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Archive - Mar 2006

March 4th

KO team particiates in research in community networks (CRACIN) gathering

March 4, 2006 - 2:14pm | by Anonymous

Brian Walmark (KORI Coordinator - http://research.knet.ca) and Brian Beaton (K-Net Coordinator) participated in the fourth CRACIN (http://cracin.ca) gathering that is being held at the University of Toronto, March 3-5, 2006. The workshop entitled, "Integrating Research for Sustaining Community Networking Initiatives" is being hosted by the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto. A video conferencing connection between K-Net and UofT provided the opportunity for the K-Net participation.

Workshop Rationale and Objectives:

The objective of the CRACIN project is systematically to document and assess the benefits of community-based information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives in Canada in terms of their contributions to local learning, socio-economic development, and civic participation. With the progress made by its various case study and thematic study teams, CRACIN is well along the way of achieving this goal. However, as our research goes forward, the need to move beyond descriptions of local circumstances and understandings of developments within specific contexts towards more general observations, insights and conclusions drawn from the case studies becomes both possible and necessary. CRACIN is now at the stage of beginning to synthesize and integrate findings across our case studies, including lessons learned.

The central purpose of the 4th CRACIN Workshop is to report on the research of the various CRACIN studies (case studies and thematic studies) within an emerging integrative framework. The Workshop will bring together academic, community and government members, along with graduate student researchers and a handful of invited experts, to present and discuss the results of CRACIN’s on-going research in the context of a series of integrative research themes and questions designed to generate broader findings and conclusions regarding the benefits of community networking.

Workshop Agenda

Friday, March 3

9:00–9:30 Welcome and Introductions (Andrew Clement)

9:30–10:30 Roundtable on Analytical Frameworks for Community Informatics Research (Chair: Michael Gurstein)

In the context of on-rushing globalization and economic rationalization the role of the “local” and of primary ties such as those of family and community are being put increasingly into question. The significance of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) both as generators of and as possible means to respond to these challenges is of increasing interest. Community Informatics (CI) has emerged as both a field of academic research and as the basis for an ICT-enabled practice within this larger context of both interpreting and responding to the dilemmas of effective action and effective use in an Information Society. This Roundtable will explore the issues presented by these challenges and whether and how Community Informatics provides a conceptual framework for these responses and including whether, how and from what sources CI might develop or synthesize theory or theories for deepening interpretation and framing effective use in this domain.

Panelists:

  • Ann Bishop, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Bill McIver, Institute for Information Technology, National Research Council

Respondents:

  • Andrew Clement, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto
  • Leslie Regan Shade, Communication Studies, Concordia University

Background paper:

Supplementary materials:

  • McIver, Bill (2003) “Community Informatics for the Information Society,” in Bruce Girard and Sean O’Siochru, eds., Communicating in the Information Society, Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 33-63. http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/bscw/bscw.cgi/0/1124937
  • O’Neil, Dara (2002) “Assessing community informatics: a review of methodological approaches for evaluating community networks and community technology centers,” Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, Volume 12, Number 1, 76-102.
    http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/bscw/bscw.cgi/d787010/O%27Neil.pdf
  • CRACIN Executive (2006) CRACIN Integrative Framework Document, Draft, February 2006.

10:45–11:45 Rural & Remote Broadband (Chair: Michael Gurstein)

A primary framework for understanding the dynamic of Canadian political economy and economic geography is that of the relationships between centre and periphery, north and south, rural and urban. These relationships are often understood as ones of economic advantage, political power, development / under-development and so on. Based on the experiences with the CRACIN “rural” and “remote” case studies, this panel will explore how and whether ICTs in general and broadband in particular impact on these dynamics and whether technology may in fact displace the significance of these dynamics, replacing them for example with parallel statics of an ongoing and deepening ‘digital divide’. The panel will also explore the possible use of an ‘effective use’ approach to enabling those in remote and rural areas taking advantage of a broadband infrastructure.

Panelists:

  • Marco Adria, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta
  • Adam Fiser, Information Studies, University of Toronto “Everyone Together: K-Net as an Enabler of ICT Infrastructure in the Sioux Lookout District”
  • Frank Winter, Information Studies, University of Toronto, "Reverse English: KCDC's Strategy for Rural and Remote Broadband"
  • Katrina Peddle, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Rural Community-owned Infrastructure; the Role of Governance”

Respondents:

  • Brian Beaton, K-Net

Supplementary materials:

11:45–12:45 Gender and Youth Perspectives on Community Networking (Chair: Leslie Regan Shade)

This panel will focus on gender and youth issues. Bell will present preliminary research on information about youth participation in various CRACIN case study sites, and highlight some potential areas for further research. Peddle and Bell will present recent work that applies feminist perspectives on technology studies to the concepts of community and publics with the goal of illuminating the central role of space in this relationship. Shade will provide an overview of how gender has been integrated into Canadian ICT policy and suggest some areas for future research with respect to gender analysis of CRACIN case site studies.

