Media.Knet.Ca

Two Globe and Mail articles highlight the effects of "modern" forest management strategies and fuel consumption on the environment, especially the animals and the plants. The first article from yesterday's paper will have a big impact on the folks living on the Hudson Bay coast.

From http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060422.BEARS22/TPStory/?query=polar+bear

Polar bears to face extinction by 2030, researcher says
DENNIS BUECKERT - Canadian Press - April 22, 2006

OTTAWA -- Polar bears will be extinct within 25 years as global warming shrinks the ice cover they depend on for feeding and giving birth, a renowned Australian scientist says.

The Arctic ice cap is shrinking by 8 per cent a year and polar bears are already showing signs of severe stress, according to Tim Flannery, one of Australia's best-known scientists and author of the current bestseller The Weather Makers.

In the past, polar bears typically gave birth to triplets, but now they usually have just one cub, he said. And the weaning time has risen to 18 months from 12, while the average weight has declined 15 per cent.

"Polar bears are going to go with the ice cap. They're not going to actually last that long," Mr. Flannery told a news conference yesterday.

Citing other warning signs, he said B.C.'s Fraser River has been fatally warm to salmon for five of the past 13 years, while West Coast forests are being decimated by an infestation of pine beetles able to survive milder winters.

"These are unheralded signs of change. They simply haven't been seen in the past. They persuade me and the vast majority of my colleagues that the debate on climate change is well and truly over. The science is solid and the effects are there for everyone to see."

Mr. Flannery's visit to Ottawa came the day after former prime minister Brian Mulroney told an audience that included much of the country's political elite that Canada must recognize the urgency of global warming.

The current government has been sending mixed signals on the issue, saying it will stay in the Kyoto Protocol but promising a made-in-Canada solution that remains undefined.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada can't meet its targets under the climate treaty. Yet Canada will preside over negotiations this year aimed at seeking even larger emissions reductions.

"It [Canada] chairs the negotiating process, and yet it is the only signatory of the Kyoto Protocol that's cutting its climate programs," Mr. Flannery said. "It looks as if it's going to abandon its commitments without ever having really tried to meet them.

"As an Australian, I'm used to seeing better things from Canada. I think it would be an enormous tragedy if Canada cut and run from its international obligations."

He said it is feasible to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by applying the "polluter pays" principle, cutting subsidies to the petroleum industry, and introducing a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

Under such a plan, the carbon tax would be offset by tax cuts in other areas. But the concept is anathema in Alberta, whose tar-sands projects have become the country's biggest source of greenhouse-gas emissions.

"It's only the tar sands that prevent the country from making its targets under Kyoto," Mr. Flannery said.

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from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060422.wxbugs22/BNStory/Science/home

'We might become extinct'
TERRY GLAVIN - April 22, 2006 - From Saturday's Globe and Mail

SPENCES BRIDGE, B.C. — David Walkem was just finishing his breakfast at Vicky's Café on the banks of the Thompson River and gazing out the window at a dozen bighorn sheep moving up the hillside on the opposite bank.

Here at Spences Bridge in the southern interior of British Columbia, the hills gently rise into mountains, and above everything looms Shawnikenmx, a beloved peak where Mr. Walkem's Nlakapamux people used to go in the old days to get spirit power. Back then, the 50-year-old chief of the Cook's Ferry Indian Band explains, the high country was like parkland. As a boy, his grandfather could ride his horse through the forest at full gallop.

"We used to use fire to keep it open, for berries and for mule deer," Mr. Walkem says. "Now, it's all dead and dying and bug-infested, and you can't even walk though it. It's just like a plague, all over."

Lodgepole pines are supposed to be green. But B.C.'s pine forests are turning red, and grey, and black. They're dying from a plague of mountain pine beetles that has suddenly ravaged an area roughly the size of Britain. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before.

British Columbia hasn't been this warm in 8,000 years, and the winters are no longer cold enough to keep the beetles in check. Global-warming scenarios the International Panel on Climate Change forecast for 50 years from now are already unfolding in the province's interior, says Richard Hebda, the 56-year-old curator of botany and earth history at the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria.

Now, Dr. Hebda is starting to wonder whether the pine forests will ever grow back. "We just don't know," he says.

Lodgepole-pine forests need catastrophic events such as beetle outbreaks and fires to regenerate themselves. Normally, they grow back quickly -- in only a few decades, even from a beetle outbreak even of this magnitude. But nobody knows whether B.C.'s climate, decades from now, will be able to support pine forests. Nothing is "normal" any more.

