Housing crisis in Indigenous communities should consider health and climate adaptation: report
By Matteo Cimellaro Local Jouranlism Initiative Reporter Solutions to the housing crisis in Indigenous communities should be viewed holistically and include cultural, health and energy-efficiency outcomes, a new report says. The report, written in collaboration with the Canadian Climate Institute and Indigenous Clean Energy, brings forward the concept of “healthy energy homes,” which are efficient, climate adaptive and support well being. The idea is not intended to create a new standard like net-zero or passive housing that can be certified, but instead is specific to each nation. The report suggests Indigenous housing must be different from the past by “creating that space for culture and creating that space for doing things in a way that makes sense for the community,” Janna Wale, a report co-author, told Canada’s National Observer. Take,...
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Heritage Fund aids Northwest economic projects
By Mike Stimpson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Thunder Bay Source KENORA – A nearly $2-million Northern Ontario Heritage Fund announcement was music to Chief Chris Skead’s ears. “It’s a great announcement, for sure,” the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation chief said Tuesday. “And it’s definitely going to go a long way in our community.” Greg Rickford, MPP for Kenora–Rainy River, announced Monday that the Anishinaabe nation south of Kenora will receive $1.5 million in Heritage Fund money to build a new 9,600-square-foot education facility. The facility will deliver land-based learning to Wauzhushk Onigum (Rat Portage) members, Skead said. Rickford also announced funding for three other projects in Wauzhushk Onigum: a new radio station, an accessible washroom and changing facility at the community’s Roundhouse, and cleanup and remediation of the Devil’s Gap site...
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MODG plans to ‘move quickly’ in advancing equity
By Alec Bruce Local Journalism Initiative Reporter GUYSBOROUGH — Under a new partnership with the Association of Municipal Administrators, the Nova Scotia government is targeting municipalities and villages as the first public bodies in the province required by law to tackle systematic hate, inequality and racism. But that doesn’t worry Barry Carroll, chief administrative officer of the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG), who said his staff is ready for this and more. “Council has given us clear directions to set up an equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility committee,” he told The Journal in an interview last week. “The plan for MODG is that we will have an accessibility policy, as well as an equity and anti-racism policy.” According to a provincial government news release last week, following the...
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Recovery camp being offered
By Alexandra Noad Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Alvin Mills spent nine years at St. Paul Residential School and another four years at St. Mary’s Indian Residential School. He says although people can talk about their experiences, one can never truly understand what trauma went on without experiencing it firsthand. “Until you walk through the hall, until you hear the footsteps, you could never really know what goes on. Tell you the truth, they were a breeding ground for violence. A lot of times in the residential schools we always focused our attention on the supervisors. The nuns and abuses that they did. Oftentimes it was the older students that were just as bad, if not worse, of abuses they inflicted to on younger students,” said Mills. The trauma brought Mills...
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More Indigenous youth are learning to spearfish, a connection to ancestors and the land
The Associated Press 10/07/2024 09:33 HAYWARD, Wis. (AP) — Ganebik Johnson started learning traditional Ojibwe songs when he was about 2 years old. He’d hang around listening to his uncle sing, or observe elders, or even pull up music on YouTube. Spearfishing came shortly after, at around age 7, when his grandfather took him out on a northern Wisconsin lake for the first time. Now 13, he’s already teaching others. Johnson kept a steady beat on his drum as he joined other youth playing and singing the welcoming song at this year’s annual spearfishing event for kids put on by the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians. He and 40 or so other young people spread tobacco into the water along the shoreline, an offering of respect...
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Bites. Bruises. Tears: What unions are saying about the growing violence in schools
By Celeste Percy-Beauregard Local Journalism Initiative. Educators crying in their cars, trying to convince themselves they can get through another day. Bite marks, bruises, and the daily fear of violence from the elementary students they teach. These were a few of the challenges handwritten on postcards delivered to the Grand Erie District School Board (GEDSB) by the presidents of four unions representing Brant-area education staff. The representatives hoped the words would inspire the board to allocate some of its $11.1 million budget surplus to support staff. None of the stories came as a surprise to the union heads from CUPE 5100, ETFO Occasional Teacher Local, ETFO DECE Local and ETFO Teacher Local, who represent more than 2,800 education workers in GEDSB elementary schools. Still, reading through the challenges of local...
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Influx of money largely goes into junk food, says wellness co-ordinator
By Darrell Greer Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 10/07/2024 09:14 Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same, and unhealthy food choices seem to have crept back to the top of the list in Baker Lake. Hamlet wellness co-ordinator Karen Yip hasn’t liked a lot of the food choices she’s seen being made since funds from the Inuit Child First/Jordan’s Principle Food Security program were rolled out in the community. Yip said she’d like to see more people do their due diligence when it comes to selecting food items with the extra food money they’re now receiving. “I would like to do a community event and talk about nutrition, play games, and, maybe, get people to taste things that they could easily make just by buying the ingredients...