Panelists:

  • Brandi Bell, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Integrative Theme Report on Youth and Community Networking”
  • Katrina Peddle, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Gender and Community Informatics: Rethinking the Feminization of Community”
  • Leslie Regan Shade, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Stirring Up the Pot? Integrating Gender into Policy, Practice and Evaluation”

Respondent:

  • Ann Bishop, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Backgrounder:

Supplementary materials:

2:15–3:15 Community Learning (Chair: Andrew Clement)

‘Learning’ has been a perennial feature of Knowledge-based Economy / Society discussions for decades. Most usually under the term ‘life long learning,’ it has figured prominently in government policies promoting the widespread adoption of ICTs. But the meanings given to learning vary widely among the various parties involved, most notably community based organizations attempting to draw upon the available funding programs to address the complex, dynamic and situated learning needs of their diverse constituencies. This session explores the linkages (and tensions) between the policy language around ‘community learning’ and the practices in developing community learning networks. It is based most directly on the ongoing CRACIN research in three leading exemplars – Keewatin Career Development Corporation (KCDC), K-Net Services, and St. Christopher House.

Panelists:

  • Adam Fiser, Information Studies, University of Toronto, “Lifelong Learning in the Little North: K-Net as an Enabler of Human Resources Development in the Sioux Lookout District”
  • Susan MacDonald, Project Administrator, CRACIN, “Learning to Ride a Bicycle While Building It: St. Christopher House and its CLN Project”
  • Frank Winter, Information Studies, University of Toronto, “Learning, Lifelong Learning, Community Learning and Community Learning Networks in Canada”

Respondents:

  • Ann Bishop, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Rob Mastin, Office of Learning Technologies, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
  • Judi Snively, St. Christopher House

Backgrounder:

Supplementary materials:

3:30–4:30 Breakout Discussions

  • Rural & Remote Broadband (Gurstein)
  • Youth and Gender (Shade)
  • Community Learning (Clement)

4:30–5:00 Breakout Reports & Wrap-up (Chair: Longford)

Saturday, March 4

9:00–10:30 Community Innovation and Emerging Technologies: Open Source Software & Community WiFi (Chairs: Andrew Clement & Serge Proulx)

Open Source Panel:

  • Stéphane Couture, LabCMO / Université du Québec à Montréal “Free Software and Community Groups in Quebec”

Respondents:

  • Randall Terada, Operation Springboard

Community WiFi Panel:

  • Alison Powell, Communication Studies, Concordia University
  • Matt Wong, Information Studies, University of Toronto, “Marking, Locating, and Designing for Public and Private Wireless Internet Spaces”

Respondents:

  • Michael Lenczner, Ile Sans Fil
  • Steve Wilton, Wireless Nomad
  • Prabir Neogi, E-Commerce Branch, Industry Canada
  • Bill McIver, Institute for Information Technology, National Research Council

Background Paper on Open Source Software:

Supplementary materials on Open Source software:

  • Coleman, Biella, “The (copylefted) Source Code for the Ethical Production of Information, http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/bscw/bscw.cgi/0/1124888
  • Luke, Robert, Andrew Clement, Randall Terada, et al (2004) “The promise and perils of a participatory approach to developing an open source community learning network,” Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2004: Artful integration: Interweaving Media, Materials, and Practices, Toronto, 11­19, 2004. http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/bscw/bscw.cgi/0/1124888

Backgrounder on community WiFi:

Supplementary materials on community WiFi:

10:45-12:15 Civic Participation (Chairs: Moll)

Panelists:

  • Diane Dechief, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Recent Immigrants as an “Alternate Civic Core”: Providing Internet Services, Gaining “Canadian Experiences”
  • Ken Werbin, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Where is the 'Community' in 'Community-Networking Initiatives'? Stories from the 'Third-spaces' of 'Connecting Canadians'
  • Alison Powell, Communication Studies, Concordia University, “Wireless Community Networks and Open-Source software development as emerging forms of civic engagement”
  • Nicolas Lecomte, LabCMO / LICEF & Université du Québec à Montréal, “Communautique's e-government consultations: specific issues for civic participation with ICTs?”

