Media.Knet.Ca

The following message is a copy of an email I sent to CBC concerning the singing of the National Anthem in Cree on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday, Feb 3. I am hoping that others feel the same way as I do and will write to CBC suggesting that they address this inappropriate decisions on their part and that they give Akina Shirt another chance to sing the anthem in Cree in Toronto!

++++++++++

Sent to CBC - Saturday, Feb 3 by David Fiddler ...

I'm a big fan of hockey and HNIC but right now I don't even feel like watching it. Tonight was to be a very proud moment for First Nations across Canada, where the National Anthem was sung in the Cree language by a 13 year old in the game between Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks. I was sitting with my family waiting to watch " O Canada " sung in our language. It was very disappointing, to say the least, that it was not broadcast. Instead, there was steady stream of commercials while this event was happening.  I can't help but feel that we as First Nations are, again, being marginalized and CBC should be ashamed for their role in this. CBC must do something immediately to rectify this wrong. We had conducted a publicity campaign on the internet and locally to encourage people to watch this very important event for our people.
+++++++++++

I did end up seeing the short taped portion during the intermission that provided us with one line of the song. I don't feel this did justice to what it could've been for all of us. I  feel CBC should do more to rectify this situation, perhaps by arranging to have Akina Shirt appear on another broadcast of HNIC, in Toronto (a much bigger market providing more exposure).

+++++++++++

From http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070203/cree_anthem_070203/20070203?hub=Canada

Cree teen sings 'Ka Kanatahk' for hockey fans
Feb. 3 2007 - CTV.ca News Staff

A Cree teenager became the first to sing O Canada -- or Ka Kanatahk -- in the Cree language at the start of an NHL hockey game.

Akin Shirt, 13, of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation performed in front of about 20,000 fans before the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks faced off Saturday night at Calgary's PenGrowth Saddledome.

"Cree is a beautiful language and it's spoken among aboriginals across Canada and it's great to have this exposure on a language and for me to share this with canadians," she told reporters after an afternoon rehearsal.

"Each time I hear her, it brings a lot of emotion inside," said her mother, Jean Cardinal.

Shirt actually lives in Edmonton with her parents. She's a Grade 8 student at the Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts there.

Besides participating in three choirs, Shirt takes guitar lessons. She counts Inuit singer Susan Aglukark as a role model.

While this was her first time in front of an NHL crowd, Shirt performed the anthem in front of the Saddle Lake Warriors junior B hockey team last year.

In fact, she turned into something of a good-luck charm for them.

"Whenever I sang for them, they won, so I'm 6 and 0 right now ... I'm hoping I can go for seven wins," Shirt said.

If you're wondering what side she was on, Shirt was wearing a Calgary Flames jersey.

How did she get her shot at the big time?

Chief Eddy Makokis of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation happened to be playing golf with one of the Flames owners last summer.

"We asked general manager Darryl Sutter to see if they could get her in," he said.

The Flames asked for an audition tape.

"I thought my goodness, this is going to be wild," said Geordie MacLeod, a spokesman for the club. "She sounded great of course."

During a CBC radio report on the recent release of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, an Inuit elder stated, "Today I have nothing ... but if the land and the animals are healthy, our people can survive for a thousand years." Maybe it is time for the consumers, their governments and corporations in the south to begin to learn from the wisdom of the original people of this land. Read the Dene Nation press release below ...

Dehcho Leader Calls for Tar Sands Moratorium

Fort McMurray, Alberta – Jan. 31 – After completing a tour of the Suncor oil sands facilities north of here, Grand Chief Herb Norwegian of the Dehcho First Nations, called on Canada and Alberta to support a moratorium on further development of the massive oil producing Athabasca Tar Sands “until some sanity can be brought into this situation.”

Norwegian led a delegation of 11 chiefs and elders from the Dehcho to view the operations of Suncor, and meet with leaders of First Nations groups in northern Alberta to discuss what he called “the serious decline of the quantity and quality of water in Mackenzie River watershed.” The Mackenzie River watershed flows through some 212,000 sq km of the land 5,500 Decho live on. Their claim to the land they have always lived on is currently being negotiated with Canada.

“Our people who saw this massive development from the air as we flew in from the North and again today from the windows of a bus, were shocked,” Norwegian told a press conference. He pointed out that 87 percent of the Mackenzie River flows through the Northwest Territories and yet the huge reductions in water levels and changes in the fish and wildlife come from here, south of the NWT, he told reporters while Suncor officials listened.

