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Click here to read the following Globe and Mail story online

Revealing new layers of dark history
BILL CURRY - From Tuesday's Globe and Mail - Posted ON 02/01/07

OTTAWA — The painful, personal stories of Canada's residential schools will soon include the perspective of the alleged abusers, as teachers' private journals and thousands of other documents held by churches are gathered and released for the first time.

The massive exercise is part of a five-year project to document one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history.

Called a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the $60-million project is a key, but mostly overlooked, aspect of Ottawa's residential-schools agreement. The $1.9-billion settlement was officially approved by the courts last month.

The project bears the same name as the six-year commission led by former Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, where people of all races shared searing personal stories of violence and racism during the country's apartheid past.

The purpose of Canada's exercise is to give former students a formal opportunity to tell their stories and to create a final report that will be Canada's official historical record of the period.

But while the report will focus on the broad perspective, many natives will also want to access the papers and photos to learn about their own experiences and family history, said Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, himself a victim of residential-school abuse.

Seeing the meticulous church records will be an important new part of the story, he said.

“We will learn what transpired on a daily basis — because the officials kept daily journals — and come to understand how they viewed these schools, the children that they were responsible for,” Mr. Fontaine said. “This is an important missing piece at the moment. Because all we've heard is the stories of the survivors, and this is just now coming out. But we haven't heard from the churches.”

Amid widespread claims by former students of physical and sexual abuse, the process presents the possibility that victims could look up the diaries of their abusers.

A statement of principles in the terms of reference states that the commission must “do no harm” and that all involvement must be voluntary, but the process is sure to be difficult for many who take part.

Mr. Fontaine conceded that the process will be painful at times, but he said it will ultimately help natives move on and allow all Canadians to understand the impact residential schools had on native society.

“We have to be prepared to expose the ugly truth of the residential-schools experience because that's part of the healing and reconciliation that has to occur. We know that it's been traumatic for survivors . . . this is not easy because we're dealing with painful experiences. But it's all very important. This is not about causing further harm to individuals. It's really about making things better and fixing things and making sure people understand this experience in a way that will enable us to turn the page.”

Three commissioners will be named to hear from former students and teachers and comb through the historical records currently archived by churches and governments.

The records include thousands of photographs, student profiles, reports by visiting church officials and teachers' personal journals.

Residential schools were originally an extension of the missionary work of European religious settlers who sought to convert aboriginals to Christianity. The federal government became involved in joint ventures with the churches in 1874 and took over the schools completely in 1969. The last residential school closed in 1996.

While specific lawsuits dealing with sexual and physical abuse continue, the $1.9-billion settlement recognizes that all students suffered through loss of culture and language and by being forcibly removed from their homes to live at the schools.

Although the commission will have access to any records it wishes, meetings are under way to determine the level of access extended to individual survivors.

Public release of the records will be subject to the federal access-to-information and privacy laws, meaning that individuals named in the documents will likely have to be consulted. Library and Archives Canada will be closely involved in the effort, but the undertaking is clearly daunting for those in charge of the records.

Nancy Hurn, the national archivist for the Anglican Church, manages the church's records with the help of one part-time assistant.

The church is willing to share whatever is needed, she said, but she is concerned about meeting the volume of requests that are likely to flood her desk. The commission's terms of reference says a report on “historic findings and recommendations” must be produced within the first two years.

“I think that is the one thing in the agreement that gives me concern. One is the timing and the other is how the [access and privacy] legislation is going to be applied,” she said. “We're doing everything we can to make them available.”

An August survey report from Leger Marketing completed for and funded by INAC reveals a high level of ignorance and prejudice among non-native residents of urban centres towards First Nation residents. The two stories below discuss the implementations of this survey with the Macleans' story making Aboriginal issues an election issue for 2007.

Click here to read the following CanWest News story online

Majority of non-aboriginals oppose new urban reserves: poll by Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service and published January 02, 2007

OTTAWA - The majority of Canadians who live near First Nations communities oppose creating new reserves in urban centres such as the one recently recommended for a troubled northern Ontario reserve, saying it would have a negative impact on the surrounding region, a newly released national poll reveals.

