Aboriginal, Non-Aboriginal Wage Parity in Canada Will Take 63 Years: Study
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) just released its latest paper, The Income Gap Between Aboriginal Peoples and the Rest of Canada. Authored by Daniel Wilson and David Macdonald, the...
View ArticleFirst Nations, Ontario Agree to Fight for Continued Tax Exemption from...
A press release issued today from the Ontario government states that the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Minister of Revenue have entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Chiefs of Ontario...
View ArticleFirst Nations Funding: A System Built to Fail?
During our recent sit-down with outgoing Chief Marcel Balfour, it wasn’t long before the discussion turned to Canada’s infamous ‘2% funding cap.’ That’s the cap Indian and Northern Affairs Canada...
View ArticleControversy Brews Anew Over Koff “Indian” Beer Ads
The always interesting Blue Corn Comics by Rob Schmidt has recently come across a TV ad for Koff “Indian” Beer (a Carlsberg product) that Schmidt believes “emphasizes the uncomfortable connection...
View ArticleActivists Fire-Bomb Ottawa Bank in Name of Indigenous Rights: What Do You...
Yesterday around 3:30 am, an Ottawa branch of the Royal Bank of Canada was torched in the name of “aboriginal peoples, workers and the poor” of British Columbia. It then appears the people responsible...
View ArticleEvery Now and Then
I remember my very first political protest. The premier of Québec said he was prepared to bulldoze the Cree into the modern age over some massive hydro-electric project that would divert entire rivers...
View ArticleBP Spill and Louisiana Tribes: “This oil is just going to finish us.”
The Miami Herald has published a comprehensive look by reporter Joseph Goodman at how the ever-flowing BP oil spill threatens to impact the region’s Indigenous peoples, namely, the Chitimacha and the...
View ArticleWar & Trust & the Waiting Game
Elouise Cobell, Blackfeet warrior's battle with the US government's mismanagement of Indian money comes down to the wire.
View ArticleSome Inflated Thoughts About Treaty Payments
I sent away for my “treaty money” the other day. Apparently, you can do that now. Growing up in Manitoba, treaty money was usually collected in person at “Treaty Days,” which commemorated the occasion...
View ArticleSpectrum Sovereignty? Maori Treaty Rights to 4G Debated in New Zealand
Here’s a debate that opens all sorts of canned worms about what might be rightly considered the sovereign territory of Indigenous peoples. As we see in this report from TVNZ’s Te Karere, some Maori...
View ArticleSnatching the People’s Purse
The 500 or so people living on the Mosquito (Grizzly Bear’s Head) reserve in central Saskatchewan are undergoing some introspective times. This past spring, the chief and a councillor from the band...
View ArticleRubber revival delivers cultural, economic bounce for Indigenous Amazonians
Awesome story in The Ecologist of how the tradition of Amazonian rubber-tapping has been successfully revived among Indigenous people in Brazil thanks in part to the critical assistance of local NGO...
View ArticleIs the ‘secret’ of some First Nations’ economic success all that secret?
A recent Globe and Mail editorial approves of a “special” Indian and Northern Affairs Canada project looking at “why some [65 First Nations] reserves are doing well economically.” The study’s aim: to...
View ArticleHow the show goes on: imagineNATIVE festival realizes international return on...
Report filed by Samantha Butler (TORONTO) — At 8 p.m., Wed. Oct. 20, a Maori boy set off with one thousand Torontonians on a guided tour of his life. Known simply as ‘Boy,’ the 11-year-old shows off a...
View ArticleIf privatizing Indigenous lands is such a great idea, why the uproar over...
Funny how being on the receiving end of a massive land grab can alter one’s perspective on what rules should apply to outsiders scooping up your territory and/or the resources beneath it. Recent months...
View ArticleSaskatchewan First Nation’s novel solution to welfare: organic veggies
Just an amazing, all-around awesome story out of the Muskoday First Nation in Saskatchewan, courtesy of The Star-Phoenix. The article details efforts by the community, in partnership with Heifer...
View ArticleOne little planet. One BIG farm.
Since the ’30s, the days of the family farm have been numbered. The dustbowl sucked young farmers off the land faster than you can say “plague of grasshoppers.” But there were always dirt die-hards who...
View ArticleOil’s Slippery Slope
I like oil. Oil brings me things. Things like home heating, air conditioning, electricity. It means people aren’t burning trees so I can hike through forests. It means people aren’t burning coal so I...
View ArticleIndieNDNs: Indigenous Indiegogo crowdfunding campaigns
A scan of Indigenous related crowdfunding campaigns, from film to health
View ArticleCannabis count: Who’s in and who’s not in Indigenous country?
With cannabis now legal in Canada, which Indigenous communities embrace this new regime and which don't?
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