Wawatay News published out of Thunder Bay is one of the biggest Aboriginal weekly newspapers in the country — and this week, they published my story on trapping beaver with Leonard and Larry Naveau for Mattagami First Nation’s annual Beaver Fest.
Read the whole story here. Or take a look at my pictures from the expedition on my flickr page.
Want some tasty, tasty beaver? Go to Mattagami’s Beaver Fest this Saturday, April 24, 2010.
Filed under Aboriginal, ethical living, travel
Perhaps the most humble translator Canada has ever seen, Susan Ouriou is dedicated to the words and meaning of the texts she translates. I had a chance to see her in action as part of the Emerging Aboriginal Writer’s program in Banff this September. She worked with one French speaking student in particular, taking care to make his words heard to us and ours to him. She translated all of the French writer’s works for presentation tackling perhaps the most literary of literary forms with flair: poetry.
Susan told me she absolutely loved the young adult novel for which she won the English-language translation award: young adult novel, Pieces of Me, a translation of La liberté? Connais pas by Charlotte Gingras.
Ouriou, who studied at the Sorbonne, is also a novelist and is working on her second novel after penning Damselfish. Perhaps another reason for her dedication to preserving the author’s intent in translation.
Filed under Aboriginal, books
Don’t turn out the light on missing women
Federal Liberal critic for women’s issues, Anita Neville, is calling on the Conservative government to guarantee a renewal of the five-year mandate for Sisters in Spirit.
The national organization has become the main voice for the epidemic of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada.
Neville’s call comes after a funding crisis threatens to kill the $5 million dollar program.
530 native women have vanished across Canada in the past 25 years.
Neville, also repeated her standing call for a federal inquiry into why a disproportionate number of Aboriginal women go missing.
Ted Rogers has his Way
And it will run on Jarvis Street between Charles and Bloor Streets.
Toronto City Council is renaming that section of Jarvis to remember the late communications mogul and head of Rogers Communications.
Rogers died last December at the age of 75.
I’d like a glass of tap water with extra bacteria please
University of Michigan researchers are finding bacteria in Toronto tap water that is resistant to some antibiotics.\
While researchers stress the water is safe to drink – the drug-resistant bacteria has scientists worried about genetic pollution.
They think human forms of bacteria or viruses could copy the drug resistant genes of their water-borne neighbours, making it even tougher to treat infections.
Researchers don’t know the exact type or source of this resistant strain.
$400 million dollars more
That’s one of the changes Premier Dalton McGunity will announce this morning to the government’s full-day kindergarten plan for all four and five year olds in Ontario.
The government now wants teachers to be in charge all-day – instead of the original proposal to have teachers in the morning and early childhood educators in the afternoon – costing Ontario $400 million dollars more than forecasted.
To help offset the cost, class sizes will get bigger from 20 to 26 children and the phase-in will take five years. Next year only 15 percent of Ontario children will get spaces in the all-day program.
Yesterday Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said the premier should rethink all-day kindergarten given the growing deficit.
Food Rich, Cash Poor
For the last two years the Daily Bread FoodBank has fallen far short of its fall fundraising goal of half a million dollars.
Now Executive Director Gail Nyberg says she might have to revise the goal down to $350,000 dollars. Everyone likes a winner she says.
But the Food Bank is a champion when it comes to food donations – this fall the public donated 633,000 pounds of food, spilling over its 500,000 pound goal.
Nyberg says people are more likely to give food over money in failing economies because they know that can of soup is going to someone in need.
But Daily Bread needs cash to buy items it doesn’t get like dairy, meat and vegetables – and necessities like baby formula.
The number of families with at least one working adult using the food bank has more than doubled since 1995 — indicating working families are having trouble making ends meet.
World’s scientists are sleeping through tar sands pollution
A new report by Global Forest Watch Canada is calling for urgent attention by the World’s Scientific Community to the problem of contaminants leaking from Alberta’s tar sands.
Dr. Kevin Timoney and Peter Lee’s new study titled “Does the Alberta Tar Sands Industry Pollute?” finds some contaminant levels are threatening the ecosystem and human health.
But it says industry churns out so much money that no one in a position of authority wants to look closely at the problem. To date there are no comprehensive, peer-reviewed assessments of the cumulative impacts of tar sands development,” say the researchers claiming “serious problems of scientific leadership.
They say the problem demands immediate scientific attention – especially in light of plans to triple tar sands activities over the next decade. The full report is available on This Magazine’s website.
A Tory Senator is the latest to be tainted by Montreal’s corruption scandal
New reports reveal top Conservative organizer and senator Leo Housakos worked with recently disgraced Montreal politician Benoit Labonte from August 2008 to last February.
Mr. Labonte is at the centre of the corruption scandal rocking Montreal’s Race for Mayor.
After Labonte’s relationship with construction kingpin Tony Accurso – who made a $100,000 dollar donation to Labonte’s campaign – came to light, Labonte resigned. Then the former opposition leader told all – describing an elaborate kickback scheme to finance Montreal’s political parties.
Now Senator Housakos has been linked to Labonte and Accurso while working with the Vision Montreal party.
There is no evidence the Senator knew of any wrongdoing, but the Senate Ethics Officer is investigating whether Mr. Housakos breached any articles of the Senate Conflict of Interest Code.
Also check out:
The Tyee’s in-depth report on how provincial politicians are steamrolling over local protocol to create a jumbo ski resort in a government-run town
AND why people staying in low-cost housing or boarding houses aren’t much better off than the homeless
Filed under Aboriginal, journalism, news, Toronto
Well, after a long hiatus due to a two-week workshop at the Banff Centre for Emerging Aboriginal Writers (super awesome, check out the pics here), and a cold, I’m finally back on Take 5 News. Here is my selection of world and national news for Wednesday, October 14th.