Respondents:

  • Bill McIver, National Research Council
  • Ariane Pelletier, Communautique

Backgrounder:

Supplementary materials:

  • Longford, Graham (2005) “Community Networking and Civic Participation: A Canadian Perspective,” in Geoff Erwin, Wallace Taylor, Andy Bytheway, and Corrie Strumpfer, eds., CIRN 2005: 2nd Annual Conference of the Community Informatics Research Network – Proceedings, Cape Town: CIRN 2005 Conference Committee, 355-376.
  • Kavanaugh, Andrea and Scott Patterson (2002) “The Impact of Community Networks on Social Capital and Community Involvement in Blacksburg,” in Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite, eds., The Internet in Everyday Life, London: Blackwell Publishing, 325-344.
  • Pigg, Kenneth and Laura Duffy Crank (2004). “Building Community Social Capital: The Potential and Promise of Information and Communication Technologies,” The Journal of Community Informatics, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 58-73. http://www.ci-journal.net/viewarticle.php?id=15&layout=abstract

Working Lunch for CRACIN Executive & Government Partners – to discusses possible processes whereby CRACIN research findings/recommendations can feed into federal policy development and program design related to community-based ICT initiatives – Rm 212

2:00-3:15 Roundtable on Sustainability & Policy (Chair: Longford)

The purpose of the roundtable discussion on sustainability is to focus CRACIN members’ attention on the issue of sustainability and to facilitate group dialogue and reflection on the ingredients of sustainable community networking, with a view to identifying the various approaches to sustainability represented across the case studies and to formulating a set of policy recommendations. The roundtable will begin with presentations by community partners in response to the following questions:

  1. What are the key ingredients of your organization’s ability to sustain itself? (For example: funding/revenue; governance; people; skill sets, etc.)
  2. What sustainability challenges does your organization currently face? How can these be overcome?
  3. What role does public policy play in sustaining your organization and its activities? What policy changes would assist your organization in sustaining itself and its activities?

Panelists:

  • Steve Chan (Vancouver Community Network)
  • Brian Beaton (K-Net)
  • Judi Snively (St. Christopher House)
  • Michael Lenczner (Ile Sans Fil)
  • Nicolas Lecomte & Ariane Pelletier (Communautique)
  • Katrina Peddle (Concordia University)

Resources & Background Material:

3:30-4:30 Breakout Discussions

  • Community Innovation (Clement & Proulx)
  • Civic Participation (Longford)
  • Sustainability (Moll)

4:30-5:00 Breakout Reports and Wrap-up (Chair: Leslie Regan Shade)

Sunday, March 5

9:00-10:30 Wrap-up and Next Steps (Chairs: Clement, Gurstein, Moll & Shade)

10:45-12:00 CRACIN Core Research Team Business Meeting

Tags:

'Duty to Consult' exchanges in Northwest Territories re: land use and pipeline

March 4, 2006 - 9:17am | by Anonymous

From http://www.cbc.ca/north/story/handley-afn-03032006.html

Handley grilled by N.W.T. native leaders
Last Updated: Mar 3 2006

Northwest Territories Premier Joe Handley received a rough reception at the regional Assembly of First Nations meeting in N'Dilo, N.W.T., on Thursday, with a number of chiefs taking shots at the territorial government and its priorities in dealing with aboriginal people.  

Handley updated the regional AFN chiefs on the status of agreements, such as resource revenue sharing and devolution.

But a number of chiefs wanted to talk about other issues.

"Your government talks about resources and revenue and devolution and so forth, but I think sometimes your government forgets whose land this really is," said Liidlii Kue Chief Keyna Norwegian.

"Who are the people that lived here before the territorial government was even set up?"

Norwegian also accused the premier of undermining Dehcho efforts to cut a deal with Imperial Oil over pipeline benefits and access. She asked Handley why there was no mention of the need for agreements with aboriginal people in a "letter of comfort" he sent to the Mackenzie Gas Project last fall.

The letter assured Imperial that royalty rates and taxes are not likely to increase should a devolution agreement be reached with Ottawa.

"Your letter didn't help us at all, it just supported them and it kind of gave them a feeling that there was no need for or urgency to really sign or negotiate proper access and benefits," she said.

But Handley says the letter only dealt with issues controlled by the territorial government, and access agreements are privately signed between aboriginal organizations and the pipeline proponent.