"The question is, will there be forests at all in the southern portion of British Columbia's central interior? Will there even be any trees?" Dr. Hebda asks. "It all depends on how much CO{-2} we push into the atmosphere."

Although the beetle outbreak began only in the 1990s, the story really began about 140 years ago, with an event that gave B.C.'s pine forests their dominant, bug-vulnerable characteristics. That event involved another plague, smallpox, which decimated B.C.'s aboriginal communities, and ended an ancient regime of prescribed-burn landscape management.

The practice of controlled burning of the forest to enhance food-plant production and maintain optimum habitat conditions for mule deer, elk and other game animals has been meticulously documented by University of Victoria ethnobotanist Nancy J. Turner.

She says a "very plausible and likely explanation" for the pine-beetle catastrophe is that the aboriginal regime ended, and was replaced by a rigid orthodoxy of fire suppression -- a central feature of 20th-century industrial forest management -- and now global warming is upon us.

In 2000, B.C.'s drought-stressed, dense and tangled pine forests lost about 184,000 hectares to the beetle. In 2001, the dead zone grew by 785,000 hectares. The next year, 1.96 million hectares turned red, followed by another 4.2 million in 2003 and seven million in 2004.

The toll so far amounts to about 400 million cubic metres of timber, which is enough wood to build another Toronto, another Montreal and another New York. The pace of the infestation is slowing; last year, it spread only to an additional 1.7 million hectares, but even that roughly equals the extent of all the forest set aside for preservation in this year's hard-fought "Great Bear Rainforest" truce.

Nobody is expecting the plague to halt. About half the living pine forest is already gone, and most of the rest is expected to be infested and die within 10 years. The economic prospects of at least 30 B.C. towns and cities have been turned upside down by all this. But the aboriginal communities are facing distinct and daunting challenges.

So, when Dr. Hebda looks into the future, he sees a lot of sagebrush, grassland and rangeland where the pine forests are now, at high elevations, and down among the spruce, fir and ponderosa pine. That's where the Nlakapamux territory is, as well as that of the Okanagan and Ktunaxa.

As if that weren't bad enough, in the north, where pine forests are dominant at low elevations, the Secwepemc, the Tsilhqot'in and the Dakelh-speaking peoples are watching their forests disappear entirely. Pine beetles usually infest only older trees, but lately they have been killing trees less than 20 years old. There's no telling what will come up in their place.

Around the world, UNESCO, Conservation International and the World Wide Fund for Nature have documented direct relationships between biological diversity and cultural diversity, between the loss of forests and the loss of aboriginal culture and language. When the trees go, communities disperse and languages die.

About a third of Canada's native bands can be found in British Columbia, where a rich legacy of ecological diversity is matched by aboriginal linguistic diversity. At least seven of the 11 linguistic families found in Canada occur in B.C., and within those seven families are at least 30 languages. Dozens of aboriginal communities lie in the path of the new plague. Many have already been hit, and hit badly.

"I'm not saying the sky is falling," Dr. Hebda says, "but there is a transformation of everything going on, in the landscape, the forest, the atmosphere, our communities, and our economies. This will obviously mean a transformation of aboriginal culture too."

That transformation is already well under way among the Dakelh-speaking people who occupy a vast region of dead and dying lodgepole pine in northern B.C. Among them are the Tlazten, about 800 people in several remote communities, the largest of which is Tache, about 65 kilometres north of Fort Saint James.

The Tlazten have always known mountain pine beetles, but no one has seen anything like this, says local resident Celestine Thomas, 75. The first thing she noticed after the forests turned red was that the squirrels and the rabbits started vanishing. Then, 22 moose were found dead "from ticks." Now, the trap lines are coming up empty, and it's getting harder to find devil's club, for medicine.

Veronica Campbell, 54, who lives in Fort St. James, says Shastzulh Mountain used to be covered in snow year-round, but not now. Even the songbirds are leaving, and so are the woodpeckers. "The place is becoming a desert," she says. "There's not much here that's left to pass on to our children. We might become extinct, that's what I'm afraid of. We don't stand a chance."

To the southwest of the Tlazten are the Stellaten people, whose main reserve lies about 150 kilometres west of Prince George on the highway to Prince Rupert. About half of the community's 420 people live on the reserve, and while joblessness is high, many were already employed in logging and sawmilling when the beetles came.