The survey of Canadians in eight cities across the country located near aboriginal communities found 51 per cent opposed to the prospect of the federal government creating new reserves in urban centres while 42 per cent were favourable to the idea. Among those opposed, 27 per cent said they are strongly against it while 24 per cent say they are somewhat opposed.

Meanwhile, only eight per cent are strongly in favour of relocating the reserves near urban centres while 34 per cent somewhat favour the idea.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is making the poll public after an adviser to the federal government recommended that the troubled Kashechewan reserve in Northern Ontario be relocated near Timmins, 450 kilometres south of its current location on the shores of James Bay.

Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has said it will be up to the community and not the federal government whether they accept the move.

Part of a report prepared by Alan Pope, a former Ontario provincial politician, was a poll of the reserve, which showed a significant majority of residents believed it was in their best interests to move their community closer to an urban centre.

Kashechewan residents have been evacuated three times in the past two years: Twice due to flooding and once last fall due to water contamination.

Pope's report found a bleak existence at Kashechewan with inadequate housing, water supply, school and health system.

Leger Marketing conducted the poll among respondents from Sydney, N.S., Fredericton, N.B., Quebec City, Sarnia, Ont., Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary and Kamloops, B.C.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development hired the polling firm to conduct a study among non-aboriginal people living near reserves across Canada to better understand their attitudes towards First Nations and their position on creating new reserves.

The poll cost the federal government $67,410.

The poll also found that 46 per cent of the non-aboriginal respondents think the creation of an urban reserve would have a negative impact on the surrounding region, while 41 per cent believe the impact would be positive.

More revealing was the response to the possible benefits for the nearby cities where the reserves would be moved. Forty-four per cent said they believe creating aboriginal reserves will have "limited''benefits on their region while 35 per cent responded it would generate absolutely no benefits. Only 14 per cent said they believe such a move would create any "real'' benefits.

Other noted perceptions:

• 71 per cent believe aboriginals rely too much on governments;
• 61 per cent believe natives are taking measures to become more autonomous towards governments;
• 64 per cent think it is unfair to permit smoking in casinos located on reserves;
• 53 per cent judge that it's fair to allow aboriginal people to build casinos on reserves but unfair that they are allowed to sell products on reserves at cheaper prices;
• 48 per cent do not believe natives are victims of discrimination while 46 per cent believe they are.

The survey's final report, delivered in August to the department, noted one important point: ''Regional differences are the most important factor affecting the variation in responses on these issue areas across Canada.

'Indeed, we have observed that, in general, residents of Sydney and Fredericton have a better perception of aboriginal people, while respondents from Winnipeg and Saskatoon have a poorer perception of the First Nations situation.'

While the report denied that Quebecers had a negative perception of aboriginal people, it was found to be the region with the least amount of sympathy for their plight. ''When it comes to feelings of equity, they are more likely than Canadians in other regions to perceive that aboriginal people benefit from unfair advantages,''it said.

And when it comes to the impact of the creation of new reserves, Quebec and Sarnia residents were the most skeptical ones, with more than 80 per cent of those surveyed saying there would be limited or no benefit to their regional economies.

The report is based on 3,208 telephone interviews between June 26 and July 15 with non-aboriginal respondents aged 18 or older in eight cities from coast to coast. The margin of error for the national results is plus or minus 2.4 per cent, and plus or minus 4.9 per cent for each region, 19 times out of 20.

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Click here to read the following Macleans' story

Not going quietly - Resistance to the proposed move of the infamous Kashechewan reserve could put native issues in the national spotlight
Philippe Gohier, Macleans.ca - January 3, 2007

Their water was filthy. Their community was susceptible to flooding. Their housing was beyond decrepit. And so, for a brief period in the fall of 2005, the sickly, rash-ridden residents Kashechewan found a place in the public consciousness.

Soon, the northern Ontario reserve may return there. And in what might just be an election year, it threatens to bring other native issues with it.