The Dehcho people have been unable to reach an agreement with Imperial Oil on an access and benefits agreement for the pipeline project (see exchange below - Imperial boss feels the heat).

Settle land claims, chief urges

Dettah Chief Peter Liske of the Yellowknives Dene says Handley's government should focus on settling unresolved land claims.

"If we resolve the Akaitcho process, I think devolution and resource revenue will happen," he says. "And if he concentrated on Dehcho, he wouldn't be having any problems with Mackenzie Valley pipeline."

Handley says his government is elected by all people in the territory, not just aboriginals.

"We are very much a public government and try to represent everyone and try to achieve that balance," said Handley in response to the criticism. "Sometimes it's very difficult to achieve it but it is a balance that we have to continue to deal with every day."

Handley says he will sit down with leaders to further discuss their concerns sometime Friday.

Imperial boss feels the heat

The head of Imperial's Mackenzie Valley Gas Project, Randy Ottenbrite, told N.W.T. chiefs the proposed $7-billion pipeline is well on its way to become a reality.

But Chief Keyna Norwegian demanded to know how he could say that when the company has yet make an acceptable offer for access to Dehcho lands.

"My concern is you are moving forward and not respecting us as the Dene people of the land," she said.

"Those are the things that should have been priorities – making sure you have access to people's lands before you spend millions of dollars on joint review panels and environmental assessments."

Ottenbrite refused to discuss the issue, suggesting Norwegian raise her concerns at the Joint Review Panel public hearings.

"My sense is that that discussion is best left not at this particular forum, but thank you for your comments," he said.

Grand Chief of the Dene Nation Noeline Villebrun says the Dene have good reason to distrust promises of fair treatment.

"There was an agreement 106 years ago that we would share the land and resources and Dene people have lived up to that agreement but the government and industry has not," she said.

Ottenbrite told the chiefs that several access agreements have been successfully reached in other regions and negotiations with the Dehcho are on-going.

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Racial profiling and racism results in Aboriginal centre giving legal advice

March 4, 2006 - 8:36am | by Anonymous

From http://www.cbc.ca/ottawa/story/ot-cards20060303.html 

Aboriginal centre hands out legal advice
Last Updated: March 3, 2006 

An aboriginal health centre is trying to educate its clients on the racism they say is plaguing the Ottawa police by handing out business cards outlining their rights if stopped by police.

To combat what they call a longtime problem of racial profiling, the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, located in Vanier, requested a legal aid organization make up the cards, which are the size of two busines cards folded over.

Two weeks ago, counsellors began handing them out to clients.

SERIES: Beyond the Badge: Investigating the Ottawa Police Service

Excerpt from card:

  • Officer, if I am under arrest or being detained please tell me so.
  • If I am free to go please tell me so.
  • If I am not free to go please tell me why.
  • I wish to exercise all my legal rights including my right to silence and my right to speak to a lawyer before I say anything to you.
  • I do not consent to being searched.
  • I wish to be released without delay.
  • Please do not ask me questions because I will not willingly talk to you until I speak to a lawyer.
  • Thank you for respecting my rights.  

"We want our people to know that they do have rights, that no matter what level they may presently occupy in society they are to be treated with respect, dignity and they are not there for someone to push and intimidate," said Dan Printup, manager of the centre's homelessness program.

The idea was a response to complaints from young people saying they'd been detained on the streets and pulled over in their cars for no apparent reason.

"It's hard to beat our stereotype for natives. Our stereotype growing up was drunk, lazy, welfare, violent, uneducated," said Printup. "How do you beat 10 generations of that way of thinking? It's hard for them to see us as equals."

While Deputy Chief Larry Hill would neither deny nor confirm racial profiling, he acknowledged a growing discontent in the First Nations community. But he stressed that officers still have a job to perform.

"It's a very fine line between what people perceive as 'My rights are being violated,' versus our very real attempts to quell crime in certain areas," said Hill.

He says the police force is searching for ways to bridge the gap between First Nations people and the police, but Hill said the two sides have been at odds for so long it may be hard to close the gap.

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March 2nd

AFN Renewal to be discussed at the upcoming AFN Special Chiefs' Assembly

March 2, 2006 - 9:54pm | by Anonymous

In announcing the upcoming AFN Special Chiefs' Assembly, National Chief Phil Fontaine invited the chiefs "to look at some of the options and recommendations that stem from the Renewal report and to discuss how we can make our strong organization even stronger." Click here to learn more about the AFN Renewal report

Click here for AFN Special Chiefs Assembly registration and meeting information 

Message from the AFN National Chief on the Special Chiefs Assembly

Greetings!