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Ontario town to decide whether it’s willing to host a nuclear waste repository
The Canadian Press A northwestern Ontario town is set to decide today whether it is willing to become the site of a deep geological repository for Canada’s nuclear waste. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization plans to decide this year where millions of bundles of used nuclear fuel will be placed in a network of underground rooms connected by cavernous tunnels. The process for the $26-billion project is already narrowed down to two sites, one in northern Ontario and one in southern Ontario, and the NWMO says that both the local municipality and the First Nation in those areas will have to agree to be willing hosts. The northern Ontario town of Ignace, between Thunder Bay and Kenora, is set to be the first of those four communities today to make...
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Behind Upper Midwest tribal spearfishing is a long and violent history of denied treaty rights
The Associated Press HAYWARD, Wis. (AP) — On a twilight so calm the red and white pines are reflected in the waters of northern Wisconsin’s Chippewa Flowage, John Baker plans to go spearfishing — a traditional Ojibwe method of harvesting walleye. But before he sets out, he detours his boat to land on a sandy shore, hops out and crosses the tree line, crunching through dead leaves. “This is my sanctuary,” he says, recalling childhood visits in his dad’s rowboat. He points out divots in the earth — former graves, once behind a church, whose occupants have since been moved. But the burial sites of many Native people in the area were not. When a local power company created the Flowage by building the Winter Dam in the 1920s, it...
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Environmental group buys Fraser River island near Chilliwack, B.C., to protect salmon
The Canadian Press An ideal natural salmon habitat of gravel beds and side channels on British Columbia’s lower Fraser River will be protected by the purchase of a private island by an environmental organization, with the help of the federal government and private donors. The deal to buy the 248-hectare Carey Island near Chilliwack is a “big win for conservation” in the important ecological area between Mission and Hope known to environmental groups as “the Heart of the Fraser,” Steven Godfrey, Nature Conservancy of Canada West Coast program director, said Monday. The conservancy announced it had bought the island off Carey Island Farms Ltd., which was using it to grow corn. Godfrey said up to 90 per cent of the gravel shoreline of the lower Fraser River from Hope...
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Fort Nelson First Nation orders remote B.C. site evacuated by boat due to wildfire
The Canadian Press The Fort Nelson First Nation in northeast British Columbia has issued a wildfire evacuation order for a remote riverside reserve, telling residents and visitors they must immediately leave by boat. The First Nation said the order covered the Kahntah Reserve, which is a few kilometres south of an out-of-control fire that was discovered on Monday. The BC Wildfire Service said on its online dashboard that the blaze, measuring five hectares in size, was believed to have been caused by lightning. The evacuation order comes as the service announces a provincewide campfire ban, with the exception of the Haida Gwaii Forest District, which will take effect on Friday because of the increased risk of wildfire starts from current and forecasted weather conditions. The Fort Nelson First Nation issued...
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Advocacy group pulls out of Pickton evidence hearing after serial killer’s death
By Amy Romer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 09/07/2024 16:26 A women and girls’ advocacy group has pulled out of a court case where they were demanding that the RCMP preserve more than 14,000 exhibits from the Robert Pickton murders. Justice for Girls was previously an intervenor in the RCMP’s application to dispose of the items, but removed itself from the case prior to a hearing at the B.C. Supreme Court in “New Westminster” on June 26. Instead, Justice for Girls has made the decision to “push very hard” outside the courtroom, targeting political and RCMP decision makers who have the power and resources to investigate unsolved cases which would necessitate the preservation of remaining evidence, said the group’s lawyer and director of advocacy Sue Brown. “We initially intervened because we...
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First Nations leaders from across Canada gather in Montreal for AFN’s annual general assembly
By Sam Laskaris Writer MONTREAL-First Nations leaders from across the country have assembled in Montreal this week for the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Annual General Assembly. The three-day event, the 45th annual assembly, began on Tuesday morning and continues until Thursday. The assembly is being held at the Palais des Congres in Montreal. The theme of this year’s event is Strengthening Our Relations. That will act as the foundation for discussions in dialogue sessions, caucusing and plenaries. This is the AFN’s first annual general assembly since Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak was elected to be the national chief this past December. “This year’s theme, Strengthening Our Relations, highlights the importance of our connections on multiple levels, connection with our nations, connection to this country, connection with each other,” she said. “It...