“We are all devastated by what we have seen these days. This so-called ‘development’ project is out of control and we have to tell the politicians that it is like a cancerous tumour and that the Mackenzie Gas Project is designed to feed that tumour.” The MGP has currently applied to the National Energy Board to build a pipeline to bring natural gas from the High Arctic down the Mackenzie Valley to the pipeline networks of Alberta. The Dehcho oppose the pipeline until their claims are satisfactorily settled and serious environmental questions answered.

Elders and chiefs described how water levels have been fluctuating as much as 10 feet in some places along the mighty river and that fish and waterfowl are being negatively affected as well as wild game and the habitat they live on. The water is not fit to drink or swim in some places and fish have become soft and discoloured in others. The Dehcho rely on the water, fish, birds and game for food and trapping.

“Our elders have been telling us of these changes for a long time,” Norwegian said” and we think that these water problems are coming from here in this huge area around Fort McMurray. We live upstream from this and are severely impacted by this blowout of adevelopment. The problems for us and our land and animals and people are here. We have to sit with the developers and the governments and other First Nations in open doors, not closed meetings and the federal government has to pay the major role in cleaning up this mess that affects all Aboriginal people.”

Ironically, as Norwegian was speaking, Alberta’s new Premier, Ed Stelmach, had been telling people of Fort McMurray the Athabasca tar sands project had only “a very narrow window of opportunity” to address, and fix, the problems fuelled by the massive and rapid growth.

There are more than $100 billion of work planned for the region in the next decade but, as Norwegian stated “the water and the environment we live in is in danger of destruction and we in the Dehcho are not even consulted. The tar sands are also Canada’s largest producers of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of frightening global warming and climate change.

Stelmach agreed with people, the latest being the Dehcho, who have said that the situation is critical. Fort McMurray, a city of some 50,000 has massive social problems, inadequate housing, three times the number of motor vehicle fatalities per capita than the rest of Alberta, drug abuse and four times the average of sexually transmitted diseases.

“With each project approved, the growing demands on water and the environment and the absence of any sustainable solutions weighs more heavily on the people of the north,” Bill Erasmus of Yellowknife, national chief of the Dene Nation, who accompanied the Dehcho delegation.

The DFN delegation held meetings in Fort McMurray to discuss with the Athabasca Tribal Council and neighbouring first nations the way forward. Last year, the Dehcho, at the urging of their elders held a large conference in Fort Simpson to discuss the serious water problems in their land and issued a declaration that First Nations are Keepers of the Waters”. Norwegian urged this meeting of key Aboriginal players to form an alliance to address the water issues and the issues of massive development.

They heard of the degradation of the boreal forest ecosystem, the “dewatering” of rivers and streams to support the tar sands operations and the threat to the cultural survival of the people according to their treaty rights. The areas of concern are under Treaties 8 and 11, Treaties that ensure that lands of First Nations should not be taken away from them by massive uncontrolled development which threatens their culture and traditional way of life.

Late last year, Norwegian told his people, Suncor, the oldest tar sands mine in the region. was granted an expansion of its operations which already produce 225,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and will reach 500,000 bbd by 2012.

During the tour, the Dehcho were accompanied by two Suncor public relations people who would not allow the group to take pictures. Questions about the impact of largetailing ponds bursting toxic waste on the land, the proximity of the mining operations to the Athabasca River, in some places an estimated 150 feet, and destruction of the boreal forest were not answered.

The grand chief told his people of research done by pro-moratorium supporters across Canada that for every barrel of oil produced by Suncor that between four and eight barrels of water were used from the Athabasca River, which flows through the tar sands and is part of the Mackenzie Valley watershed.

Using the latest figures available from the Alberta Energy Board, Suncor sucked up 45.5 billion barrels of water in 2004 although its claims to recycle 75 percent of this but its quality is questionable. Holding tanks for toxic waste, some of them as big as 15 sq km, are larger than many natural lakes in the area. It is estimated by the AEB that current and future projects will require an unimaginable 175 million litres of water a day.

“I cannot even imagine what figures like this look like, they are almost meaningless to the average person from Dehcho,” Norwegian said, “but I do know this whole place looks like a moonscape. “ And it will get worse. Imperial Oil and Shell Canada have been granted permission to build new sites, bringing the total of existing and planned tar sands producers to 11 with more leases opening up almost daily.