And a hot tip: We interviewed filmmaker Dennis Allen this morning on his CBQM doc about a radio station that is acting as a modern social network in the Far North – the elders on air are colourful and delightfully funny – check it out at its imagineNATIVE premiere this Friday afternoon.
IN NATIONAL NEWS
Euthanasia? Oui, Oui!
Three out of four specialist doctors in Quebec say they want the government to legalize euthanasia.
That’s according to a survey conducted by their professional association - and the doctors are urging the association to take a public stand on the matter.
But 20 per cent of those polled say that even if euthanasia were legalized, they would refuse to perform it.
The Federal Stimulus stimulates Conservative ridings
That’s according to Liberal MP Gerard Kennedy… he’s suggesting that the recent wave of federal infrastructure stimulus funding favoured Conservative ridings.
Kennedy’s report claims that in several provinces the Conservative ridings received an average of $3-$4 million dollars more than opposition ridings under the Building Canada Fund.
And under the $500-million dollar Recreational Infrastructure Canada program, 18 of the top 20 Ontario ridings by number of projects are held by Conservatives.
Yesterday, National Conservative caucus chair and MP Guy Lauzon, dismissed the claims saying the Liberals are trying to create another excuse to have an election. He says it was up to the municipalities to apply for funds.
Don’t shoot our moose
In Northern B.C… the Tahltan Nation continues its standoff against the government over hunting rules – but the Environment Ministry says it won’t come to the table until the blockades are down.
New roads into the northern territory and the longest moose hunting season in the province is causing unchecked hunting in Tahltan territory and its decimating the moose population, say local Elders and protesters. They are patrolling a blockade preventing hunters from coming into the territory.
One hour south, Iskut residents occupy another blockade – this one against Royal Dutch Shell’s exploration for coalbed methane in an area known as the Sacred Headwaters – only this blockade started four years ago.|
Elder Lillian Campbell, says the two blockades are linked, “It’s about bears, it’s about wolves, it’s about salmon — it’s about our culture,” she says.
The Environment Ministry says moose populations are healthy and it won’t talk to the Tahltan Nation until they stop the blockades.
Alberta addresses its failing grade for educating Aboriginal youth
Yesterday the Alberta Government and eight members of First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities made the first move to formally address the education gap facing Aboriginal youth.
They formed a ministers’ council on Aboriginal education – expected to meet several times a year.
The move is being heralded by education consultant Thomas Erasmus of Goodfish Lake First Nation.
He says problems with gangs and drugs on reserves, and among native youth in Edmonton’s downtown, are tied to gaps in education and worrying school drop-out rates.
He says the on-reserve school system is failing – schools are often isolated and use a hodgepodge of curriculum. Teachers are paid less than in nearby provincial schools, so they often move on quickly after gaining experience.
Erasmus hopes that by sitting down with aboriginal people, the council will force ministers to give education for aboriginal youth higher priority.
In Vancouver…. a memorial mass is being held today… marking the second anniversary of Robert Dziekanski’s death moments after he was tasered and pinned to the ground by four RCMP officers at the Vancouver International Airport.
Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski will attend the 5 o clock mass at the city’s Holy Rosary Cathedral.
The Braidwood Inquiry investigating Dzienkanski’s death is hearing closing statements this week by lawyers from both sides.
Meanwhile Dziekanski’s mother is reiterating her calls for the appointment of an independent special prosecutor to look into whether criminal charges can be laid against the four RCMP officers who confronted her son.
Hands off the beverage cart
The pilot of an Air Canada Jazz flight from Vancouver to Fort McMurray grounded the plane after a passenger stole a beer from the flight attendant’s beverage cart.
The RCMP whisked the man in question off the plane – they say he nicked the beer and then tried to hide the evidence by flushing the empty can down the toilet.
The plane then got on its way, leaving some passengers hankering for the good old days when beer was included with your plane ticket.
IN WORLD NEWS
Al-Qaeda’s credit crunch
The US Treasury claimed yesterday that Al-Qaeda is in its worst financial state for many years while the Taliban’s funding is rising.
The Taliban are in better financial shape partly because of Afghanistan’s booming drug trade.
Senior Treasury official David Cohen says the al-Qaeda leadership has warned that a lack of funds is hurting its recruitment and training efforts.
Cohen says without money, Al-Qaeda is losing influence.
Unsafe abortions are killing about 70,000 women around the world every year, says a new report by the U.S.- based Guttmacher Institute.
And five million women are treated every year for complications arising from unsafe abortions.
While the number of abortions worldwide fell from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003 – the number of deaths has not been reduced.
The report blames the high death rate on rising populations of women in parts of the world where safe abortions are not widely available.
Half of the deaths due to unsafe abortions are in Africa, followed by South Asia.
The report claims the key to prevention is contraception – and it calls on governments to expand high quality family planning services, liberalize abortion laws and make investments to make safe abortion services available.
Who’s afraid of a Minaret?
Well some people in Switzerland are. That country is divided as it readies to vote in a November referendum to ban the construction of minarets on mosques.
The controversial campaign is being led by right-wing Christians like Daniel Zigg, a member of the Federal Democratic Union. He sees minarets as symbols of Muslim victories over newly conquered lands – and a source of quote “ideological emissions.”
The move is so radical that even some die-hard members of right wing parties are expressing discomfort with the issue.
Filed under Aboriginal, journalism, news
Ever struggle with coming out of your parent’s shadows? Try having a father who is one of the most famous Aboriginal activists and thinkers in Canada. But filmmaker and musician Shane Belcourt has done better than most. Find out how the Ottawa-born native lives his life in Toronto – he’s the latest subject for my blogT.O. Toronto through the eyes of column.
Filed under Aboriginal, ethical living, family, people, Toronto
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