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Six Nations Elected Council fails to answer who ordered it
By Austin Evans Writer The Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC) has provided a statement about the bulldozing at Chiefswood National Historic Site (CNHS) but it failed to mention who ordered it. SNEC released their statement about the removal of the naturalization site at CNHS on July 3. It said the project was a collaboration between Kayanase and SNGR departments including Lands and Resources and Six Nations Tourism, and that the Chiefswood Board of Trustees was the first to know about this project in October 2023. The statement announced that there are plans to repurpose the space for future projects and programming, though it did not specify whose projects and programming these would be. It also mentioned that the tall grass prairie had trees and other non-native plants due to the...
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Technical issues continue to haunt Six Nations Elected Council streaming
By Austin Evans Writer Six Nations Elected Council’s (SNEC) announcement that they switched streaming services to avoid technical issues was not streamed due to technical issues. At the general council meeting on June 25, SNEC CEO Nathan Wright was originally scheduled to present his update on streaming services after Elected Chief Sherri-Lyn Hill’s update. However, Councillor Dayle Bomberry requested the presentation ed be moved up on the agenda as SNEC was adopting their agenda for the meeting. Wright began with an apology to the community for the technical issues in the last few weeks of live streams, and explained that they were a result of attempting to move their streams from Zoom to Microsoft Teams. He said they initially switched platforms due to security concerns with Zoom, however because Teams...
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Teenager faces first-degree murder charge in shooting
Six Nations Police have charged a 17-year-old Hagersville resident with first-degree murder after a body was found in a Six Nations of the Grand River home last week. Six Nations Police responded to a call around 2 p.m. July 3rd to a home on Mississauga Road in Ohsweken. Emergency crews called to the scene had found a body. One person was then taken into custody. Six Nations Police said in an update Thursday, a 17-year-old youth from Hagersville was charged with first-degree murder. No details of the victim’s identity were released. “No further information will be released including the identity of the deceased in order to prevent identification of the accused,” police said Thursday (July 4th) in a release. The relese did not specify how the victim died. Police say...
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Kahnawake gets new Grand Chief after count lasts to early morning
KAHNAWAKE-Kahnawake has a new Grand Chief after the results of a community vote took to the early morning hours. In the early hours Sunday morning, the results showed that Cody Diabo defeated incumbent Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer by more than 250 votes to become the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community’s fifth grand chief. Diabo won with 542 votes, over former council chief Gina Deer who came in second with 343 votes and now former Grand Chief Sky-Deer coming in third with 275 votes. Diabo told reporters “I was initially shocked and speechless.” He said he knew he had “a lot of support going in, but I didn’t know how much. I was honoured when he had read it and then immediately getting asked questions, how I feel. It’s not often I’m speechless. So it...
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Six Nations Firefighters fight fire and heat
Six Nations Fire Fighters had to fight not just the fire engulfing what is believed to have been a cigarette factory but the soaring heat. The fire broke out in a structure on 2120 First Line the morning of July 5. By the time Six Nations Fire and Emergency Services arrived at the scene, the building was fully engulfed. This limited them to a defensive attack on the fire, and it took roughly four hours for the fire to get fully under control. “You could tell the extreme heat conditions by the warping of the steel and everything,” said Jody Catalan, Fire Battalion Chief on-duty. “And a lot of shelving units in there, you could see the braces were bent and twisted. The damage on the structure really limited how...
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Man charged after police seize $20,000 in drugs
By Austin Evans Writer A wanted person was stopped by police and arrested for drug trafficking. Six Nations Police officers were on proactive patrol on Second Line Road on July 2 when they observed a male known to have outstanding warrants in a motor vehicle. Following a traffic stop the male was taken into custody. Police said the man show signs of drug use within the motor vehicle, resulting in the driver also being placed under arrest. During a search of the vehicle, police seized bulk coloured Fentanyl with an estimated street value of $20,000. As a result of the investigation, 34-year-old Ohsweken resident Rylan Vanevery has been charged with possession of Fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking and proceeds of crime under $5000. Additionally, 34-year-old Ohsweken resident Staci Martin...
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BPS charge 41-year-old Brantford man with murder
BRANTFORD- Brantford Police Service (BPS) has charged a city man with murder. The charge comes after police responded to a Hampton Street residence later receiving a 911 call Friday, July 5, 2024, at approximately 12:00 p.m.. BPS said the call came over concerns for the well-being of a female resident of the home. Police attended and located the 40-year-old female deceased within the residence. Police said a 41-year-old male resident of the home was also located by police within the residence. The man was in medical distress and transported to hospital for treatment. As a result, a 41-year-old male resident of Brantford has been arrested, held for bail, and charged with murder. At this time, the Brantford Police Service would like to advise the public that the victim and the...
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