“The government and the oil companies talk about ‘balance’, a balance between the environment and the economy. But this is no balance, this whole scheme is unbalanced to the point it is out of control. We aboriginal people need to demand a stop to this until we can find out where the mess is going. We have to ask the hard questions: do we need this? Is this kind of development just a waste? What is going to happen to our land and our water? And our people? As Dene we do not differentiate between the land, water, air, earth, wildlife, birds, fish and people. The people and the land are inseparable. That is real balance, “ he said.

For further information, please call Grand Chief Herb Norwegian: (867) 695-2355/2610

From Kenora Daily Miner and News archives ...

World of high-speed Internet opened to 15 local rural communities

By Mike Aiken, Miner and News, February 01, 2007

Rural communities in Northwestern Ontario are gaining access to economic, educational and social opportunities, thanks to a multi-million dollar broadband technology project.

“It’s a world-class project in the works,” said the mayor of Sioux Narrows Nestor Falls, Bill Thompson.

“It’s a huge advantage to us,” he said, noting it has helped saved the community’s school by providing a connection to resources across the country and around the world.

In all, 15 communities surrounding Lake of the Woods, including First Nations and municipalities, will have high-speed Internet access with the completion of the four-year project.

“This initiative demonstrates our government’s commitment to work with community partners for the benefit of the people in Northwestern Ontario, providing them with the tools they need to compete in today’s global market,” said the minister responsible for health and FedNor, Tony Clement, in a press release.

“I think this is critical for us in the Northwest,” said Ryan Reynard, chief executive officer of the Lake of the Woods Business Incentive Corporation. “(Lake of the Woods Business Incentive Corporation) is proud to have brought together the partners necessary to build the required infrastructure to help businesses and local residents reap the benefits of technology.”

The business incentive corporation initiated the Greater Lake of the Woods Broadband Project, with funding from public and private sector partners. The project received $563,000 from Industry Canada’s Broadband for Rural and Northern Development Pilot Program, $575,000 from the province’s Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, $710,000 from the Connect Ontario Broadband Rural Access program, as well as $310,000 from FedNor. KMTS and Bell, the project’s private sector partners, provided approximately $2.5 million in capital funding.

Jodi Gibson, vice-chairman of the corporation’s board, who also sells recreational properties in the area, said the project will definitely help both the community, as well as her job selling real estate, because it will allow seasonal residents more access to internet technologies.

Kenora Mayor Len Compton said access to high speed technologies was necessary for economic development in any community in the area, given the challenges presented by the area’s remote geography and low population density.

The 15 areas and communities connected through the Greater Lake of the Woods Broadband Project include: Sioux Narrows, Whitefish Bay First Nation, Storm Bay (Heenan Point/Longbow Lake), Laclu, Pellatt, Kendall Inlet, Kenora East, Washagamis Bay First Nation, Poplar Bay, Shoal Lake 39 First Nation, Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, Wabaseemoong First Nation, Clearwater Bay, Angle Inlet 33 First Nation and Windigo Island 37 First Nation.

NAN press release at www.nan.on.ca

NAN HOSTS YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION CONFERENCE

THUNDER BAY, ON:  Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s Decade for Youth and Development program and Decade for Youth Council will host a sacred fire lighting ceremony during the opening ceremony of the second annual Sacred Teachings Youth Suicide Awareness Conference next week in Thunder Bay. 

DATE: Monday February 5-9, 2007
TIME: 7:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Best Western NorWester Resort Hotel, 2080 Hwy 61, Thunder Bay, ON

Some of the other highlights of the five day conference include a gala dinner with a special performance by Cree band CerAmony Tuesday February 6 at 7 p.m., an open youth forum for all youth delegates on February 8, and a Powwow on February 8 at 7 p.m.

Over 200 delegates will participate in the conference, including youth aged 15-30 from 29 NAN communities as well as 8 other First Nation communities across Ontario and territory and front-line workers from all parts of Ontario.

There were 25 youth suicides in NAN territory in 2006 which is almost double the national average.

* * *

For more information please contact:

Kristy Hankila
Communications Assistant
Nishnawbe Aski Nation
(807) 625 4902
(807) 472 9604 (mobile)