The Assembly of First Nations is convening a Special Chiefs Assembly on March 27-29 to engage in a discussion on AFN Renewal.  The AFN Renewal Commission issued its report - “A Treaty Among Ourselves” - on December 7, 2005.  It is now time for Chiefs and First Nations representatives to look at some of the options and recommendations that stem from the Renewal report and to discuss how we can make our strong organization even stronger.

Some central themes emerged during the Renewal Commission’s public hearings. Our people want to ensure the AFN is rooted in First Nations values, principles, customs and traditions; representative of the First Nations and their citizens; responsive to the diverse circumstances, needs and priorities of First Nations; and respected and effective in Confederation and in the international community.

The purpose of the SCA is to focus discussion and dialogue around five key areas based on the Renewal Commission’s report. Those areas are: accountability; universal vote; structures; relationship; and administrative efficiencies. We will be providing you with brief discussion papers for each of these areas.  As well, the Special Chiefs Assembly will also be an opportunity to discuss some of the other matters that require attention prior to the upcoming AGA, including our agenda and approach with the new federal government.

I look forward to your participation in this important and exciting discussion about our national organization. As First Nations grow and evolve, so too will the AFN. Your ideas and your input will be essential in these efforts.

Meegwetch/Thank you!

Phil Fontaine
National Chief

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March 1st

NAN defends treaty rights to health services in rejection of provincial LHINs

March 1, 2006 - 10:01pm | by Anonymous

NAN Rejects Health Regionalization Scheme

Posted by: Communications and Media  jyoung@nan.on.ca 3/1/2006

In a news release distributed Wednesday March 1, 2006 NAN Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler is demanding the provincial government withdraw its plan to impose Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) on the 49 First Nation communities within NAN territory and begin government to government negotiations regarding the Province’s treaty obligations for health care delivery.

NEWS RELEASE

NAN REJECTS HEALTH REGIONALIZATION SCHEME

THUNDER BAY, ON Wednesday March 1, 2006: Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler is demanding the provincial government withdraw its plan to impose Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) on the 49 First Nation communities within NAN territory and begin government to government negotiations regarding the Province’s treaty obligations for health care delivery.

“By negotiating health care delivery on a government to government basis with NAN, the Province will show they are interested in fulfilling their obligations as a treaty partner,” said Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler who’s responsible for the health portfolio at NAN.  “First Nations health care must be First Nations designed and controlled.”

Fiddler’s comments come after a year of futile discussions that led to no real changes and ignored Health Minister George Smitherman’s own proposed amendments to Bill 36 (LHINS) that passed at the provincial legislature in Toronto this afternoon. 

Fiddler is also demanding health care and health care funding reflect the demographic and geographic realities of remote First Nation communities in Ontario and hopes by fulfilling treaty obligations the people of Nishnawbe Aski can maintain control over existing First Nations health authorities.

“The regional health scheme of LHINS ignores the First Nation treaty partnership with Ontario which threatens remote First Nations with more travel to access medical treatment,” said Fiddler.  “LHINS reduces local control of health delivery by existing First Nation health authorities, making the system even more ‘centralized’ and culturally insensitive than it already is.”

NAN Grand Chief Stan Beardy is concerned the implementation of LHINs reflects a larger constitutional issue whereby Ontario has failed to consult and accommodate First Nations.

“The bigger issue is that although Ontario is legally bound to consult and accommodate First Nations, the Province has failed to do so before implementing changes to health care delivery,” said NAN Grand Chief Stan Beardy.  

Among the total 14 LHINs in Ontario, LHIN 13 and 14 include communities within NAN territory.  Northeastern LHIN 13 has a total of 41 First Nation communities, 19 of which belong to NAN.  LHIN 14 in the Northwest has a total of 66 First Nation communities, 30 of which belong to NAN.  33 First Nations in the two Northern LHINs are remote fly-in communities. 

***

For more information please contact:

Jenna Young NAN Communications Officer (807) 625 4952 OR (807) 628 3953 (mobile)

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Grassy Narrows fights to protect their homeland and resources

March 1, 2006 - 12:13pm | by Anonymous

From MacLeans Online - February 28, 2006

Grassy Narrows warns Weyerhaeuser, Abitibi against 'destruction of homeland?

GRASSY NARROWS, Ont. (CP) - Frustrated by what they see as an industrial invasion of their territory, aboriginal people in northwestern Ontario are warning two forestry giants to stop logging the area or face an international protest.