A year after Kashechewan's woes came to light, Alan Pope, a former Ontario cabinet minister hired as a special adviser to the Minister of Indian Affairs, issued a report recommending the community be moved some 450 kilometres south to the outskirts of Timmins. Pope's report considered the alternatives, including leaving it where it is. But in the face of a crumbling infrastructure and a staggering 87% unemployment rate, the last best hope was apparently to shut the whole thing down and start anew.

"The benefits of such a relocation are clear," Pope said. "This will offer the greatest advantage of improved economic and individual opportunities."

But the relocation of native reserves to urban areas raises at least two delicate questions that have become the subject of debate. First, do the residents actually want to leave? And second, do their new neighbours want them?

When the federal government recently commissioned a poll on the latter question, it produced fairly disconcerting results.

The survey, conducted among non-aboriginals in eight Canadian cities located near native communities, found that 51% of respondents were opposed to the creation of urban reserves; only 42% were in favour.

What's more, Kashechewan's deputy chief, Philip Goodwin, told The Globe and Mail that many Kashechewan residents are reluctant to move closer to Timmins and prefer the option of simply moving to higher ground.

"Lately I've been hearing a lot of people [talk] about moving up the river," Goodwin said, contradicting Pope's analysis of local sentiment. "There's not too many people who are interested in going down south, but the answers will be at the end of February."

Those answers will come from the community-wide, door-to-door canvassing the council plans to undertake later this month - which, according to Goodwin, will dictate its formal response to Pope’s relocation proposal.

Should the council reject the proposal, Kashechewan would join two other high-profile native issues that remain unresolved. And combined, they could mark the rare occasion on which a federal government is put on the hot seat for its aboriginal policy.

First, there is the previous government's Kelowna Accord - the implementation of which was made one of the Liberals' top priorities at their recent leadership convention.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government is committed to the "principles and objectives" of the Accord, which calls for $5.1-billion in targeted funding to reduce the gap in quality of life between aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities. But its absence from the Conservatives’ budget last February has left him open to criticism from its supporters.

Last spring, Canada's western and territorial leaders unanimously endorsed the deal. And this past October, former prime minister Paul Martin - who negotiated the Accord - presented a private member’s bill aimed at forcing the Conservatives to implement it. The vote passed handily - garnering the support of the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, but not the Conservatives.

Then there are last year's clashes over disputed land in Caledonia, Ontario, which invoked memories of Oka and Ipperwash. With 1,000 land claims still outstanding, the possibility looms large that another of them could devolve as Caledonia has.

"Any one of them could trigger the same reaction," Ontario regional chief Angus Toulouse has said. "That's the unfortunate thing - we're going to see much more of that. There is a sense nationally and regionally that there is this frustration."

Native policies have rarely emerged as major election issues, and an expected campaign this year is more likely to focus on the environment, Afghanistan, and – at least inside Quebec - the fiscal imbalance. But the lingering confusion over Kashechewan, along with pressure to implement the Kelowna Accord and the simmering anger over the land claim in Caledonia, could finally push such issues into the political mainstream.

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February 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 2007

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Novice , Atoms , Peewee , Bantam & Midget Divisions

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From the Lieutenant Governor's press release

Lieutenant Governor Issues Province-wide Appeal for Books for Aboriginal Children

TORONTO, Jan. 2 - The Hon. James K. Bartleman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, is appealing to Ontarians to once again bring the magic of books to Aboriginal children by donating new or gently used books during the month of January. Books can be dropped off at any OPP Detachment across Ontario or at the 17 Toronto Police Services Stations across the Greater Toronto Area.

The Lieutenant Governor believes in the transformative power of books. "Too many native children in remote fly-in communities do not know how to read. Too many lack self esteem. Too many lack hope. Too many believe that no one cares about them. Too many take their lives in despair. And too many do not have ready access to libraries that we take for granted elsewhere in the province." said Mr. Bartleman.

"And without books, the children will never learn to read, will never develop the self-esteem that comes from obtaining an education and will never escape the despair that fuels the suicide epidemic among children and youth that has been raging out of sight and out of mind in the north of our province."