At the time, there was great hope that increased logging, to "salvage" beetle-infested trees, would jump-start the reserve economy and put the community on a more solid, competitive footing. There was also optimism about a revival in the Dakelh language, which only about two dozen Stellaten people still speak.

Now, everyone's optimism is quickly dimming, Stellaten chief Patrick Michell says. Nobody expected the scale of the infestation. First, the animals started to move out of the area. Then strange things started happening. A huge cougar began to prowl around the reserve, and in the nearby town of Fraser Lake, dogs and cats started to go missing. Soon, the whole forest was dying, along with everything in it.

The region's annual allowable cut suddenly shot up to three million cubic metres of timber, but Mr. Michell says his people soon found there was no way they could compete with the big forest companies. And the windfall won't last anyway. The quota is expected to fall back to about 70,000 cubic metres a year within 15 years.

"This is going to leave ghost towns," he adds. "The question is whether it's going to change our village into a ghost town."

A beetle-killed pine can stay standing and hold its value for years after its death, and forest companies are scrambling to "salvage" as much of the pine as they can. That scramble has boosted the annual cut in B.C.'s interior by one-third, or roughly 12.73 million cubic metres of wood.

To get an idea how much that is, picture a convoy of fully loaded logging trucks, bumper to bumper, from Vancouver to Toronto -- and then back again. That's just the amount of "extra" timber coming out of B.C.'s beetle-ravaged pine forests now, every year.

Among the companies cutting all these trees is Canfor Corp., now the world's second-largest forest company. Its pine is being processed at high-tech "super mills" like the one the company opened two months ago in Houston, an old logging town a morning's drive west of Stellaten on the highway to Prince Rupert. The Houston mill is capable of churning out 600 million cubic metres of wood every year. That's almost 10 times the annual output of the average Ontario sawmill.

"When I think about the future now, what I worry is that I will see an empty reserve," Mr. Michell says. "I see only a handful of people here, with nowhere else to go."

The prospects are perhaps not so bleak, far to the southeast, in the dry, rolling hills of the Secwepemc territory. But Ron Ignace, 59, former chair of the Assembly of First Nations' chiefs committee on languages and the long-time chief of the Skeetchestn community, east of Kamloops, is under no illusions about the threat the beetle infestation presents to aboriginal communities.

"It's taken a long time for people to see the connections between biological diversity and cultural diversity," he says. "There is a sense of hopelessness about this, but when people find there are others out there, working on language, they fight hard."

His wife, Marianne , a widely respected anthropologist and linguist, is among those "working on language" in B.C., and she's quick to point out that the dilemma is not so simple as forest loss resulting in language loss. "It goes the other way around too."

Language loss is often a function of dispossession and the loss of control over land and resources, she says. Lose that control, and the forest goes -- which has been the story of B.C.'s aboriginal peoples since the arrival of smallpox.

Now, of more than 6,000 people in 16 far-flung communities, perhaps only 200 are fluent in Secwepemc, a beautiful language that relies heavily on verbs and verb constructions, and is averse to naming things or people. (It is even Secwepemc custom to avoid directly naming people in conversation.) When spoken, it sounds like no European language: There are twice as many consonants, along with pops and clicks and glottal stops -- and a lot going on at the back of the throat.

"I think people are realizing now how precious these languages are, and how precarious things are getting," Marianne Michell says. "And with the loss of language goes the loss of detailed local knowledge."

Back at Spences Bridge, at Vicky's Café, David Walkem drinks the last of his coffee. He is talking about the loss of knowledge -- the elaborate technique and methodology required to manage forests with prescribed burning.

"What I don't know is whether the damage in our area could get any worse," he says. "We met Simon Fraser just a few miles from here, when he came through in 1808. Then there was the gold rush, and then the railways came through, and disease, and residential schools, and we've already lost almost all of our fluent speakers. But you know, we're the lucky ones, around here. It's not like all of our forests are going to die.

"Still, we're going to have to bring fire back, somehow. We should never have stopped. But for a lot of it, it's too late. The forest isn't the same. Everything would go up. It would blow up like a bomb. It would burn the soil and everything, and there would be nothing left."

Terry Glavin is a writer, conservationist and adjunct professor with the University of British Columbia's fine arts department. His latest book is entitled Waiting for the Macaws, and is published by Penguin Group (Canada).

On April 18 & 19, 2006, the Ontario Geological Survey department of M.N.D.M. held an information meeting in North Spirit Lake.

