feather Reporter When Carl & I began our journey to become bird banders we studied, absorbed, and shared our knowledge as much as we could about our feathered friends. We were quickly informed about three birds that could slice through our skin with razor-like swiftness. The Northern Cardinal is a year-round local bird. The Common Grackle is considered a partial migrator spending winter throughout the southern US then migrates north as early as March. Enter the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. This songbird is a Neo-tropical species who spends winters in southern Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America & parts of northern South America. He has a voice like a Vienna Choir School Boy. Ornithologists...
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Find the women!
It all comes down to one question. What if it was your mother? Across the country residents, politicians, Indigenous communities are all calling for the same thing. Search Winnipeg’s landfill sites! The bodies of three Indigenous women, all victims of an alleged serial killer, are believed to be buried in Winnipeg’s Prairie Green Landfill and Brady landfill after the partial remains of another missing Indigenous woman Rebecca Contois were found in June at the Brady landfill. Winnipeg Police said they believe the remains of three more missing Indigenous women Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, also believed to have been the victims of an alleged serial killer, and an unidentified woman, now named Buffalo Woman by Indigenous leaders, are in Winnipeg’s Prairie Green Landfill. For months the argument has continued on...
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