In a letter sent to Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd. and Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. on Tuesday, the Grassy Narrows First Nation accused the companies of cultural and environmental devastation.

"This letter is your final official notice that you are taking part in the destruction of our homeland," the letter states.

"Know that you face a fierce campaign against you on all fronts - in the woods, in the streets, in the marketplace, in your boardrooms and in the media."

The 700-member community of Grassy Narrows has long complained that decades of unsustainable logging have poisoned area waters with mercury and other toxins and all but destroyed their aboriginal way of life.

Negotiations, lawsuits, requests for environmental assessments, public protests and a three-year blockade in the forest have all failed to win an improvement in the situation, the letter states.

"The Earth is suffering and we as human beings are suffering," said Judy Da Silva, a member of the Grassy Narrows environmental committee.

"The water is really polluted, there's a lot of erosion on the land, and . . . we're still finding high levels of mercury in animals."

Denis Leclerc, Abitibi's director of corporate affairs, said Grassy Narrow's demands recently changed to include recognition of their traditional land-use area, something the company has no control over.

"It's almost impossible for a forest and paper company to contribute concretely to a resolution when the demands from Grassy Narrows are directly related to government decisions," Leclerc said.

Bonny Skene, Ontario public affairs manager for Weyerhaeuser Canada, said Montreal-based Abitibi-Consolidated is responsible for managing the forest and does so according to plans sanctioned by the provincial government.

Weyerhaeuser, which uses hardwood from forests in the area to feed its mill in nearby Kenora, Ont., takes the concerns stated in the letter seriously, she said.

"Weyerhaeuser is committed to building mutually beneficial relationships with aboriginal communities," Skene said from the company's regional offices in Dryden, Ont.

"We understand the demands on forests today and meeting the demands requires all of us to work together."

David Sone, an organizer with the Rainforest Action Network based in San Francisco, said the forest companies have "run amok" in Grassy Narrows and need to be stopped.

"This letter signals the beginning of a serious escalation of the struggle to protect Grassy Narrows," Sone said.

"It makes very clear their wishes and interests aren't being respected and they don't intend to sit back and watch that happen."

Last fall, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society issued a report that denounced Abitibi for clear cutting huge tracts land in the region and replanting it with ecologically barren tree plantations.

"The clear cutting of the land and the destruction of the forest is an attack on our people," said Roberta Kessik, a Grassy Narrows grandmother and trapper.

"The land is the basis of who we are."

The First Nations also worry that irreversible damage will be done to eco-tourism in the area, further damaging the longer-term economic prospects in the region.

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March 1st

C.D. Howe Institute Study on Aboriginal Policy Reforms in Education and Health

March 1, 2006 - 5:23am | by Anonymous

More "solutions" to the "barriers" that create the problems for Aboriginal people from the CD Howe Institute. Be sure to read a response to this lobbying effort at the bottom.

For Immediate Release, Feb 28, 2006

Aboriginal Policy Reforms Required, Starting with Education and Health Care: C.D. Howe Institute Study

Toronto, Feb. 28 --- Aboriginal policy reforms should focus on improving the quality of education and health care Aboriginals receive, says a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. Reforms should also include holding band councils accountable for the billions of dollars they spend, and recognizing the needs of the seven out of 10 Aboriginals who live off-reserve, according to the study.

The policy study, Creating Choices: Rethinking Aboriginal Policy, was written by John Richards, a professor in Simon Fraser University’s Public Policy Program and the Roger Phillips Scholar in Social Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute.

The main reason for poverty among Aboriginals today, Richards argues, is the low level of Aboriginal education. Low education leads to low employment rates and the intergenerational perpetuation of poverty. Moreover, low education levels, low employment rates, and many Aboriginal health problems, such as diabetes, are closely interrelated.

The goal of reforms is to place Aboriginals in a better position to support and maintain their culture wherever they may live: on-reserve, off-reserve in rural communities or, as fully half do, in cities.

*****

The Study, Creating Choices: Rethinking Aboriginal Policy, is available at www.cdhowe.org.

For further information contact:

John Richards,
Public Policy Program
Simon Fraser University and

Roger Phillips Scholar in Social Policy,
C.D. Howe Institute,
Tel. (604) 291-5250
email: jrichard@sfu.ca  

Finn Poschmann,
Associate Director of Research,
C.D. Howe Institute,
Tel. (416) 865-1904 ext:238
email: cdhowe@cdhowe.org 

 

March/April 2004 Issue

As I have had occasion to remark before, “God save me from intellectuals!” especially right-wing Canadian intellectuals, when they take unto themselves the impulse to discourse on Aboriginal policy.