The presentation was on the “Far North Geological Mapping Initiative”, a 3 year program, now into its second year.

Presenters travelling to North Spirit Lake for this meeting included:

• Andy Fyon, Director, Ontario Geological Survey, Sudbury
• Lori Churchill, Information and Engagement Officer, Sudbury
• Jack Parker, Senior Manager, Precambrian Geoscience Section, Sudbury
• Andreas Lichtblau, Regional Resident Geologist, Red Lake

The intent of the “Far North Geological Mapping Initiative” is to produce up-to-date and more detailed geological maps for the mining industry (Data collection, Analysis, Delivery & Marketing).

The presentation is part the program’s “Aboriginal Engagement Approach”

1. Activity this fall, airborne geophysical surveying.
2. Activity next year, data collection by ground crews in the North Spirit Lake area. (3 crews of 5)
3. Opportunities for North Spirit Lake First Nation :

• Training (in the community) for “prospecting” and “claim staking”
• Employment opportunities for First Nations individuals (line cutting)
• First Nations individuals staking claims.
• Joint ventures with mining industry.
• Term position available for an information co-ordinator/liason person in the community.

This was an important step by the Ministry, to engage the First Nations community by way of meeting each other and exchanging information.

Visit http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/MNDM/mines/Default_e.asp for more information

Video available, at http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/mndm/mines/ims/investment/default_e.asp

From http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/60421_01.html

Prentice: I’ll study, review, discuss and consider
But I’m not ready to spend on Kelowna, DIAND minister says
JIM BELL - April 21, 2006

Prentice meets the press: Jim Prentice, the DIAND minister, with Levinia Brown, Nunavut’s minister of community government and transportation, and Lorraine Thomas of the Nunavut Broadband Development Corp. which gets $575,000 in federal money to expand its services. - see Funding announcement at http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/nr/prs/j-a2006/2-02759_e.html

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He’ll study, review, discuss, consider and assess, but the one thing Jim Prentice won’t do yet is spend.
That means Nunavut residents will likely wait longer to learn whether the new Conservative government will pay for Nunavut’s latest big-ticket demands, including Thomas Berger’s expensive fix for Nunavut’s school system, and up to $300 million worth of northern social housing discussed at last year’s premiers’ meeting in Kelowna, B.C.
Prentice, the minister of Indian affairs and northern development, stopped in Iqaluit this past Monday and Tuesday on the first leg of a pan-territorial tour that will take him to Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Whitehorse.
While in Iqaluit, Prentice “announced” $6.36 million in federal spending, from a stash of economic development money approved for 2005-06, when the former Liberal government was still in power.
The money will pay for a long list of projects, most of them related to mining, the fishery and Nunavut’s Broadband Development Corp.
But he’s a long way from saying how he plans to deal with the enormous expectations raised by last year’s meeting in Kelowna, B.C. between Canada’s first ministers and national aboriginal leaders, saying no money has been committed to pay for the things listed in its final communiqué — worth about $5.2 billion over five years.
And he doesn’t even use the word “agreement” to describe the outcome of the Kelowna meeting.
Instead, he calls it a “process.”
“At the close of the Kelowna process there was a single-page document tabled that described a series of numbers. I think it’s important to note that there never was a financial plan built around Kelowna. None of the monies that were ever discussed were ever budgeted for by the Parliament of Canada and none of them were approved by the Parliament of Canada,” Prentice said.
This means Nunavut’s social housing tenants, and would-be tenants who languish on waiting lists for years, won’t likely see large amounts of new housing coming up on this year’s sealift, contrary to expectations raised earlier this year by the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and others.
Prentice says only that he supports the “targets and objectives” discussed at Kelowna.
“I think they were laudable. I think they were very optimistic... But there was never a specific plan with concrete measures that was adopted and financed at that time,” Prentice said.
And because of the absence of that plan, Prentice says “the work continues.”
He also dismisses an assertion made last month by Ralph Goodale, the former Liberal finance minister, that money to pay for Kelowna was provided in the federal budget.
“I was present in the House of Commons when there were several Liberal budgets. Kelowna monies did not form part of those budgets,” Prentice said.
But housing, nonetheless, appeared to be at or near the top of his to-do list in meetings with northern premiers and aboriginal leaders. Prentice said he wants to use those meetings to “assess” the situation.
And he did hint that when he is ready to spend, northern housing may be a priority.
“Some of the first meetings I had after I became minister related to the housing circumstances here, and the overcrowding circumstances, and I have heard consistently and clearly from your leadership in the North that overcrowding and housing is a major issue. One of the reasons I am here is to assess that so that we be proactive about that,” Prentice said.
As for Thomas Berger’s recommendations for fixing Nunavut’s school system so that the Nunavut government can better meet its Article 23 Inuit employment targets, Prentice is equally non-committal.
In his final report, which was aimed at helping create a new implementation contract for the Nunavut land claims agreement, Berger recommended two things: $20 million in immediate spending to help raise the number of Inuit at the Government of Nunavut, plus more federal spending to pay for a complete bilingual school system from kindergarten to Grade 12.
Again, Prentice said he supports the goal set out in Berger’s report.
“We have to achieve better levels of graduation than we currently are and that’s a big concern for all of us,” he said.
But he’s also not ready to make a commitment, especially in paying for a revamped bilingual education system for Nunavut.
“The concept is there and the idea is there and it warrants study and attention,” Prentice said.
And since no one knows how much the scheme would cost, Prentice said he’s open to the idea of creating a “working group” to look at the idea and figure out how much it would cost.
Prentice showed little interest in following up on a motion from the last Parliament that would see the creation of an independent inquiry into the killing of Inuit sled dogs in the 1950s and 1960s.