Three years ago the people of the province responded magnificently when the Lieutenant Governor launched an appeal to establish libraries in the remote communities. This time his focus is on obtaining new or gently used children's and teenage books to top up these libraries. Any surplus books will be provided to native communities elsewhere in Canada.

"I am proud that the OPP is once again opening its detachments as book collection sites and that the Canadian Forces, through the Land Force Central Area, the army in Ontario, have again offered their assistance and will help to deliver books. The addition of Toronto Police Services to this second book drive will ensure that residents of Canada's largest city will have ease of access as to where they can drop off books."

Since 2004 Mr. Bartleman has introduced four initiatives to promote aboriginal literacy:

• The Lieutenant Governor's Book Program;
• School Twinning Program;
• Summer Literacy Camps; and,
• Club Amick, a reading club for children in fly-in First Nation communities.

Click here to read the following Globe and Mail story online

Kashechewan natives balk at leaving home
BILL CURRY - Posted on 01/01/07

OTTAWA -- The residents of Kashechewan are generally cool to the idea of leaving their remote James Bay community to live 450 kilometres south in Timmins, Ont., says deputy chief Philip Goodwin.

But it will be at least another two months before Ottawa gets a formal response from the community, he said, because the door-to-door canvassing of the 1,550 residents will not start until later this month.

At the request of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, former Progressive Conservative Ontario cabinet minister Alan Pope issued recommendations Nov. 9 on how to address the community's problems.

Residents are frequently evacuated because of poor drinking water or flooding. There is virtually no employment other than at the band council and the homes are overcrowded and decrepit.

Mr. Pope's call for the community to abandon its traditional lands in favour of urban life triggered a nationwide debate on the sustainability of the hundreds of other remote reserves in Canada.

"People are confused because of the recommendations that were made by Alan Pope," said Mr. Goodwin, who was reached by phone at the band office. "Lately I've been hearing a lot of people [talk] about moving up the river [known as] Site 5. There's not too many people who are interested in going down south, but the answers will be at the end of February."

The previous Liberal government promised to build a new community for the residents on higher ground, widely assumed to be at the location called Site 5, about 30 kilometres from the town.

That was the recommendation of Kashechewan's chief and council at the time; however, new leaders have since been elected.

However the Liberals never put forward a spending plan for parliamentary approval to build the new community, and the new government has questioned the cost of building an entirely new town in such a remote part of the country.

In his report, Mr. Pope put forward four possible options for moving the community, including Site 5, Fort Albany, Smooth Rock Falls and Timmins.

Mr. Pope wrote that in his door-to-door discussions with residents, a "significant minority" said they prefer Site 5, but most want to move farther away.

"A significant majority of community members believe that the best interests of themselves, of their children and families, and of the entire community are served by a relocation of the community to a new reserve removed from the Albany River and the traditional lands of the Kashechewan First Nation," he wrote.

Mr. Pope said that choice was conditional on having regular access to traditional lands and receiving "all economic benefits from, and control over economic, industrial and commercial use of their traditional lands and resources."

Those traditional lands are part of the 1905 Treaty 9, whereby natives allowed Europeans to use native lands for mining and other purposes in exchange for reserves and annual payments of $4 each.

The value of those lands, however, is rising dramatically. Diamonds have been found 90 kilometres from Attawapiskat, a neighbouring James Bay community.

Mr. Goodwin said he is aware of only a small number of Kashechewan residents who will receive jobs at the DeBeers Victor Diamond Project.

The community had its first meeting to discuss the report on Nov. 30 and Chief Jonathan Solomon reportedly urged residents not to let the issue divide them.

"Look beyond yourselves, look to the future and ask the question: 'What do I want for my children and grandchildren?' It is you who will make a difference."

WELCOME to 2007!!

The team at Keewaytinook Okimakanak would like extend BEST WISHES to everyone for his new year.

May the coming months bring good health, happiness and prosperity to one and all.

It is through everyone's efforts to work together, to help each other and to care about our neighbours that we each are able to contribute to a safe and growing environment.

Our children and future generations depend upon us!

We look forward to working with everyone once again in this new year.