In recent years, these people have perpetrated some real howlers, whose only use has been to indicate how deep the gap remains between the beliefs and posture of Aboriginal people in Canada, and what could at a pinch be described as the thinking of many influential, fuzzy-minded, well- intentioned, ill-informed Canadians of European background.

From Thomas Flanagon to John Richards

A couple of years ago the leader of the right-wing pack was Thomas Flanagan, the intellectual powerhouse of the Reform, aka the Alliance, aka the Conservative, party. Mr. Flanagan wrote a book, highly regarded and widely reviewed in the media, apparently before he had ever set foot in an Aboriginal community. I never read the book, but so far as I remember, it was stern stuff, calling on the Aboriginals to shape up, and espousing the line that the cure to all problems was for them to assimilate in Canadian society. This was welcomed by the press as a bold new policy.

At around the same time Jonathan Kay, the neanderthal right-wing editor of the editorial page of the National Post, (incidentally, he’s a favourite commentator for CBC television), took an active interest in Aboriginal policy, recommending the same bold policy.

And now John Richards, professor at Simon Fraser University, who has turned dramatically right and become an acolyte of the C.D. Howe Institute, has been getting a lot of attention for an article that recently appeared in the magazine Policy Options in which he recommends that Paul Martin must “rethink Aboriginal policy independently of the premises of tribal chiefs and their organizations such as the Assembly of First Nations.”

In other words, Aboriginal policy should ignore what the Indians and their leaders say they want, and instead hand over delivery of most Indian services to the provinces, which are, for the most part, regarded by Aboriginal people as unfriendly to Indians.

What alarms Richards the most, apparently, is the insistence of Aboriginal leaders that their people should be governed by the treaties signed with them as Europeans marched westward to take over their lands. There is a great deal of emphasis in Richards’ article on the $7 billion paid to (or for) Indians every year: but no recognition that this is a bargain price for what Europeans have gained from the exchange. The most recent of these exchanges, for example, that between the Crees of James Bay and the Quebec and Canadian governments, saw the Crees initially paid $139 million for privileges which now allow the governments and their corporate hangers-on to take $5 billion worth of electrical, mineral and forestry production every year from the lands they “bought” from the Indians.

Since many of the provisions of the original agreement were not fulfilled (for example, those covering economic development, under which the Crees were supposed to benefit in training and jobs), the Crees have recently made a new agreement which pays them $70 million a year — still a great bargain for the $5 billion wealth exchange. To get even this, the Crees have had to sell to Hydro-Quebec their central river, the Rupert, which they had spent 25 years defending, and agree that it should become part of the huge James Bay hydro scheme, a humiliation which is leading to increasing anger in the Cree communities, and has sullied the Cree reputation outside Quebec.

Richards also worries that under current policies, which provide free health care to Aboriginals, including dental care, a second tier of health insurance is created in Canada that “invites resentment among non-Aboriginals who pay taxes and yet receive fewer insured health services.”

There are a number of wonders about all these learned prescriptions for Indians by Canadian intellectuals. First, I suppose, is the naked assumption that Indians have proven themselves incapable of making decisions about their own lives: what else is to be assumed from Richards’ prescription, that the very bases of Aboriginal policy must be rethought by government without any reference to Indian chiefs or organizations? Second, and perhaps more important, is the blind ignorance of these people, who apparently have never heard that it has been Canadian policy since before the nation was founded to assimilate Indians into “the body politic,” and that pursuit of this policy led to monstrous legislation whose aim was to strip Indians of everything that might mean anything to them ‹- their languages, their beliefs, their religions, their rituals, their economies ‹- you name it, and Canadian policy in the past has tried to abolish or forbid or destroy it.

What are they teaching these professors? (Leaving aside that these guys are themselves actually teaching this stuff to people!)

Casual reference to diseases like diabetes omit to mention that the epidemic of this disease among Canada’s Aboriginals can be directly traced to the Euro success in destroying the Indian economies, leaving the native people bereft and at a loss to know what to do. In hardly any part of the country was a serious effort ever made to build a viable life around the remarkable skills of the native occupants of the land. More likely, they were just swept aside ruthlessly to make way for roads, railways, airports, farms, mines and all the paraphernalia of modern, industrialized life, including even parks and protected areas.