Prime Minister Harper is about to begin exploring constitutional reform measures with the provinces. He made this commitment during a speech in Quebec. It will be interesting to hear how he will be addressing First Nation constitutional issues during these discussions with the provinces.

from http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2006/04/20/1542639-cp.html

PM promises constitutional reform

By LES PERREAUX - April 20, 2006

MONTREAL (CP) - Constitutional questions kept in deep storage since the early 1990s are about to get a fresh airing, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday.
While he promised to stop short of the ambitious, tumultuous Meech Lake project of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, Harper said the do-nothing constitutional era of the former Liberal government is about to end. "We will go step by step," Harper told reporters after speaking to nearly 2,000 business leaders in Montreal.
"Mr. Mulroney tried to change everything and it was ultimately not successful. Mr. (Jean) Chretien and the previous Liberal government decided it would change nothing and reform nothing. We happen to believe the federation has to evolve."
Harper said he will move to put a formal limit on the power of the federal government to spend money in provincial areas of jurisdiction, although he avoided saying if a constitutional amendment would be required.
"We have the intention of limiting our power, if such a power exists," Harper said. "My preference is to have a formal limitation on this power.
"We're not talking today, we're not talking yet, about constitutional amendments, but my position is known."
Harper's plan to stay out of areas of provincial responsibility is part of a package of policies that have special appeal in Quebec, the province that may hold the key to a future Conservative majority government.
In his speech to the Montreal Board of Trade, Harper promised a new era of openness that will include a Quebec that is "autonomous."
Harper later said every province should be autonomous in a federation like Canada.
Harper also promised to start addressing the so-called fiscal imbalance within the year. The provinces have long argued that Ottawa is collecting billions in tax dollars that should go to the provincial capitals instead, although each province has its own idea of how this imbalance should be corrected.
"We will present specific proposals on the fiscal imbalance . and let me tell you what they won't include: a hike in federal spending in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction," he said.
Harper's words had politicians from two Quebec provincial parties applauding at the head table of the big-business luncheon.
Liberal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Benoit Pelletier called Harper's plans "a very good start."
"It's just the beginning," Pelletier said. "These elements are proving that we are going toward something that is new, and we have the historic responsibility to take this opportunity in order to make sure we advance the case of Quebec while strengthening the federation."
Action democratique du Quebec Leader Mario Dumont said major changes are coming to the way Canada deals with Quebec.
"There is a healthy spirit of co-operation that is very different from what we've seen for years," Dumont said.
"We must take full profit from Mr. Harper's force of character, his desire to do things differently, the door he has opened wide to Quebec."

Brian McCullagh travelled to Sioux Lookout on Thursday to meet with the K-Net team. One objective as to explore strategies about how Agilis Network can partner with the Kuhkenah Network to provide connectivity services in First Nations in the Sudbury region. 

For more information about Agilis visit http://www.agilisnet.com/. Agilis is a member of the new Ingo Network (http://ingonetwork.com/) providing connections to major centres across the southern part of Ontario.

See news story coverage of the police action below the COO press release along with how other nations are supporting the Six Nation protestors ...

Mohawks briefly block Mercier bridge in Montreal http://www.cbc.ca/montreal/story/qc-mercier20060420.html

BC Chiefs called for an immediate "cooling off" period - http://www.turtleisland.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?p=6856#6856

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060420/police_ontario_060420/20060420/

http://www.canada.com/chtv/hamilton/index.html#

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/

Native protesters react angrily as police clear building site JENNIFER GRAHAM 

CALEDONIA, Ont. (CP) - Police helicopters roared overhead as defiant native protesters climbed atop buildings and set tires ablaze Thursday in an escalating confrontation between police and Six Nations members occupying a southwestern Ontario construction site.

The angry protesters used a large dump truck and a massive tire fire to block a road leading to a housing project they say sits on native land, brazenly mocking police after a pre-dawn raid that was supposed to end the 52-day occupation.

One protester planted himself on top of the truck and yelled, "What big men they are" as he waved a red Mohawk flag. At the other end of the road, a massive pile of flaming tires sent thick plumes of smoke into the air.

Dozens of Six Nations protesters occupied the Douglas Creek Estates housing project southwest of Hamilton on Feb. 28.

A judge granted an injunction in March to remove the occupiers, and police had been negotiating to have the natives leave the land peacefully throughout the dispute. Tensions mounted earlier this week when talks broke down.

There was a report that at least nine people were arrested Thursday as police moved in with "overwhelming force" in a pre-dawn raid, but the occupiers called in reinforcements and police were quickly forced to retreat.

A spokeswoman for the protesters, Janie Jamieson, said the confrontation is far from over and occupiers were bracing for another visit by police.

"We're prepared . . . for however long it takes," said Jamieson, who noted that a few hundred protesters were already on the scene.

"It's time Canada better stand up and take notice," said another protester. "Everybody that is available is here."

Ontario police Sgt. Dave Rektor refused to confirm any arrests and said there would be no official comment until a news media briefing Thursday afternoon.

Police action against aboriginals is an especially sensitive issue in Ontario where a standoff in 1995 in Ipperwash Provincial Park resulted in the death of protester Dudley George.

Just before 5 a.m., police armed with Tasers, tear gas and pepper spray made their move on the occupation, "incredibly quickly with overwhelming force," protester Mike Desroches told Hamilton's CHCH television.

"The police just completely swarmed the territory," he said, adding that the officers entered the site with guns drawn.

"The police come in - without any warning, they come and raid our village - that's their tactic, they always come in when nobody's aware," Norma General, the mother of protester Chad General, tearfully told CHCH.

One unidentified protester said he was called about two hours after the initial raid and told to go to the scene.

"We got down and we all grouped together and started evicting them (police) - by the use of bodies, no weapons," he said.

Video from the scene Thursday showed a large crowd of police officers moving on foot toward some of the newly arrived protesters.

But about 65 protesters blocked the path of police and began walking toward the officers. Police then slowly retreated onto a dirt road.

After the confrontation, about two dozen police vehicles left the protest site and headed for the nearby town of Caledonia.

At least one Catholic school in the Caledonia area closed for the day at the request of police.

The protesters argued that the site was part of a large land grant back in 1784, but the provincial and federal governments say the land was surrendered in 1841 to help build a major highway.

The protest has irked local residents, 500 of whom turned out earlier this month for a rally to demand that authorities end the occupation.

A spokeswoman for federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has said the occupation is a provincial matter. The Ontario government said earlier this month that it wanted a negotiated end to the standoff.

On Wednesday, Premier Dalton McGuinty answered opposition questions about the occupation by saying the province and the authorities were committed to a peaceful resolution to the dispute.

The standoff was reminiscent of the aboriginal occupation of Ipperwash Provincial Park, which resulted in the death of protester Dudley George from a police sniper's bullet.

The park was seized by First Nations protesters on Sept. 4, 1995, under the belief it was native territory that had never been properly surrendered.

Provincial police marched on the park two days later, and George was slain in the ensuing showdown.

George's death prompted accusations of police and government racism and an inquiry that is still ongoing. 

Keewaytinook Okimakanak's K-Net Coordinator will be co-presenting with Carl Seibel, FedNor Telecom Officer, at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Telecommunications and Information Working Group (APEC TEL) gathering that is happening next week in Calgary. Visit http://knet.ca/APEC for a copy of the presentation and links to this important international gathering. 