Establishment of Canada’s first National Park at Banff resulted in bands of Indians wandering the countryside in a desperate effort to find enough food to live on. They were unwanted either in the reserves that were set up for them (where they quickly became dependent on government food handouts), or in the countryside where they normally operated, because there they were constantly getting in the way of Western development. Anyone who arrived from Europe with any money-making scheme was given priority in land use over the original occupants of the land. I’m not making this up. That is a fact.

In the most recent such takeover, which I am familiar with, the Crees of James Bay were not even consulted before the Quebec government announced its plan to inundate their hunting territories and build one of the continent’s biggest hydro-electric generating schemes. The ignorance of the proponents of this scheme was so vast that when the natives protested the likely effects on the moose and caribou on which they depended for food, the engineers on the other side of the table said this was of no concern, because the Manitoba port of Churchill was open in the summer, and cattle could be shipped across Hudson’s Bay to the hungry Crees. (Remember, I am not making this up).

If Mr. Richards has any doubt about any of this having happened, he could consult Sarah Carter’s remarkable book, Lost Harvests, in which she proves without a doubt that even when Indians accepted the bases of Euro policy, and tried to become farmers, as they were intended to do, suddenly, in response to pressure from neighbouring white farmers, measures were taken by government to prevent the Indian farmers from selling their produce. In other words, successful Indians were never part of the Euro plan (an assertion supported by the fact that any Indian who attained a university degree was “deemed to be no longer an Indian”.)

Is this relevant to John Richards’ prescriptions for the Aboriginal future? One would think that any intellectual would be able to grasp the fact that the policy of integrating Aboriginals into the Canadian society has been the main determinant of their present desperate conditions. And that, the policy having failed, a more promising policy might rest in the rebuilding of Aboriginal confidence and pride in their heritage, the transfer to them of the resources on which alone they can build a promising economic future, and the establishment of mechanisms by which they can govern themselves, make their own decisions, within the Canadian polity.

What Richards is proposing.

  1. Government should adopt new policies without bothering about Aboriginal perceptions.
  2. Aboriginals should not be treated as separate from other Canadians, either in payments for welfare (social assistance), or for health and education benefits.
  3. Possibly, payments to Aboriginals should be cut in half by the payment of $2,500 a year to every adult Aboriginal, which would then be taxed by their local reserve authorities, putting Aboriginals on a par with other Canadians.
  4. Aboriginals should be subject, as other Canadians have been, to the modern trend towards making welfare dependent on “more meaningful work or training obligations for those seeking benefits.” This is standard right-wing stuff, designed to cut to the minimum payments to those who have been left behind in this competitive society.
  5. Aboriginals have apparently failed as administrators of social assistance. “Arguably the rules for government access to social assistance should be equal among all, independent of race.” Social assistance could be integrated with provincial social assistance programs, which “would entail professional social workers, most of them non-Aboriginal, determining eligibility for social assistance.”
  6. A compromise would be to withdraw from individual bands the authority to distribute welfare and entrust the function and budget to an intertribal social assistance agency for each province.
  7. Government should work to improve conditions for off-reserve Indians, which in turn would improve education.
  8. Finally, Paul Martin should insist that Aboriginal problems cannot be solved by “an exaggerated stress of otherness.” Concentration on treaties “is no substitute for better social policy.” These Indians! They can’t govern themselves! They are savages! Everything they touch, they create a mess! And they are, these days, demanding too much! This seems to be the thinking lying behind the prescriptions of this professor, which, so the media says, are now being treated with the greatest respect by thinkers in the government.

One gets a feeling that Mr. Richards is not familiar with reserves or Aboriginal communities. If he had spent 25 years, as I have, wandering the country from one Aboriginal community to the next, he would have gathered a sense of the really impressive effort that Aboriginal people are making all across the country to pull themselves out of their desperate situation by their boot-straps.

Everywhere, they are trying to build a viable economy (although hampered in that by the miserable resources left to them); trying to overcome the many pathologies with which their communities have been saddled after their 200 years of history as whipping boys for Euro arrogance; trying to re-establish the importance of their own languages, beliefs, and rituals, their profound understanding of the relationship between people and the Earth.

In my view, the future of Aboriginals in Canada depends on generous recognition by both government and public opinion of Aboriginal rights and title as the bedrock of relationship between our two peoples. And we not only need to recognize these rights, but to fulfil the deals we have made with them.

Surely our intellectuals can come up with something better, as a prescription for the future, than this melancholy right-wing stuff.

Boyce Richardson is a former journalist and filmmaker and a Member of the Order of Canada. This article and many others of interest may be found on BR’s website at www.boycespaper.com. 
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