Industry Canada Press Release

CALGARY, Alberta, April 20, 2006 -- The 33rd meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Telecommunications and Information Working Group (APEC TEL) will be hosted in Calgary, Alberta, in April 2006. APEC TEL 33 is a forum that provides key dignitaries and business representatives from APEC's 21 member economies with the opportunity to discuss issues such as wireless security, spam and related threats, as well as advanced technologies for remote communities and persons with disabilities. More than 350 domestic and international delegates representing government and industry are expected to attend the event.

The media is invited to take part in the official opening ceremony on Wednesday, April 26 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. 

Date:   Sunday, April 23 to Friday, April 28, 2006

Location:

Hyatt Regency Calgary Hotel
700 Centre Street SE
Calgary, Alberta

For more information or for interview requests, please visit the APEC TEL 33 website (http://www.apectel33.ca) and/or contact:

Media Relations
Industry Canada
Tel.: (613) 943-2502

Anne Douglas, APR
Director of Communications
Alberta Innovation and Science
Tel.: (780) 422-1562
Cell: (780) 886-3372

Luiza Zorrilla
Director, Marketing and Communications
Calgary Economic Development
Tel.: (403) 221-7869
Cell: (403) 880-7040
luiza@calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com

From the Sioux Bulletin online at http://www.siouxbulletin.com//sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/bulletinapr192006.pdf

First Step Women’s Shelter honours mothers through Mother’s Day card campaign

Tim Brody - STAFF WRITER - Sioux Bulletin, April 19, 2006

MAY 14 is fast approaching and with it, the day reserved specifically to honour our mothers.

To mark the occasion the First Step Women’s Shelter in Sioux Lookout has teamed up with well known local photographer Allan Morrison to produce a special line of Mother’s Day cards featuring local women. It’s entitled “Honouring Our Mothers.”

Money raised from the sale of the cards will be used to purchase new outdoor play equipment for the shelter.

The shelter is a fourteen bed facility which provides a safe and secure emergency shelter for women and their children who have been physically, emotionally and/or sexually abused.

The staff and volunteers of the shelter facilitate the selfempowerment process of women and children who are survivors of violence and/or abuse by providing support and advocacy services within a safe haven.

All contacts with the women are confidential and nonjudgmental. The shelter is safe and secure. A woman can stay for a few days to think things out, or to heal from injuries, or she can stay up to six weeks or longer while she decides what to do next.

The shelter offers such services as 24 hour support, counseling and crisis intervention from shelter staff, and referrals, support and advocacy to outside agencies, including counseling, child services, family services, hospitals, clinics, legal services, employment services, housing and other community resources.

Also offered are emergency clothing for women and children, follow up contact for the woman who chooses to maintain contact with the shelter through the transitional support/outreach program, which connects women to necessary community supports such as housing, counselling, parenting support, education upgrading, job training, income support, legal aid, and health and wellness services.

Other services offered by the shelter include therapeutic counseling services for women who have survived physical, sexual, emotional, mental or spiritual abuse recently or in the past, who are presently living in an abusive relationship, or are residents of First Step Women’s Shelter or clients of the transitional support program.

A part time child care worker is on staff to provide babysitting.

The shelter is a nonprofit organization, funded through the Ministry of Community and Social Services, which can be reached by e-mail at firststep@fsws.ca or by phone at 737-1438.

The crisis line is 1-800-465-3623. The shelter also has a web site, which can be viewed at www.fsws.ca.

From April 1, 2004 – March 31, 2005, the shelter provided emergency shelter services to 315 women and children and received 1108 crisis calls and had 126 admissions.

Statistics provided by the shelter state that one in four Canadian women suffers some form of abuse by a partner, approximately 40 per cent of wife assault incidents begin during a woman’s first pregnancy, and it is estimated that just 25 per cent of domestic violence incidents are reported.

Shelter Associate Director Charlene Greene said statistics such as these create the necessity for the shelter.

She said from April 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005 the shelter operated at 100 per cent occupancy.

Greene said there is a need to provide additional outdoor playground equipment as the current equipment is for pre-school children. Funds raised through the Mother’s Day card campaign will be used to purchase such equipment as a swing set, slide, and basketball net for children staying at the shelter with their mothers.

Morrison, who operates his own photography business, Morrison Photography, said the card campaign is a brilliant idea and he is honoured to be asked to facilitate it.

Shelter board member Heather Mesich conceived the card campaign and contacted local women to set up appointments and Morrison took their pictures.

He then submitted a short list of photos from which board members picked their favorites.

Morrison, who began work on the project February 19, was full of praise for not just the attributes which have made the women selected community leaders, but also for their patience, some having to pose for an hour and half while he worked.

Peggy Sanders is one of the nine women who will be depicted in the Mother’s Day cards.

The grandmother said anything that raises money for such a good cause is a good idea.

The Order of Canada recipient is depicted sitting in front of her piano, which she is currently learning to play.

Virginia Head, originally from Sandy Lake, is a working mother of three who is depicted with her youngest son Walter-James Head.

Her thoughts on the card campaign were that she was surprised she was picked as one of the nine women who will grace the cards.

“It’s a good cause and I was actually glad I could help out in any way I could. I’m always for any type of fundraising for good causes.”

She said that cards commemorating mothers are a good idea. “It’s probably one of the most important jobs a woman can have.”

Mesich commented, “Celebrating the woman in our community can combat women abuse by erasing negative stereotypes about women in terms of sexism and racism… and by having cards that celebrate and honour women we’re hoping to sort of remind people that we need to honour the women in our community and in doing that you’re honouring the spirit of the women in the shelter.”

The cards span the spectrum of motherhood from pregnancy to being a grandmother.

“When I look at them I feel a huge sense of pride in these women. There are hundreds of women who belong on cards in this community. We really have a fantastic population of women and it wasn’t hard coming up with people …,” she said.

Due to the diversity of the community, Mesich said it is important to have the cards feature an equal representation of Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal mothers.

The cards, which will sell for $5 each, will be available begining the last week of April.

They will be on sale at Bloomin’ Wild Flowers, Johnny’s Fresh Market and Rexall on Front Street. Bloomin’ Wild Flowers will reduce the price of flowers by $1 if a card is included in the purchase.

The G8 Supplementary Courses Program is a free online resource for First Nation elementary schools that have high speed Internet access.

The program allows grade 8 classrooms across Ontario to participate in an online learning program that aims to:

• Improve students’ computer, science, math and literacy skills
• Help prepare students for high school
• Promote awareness and pride in First Nations identity, events and issues
• Connect students and teachers from First Nations schools across Ontario

The G8 Program is designed to enrich – not replace – classroom learning. To participate in the program, students are required to access the Internet for three hours per week (scheduled according to your local preference). During this time, students work to complete short assignments written especially First Nation students. The online environment allows students to exchange messages with participants from other First Nation schools and view photo albums of people, places and events in First Nation communities. Over the last two years, hundreds of students and teachers from schools all over Ontario have taken part in this program. 

There are still a few spaces open for the upcoming Math course, which is scheduled to begin on April 24, 2006. We are excited to announce that this course will also introduce a number of upgrades and new features, such as the ability for teachers to create their own custom courses. Custom online courses are a great way to create activities and lessons in a format that can be used for years to come (please note that teachers will be responsible for marking all assignments within their custom courses).

Grade 8 teachers are invited to register their class by filling out a registration form on the G8 Program website: www.g8.firstnationschools.ca  

Click here to download a program poster.

NEWS RELEASE - MONDAY APRIL 17, 2006

SCO to rally in support of Indian residential school survivors’ compensation package 

WINNIPEG, MB - On Wednesday April 19, 2006, at 12:00 PM, the Manitoba Southern Chiefs’ Organization will rally in support of the Indian residential school survivors’ compensation package during Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s luncheon speech at the Winnipeg Convention Centre.

An Agreement-in-Principle (AIP) to compensate survivors was reached last November between the former Federal Liberal Government and the Assembly of First Nations. Included in this package was a lump-sum payment of $8,000.00 for every residential school survivor, an improved Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process and a formal apology issued by the Prime Minister of Canada to survivors.

Since the 2006 Federal General Election, the new Conservative Government has remained silent on whether or not they will honour the November 2005 AIP package.

“We are calling upon Prime Minister Harper to uphold and honour the compensation package for our Indian residential school survivors,” stated Southern Grand Chief Chris Henderson. “As each day passes, our survivors are getting older, and some are passing on, without even seeing the possibility of this Agreement-in-Principle come to fruition. Aside from the financial compensation component, our survivors are also calling for a formal apology from the Prime Minister of Canada. This would begin the road to healing and reconciliation for our elders who were subjected to this gross and unjust social engineering of the worst kind.”

All nations are welcome to attend and participate in this call for justice and action for our Indian residential school survivors.