Media.Knet.Ca

Desta Rae reports ... (see the Toronto Star story below)

Three members of the KO tribal council took part in Project Beyshick this week. 

Founded by Aditya Jha, the POA Foundation in partnership with NADF organized the job shadowing / mentorship program for young entrepreneurs and prospective executives. 

Devon Archie Meekis (Deer Lake) was placed at the TD Bank headquarters, Desta Buswa (North Spirit Lake) at the Sick Kids Foundation, and Devon Blaine Meekis (Deer Lake) spent his time at Up Front Entertainment. 

Seventeen NAN youth were chosen to take part of this program. 

To apply for next years program, please visit the POA Foundation's website at www.poafoundation.org

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From Toronto Star ...

Project to develop business acumen in Ontario aboriginal communities - Founder sees program as way to help natives break away from government handouts

Jered Stuffco - CANADIAN PRESS - Jul 16, 2007

While most computer techs wage daily battles with destructive viruses, self-described "geek" Devon Meekis has to fight an affliction which can be even more debilitating than the most insidious spyware program.

Meekis, an aboriginal who started his own IT company about a decade ago, says he encounters jealousy and ridicule from within his own community.

"We have this theory we call the `crab syndrome,' where if somebody is pulling themselves out of the pail, all of the other crabs will try and bring them back down again," says Meekis, whose business is based in Thunder Bay.

Add to that prejudice and misconceptions from the white community, and it's no wonder aboriginals have a hard time breaking into the business world, says Meekis.

That's why he's joining 24 other young aboriginals in Project Beyshick, a mentorship initiative aiming to foster and sharpen the business acumen of First Nations communities through an intensive, week-long program of seminars, presentations and workshops.

"I'm seeing how hard it is for people like us to make it – for people who grew up on the reserve especially," says Meekis, who named his company FLI – which means "for little Indians.

"I figured that the best way to show somebody that they can make it is to make it yourself."

Project Beyshick, which started Saturday with orientation sessions in Peterborough, also gives participants from northern Ontario's Nishnawbe Aski Nation, serious face-time with some of Canada's top business leaders.

Meekis is set to spend three days this week job shadowing with Karen Dunk-Green, who works for TD Bank Financial Group.

"This year, I want to learn how to effectively manage people – how to effectively be hands-off while still keeping your ideas alive," said Meekis, 32.

Project Beyshick, which is now in it's third annual edition, is the brainchild of Aditya Jha, a Nepal-born businessman and philanthropist who moved to Canada from India and started a software company called Isopia Inc. in 1999.

Jha, who sold Isopia Inc. for more than $100 million in 2001, says he was spurred to start the project after witnessing the social problems and Third-World conditions rife within aboriginal communities.

Jha says that getting aboriginals more heavily involved in the business community could be an effective alternative to the system of government handouts which have kept aboriginals locked in a cycle of poverty.

Greg Baas, a participant who owns and runs a fishing and hunting lodge in the remote town of Sioux Lookout, echoes those sentiments.

He adds most aboriginals in his community don't have the support necessary to start businesses. "There are programs right now to help aboriginal businesses, but it's just having the courage to try and do it. It's not easy to run a business and not everyone wants to do it."

Baas, 32, is set to spend three days shadowing Ken Folwer, the investment wizard who heads one of the country's top investment and management advisory firms.

TVO CEO Lisa De Wilde, also acting as a program mentor this year, says the program is a unique tool.

"It does something that's concrete and it delivers something to young people that I think is unique across Canada."

Last year, Wilde mentored a 16-year-old girl from Timmins, who was exposed to an entirely new world. "She had a real eye-opening experience. She was so sweet. She said, `"I've never been exposed to a woman that runs an organization.'"

Please note the new dates (Aug 20-24, 2007) for this gathering in Garden River First Nation. Visit http://www.threefiresconfederacy.org/ for all the information about this gathering of nations.

From the Prince George Citizen ...

Ont. tribal council launches human rights complaints over aboriginal policing  
by Scott Paradis, Timmins Daily Press (National News) , 16 July 2007

TIMMINS, Ont. (CP) - A northern Ontario tribal council has slapped the federal and provincial governments with two human rights complaints for what it says is inadequate funding for Aboriginal policing.

Mushkegowuk Council calls the problem part of the “systemic racism” that exists within the government.

Mushkegowuk Council launched human rights complaints Monday on behalf of the First Nation communities it represents, five of which are on the isolated western James Bay Coast.

The complaints come after years of negotiations with the upper levels of government, which have failed to provide First Nations with appropriate funding for policing, Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Stan Louttit said.

“We have never been able to acquire the proper resources like any other town in (Canada),” Louttit said. “We've sought legal opinion and what we've been told is that it's a form of racism.”

Many of the First Nation towns represented by Mushkegowuk do not have a police force that can actively patrol the communities 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week.

Instead officers with the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service in some of these areas revert to on-call status for parts of the night.

In Attawapiskat, officers are typically on-call between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

This is unacceptable and fails to protect the residents' property and personal safety, Louttit said.

“There's a big difference between on call and (active) patrol,” he said. “Come 3 a.m. (criminals) know the police aren't around, they know the police aren't on patrol.”

Municipalities across Canada don't have this problem, he said.

Even on the James Bay Coast, the municipality of Moosonee enjoys between 10 and 11 police officers, a state-of-the-art police station and new police vehicles.

That's in sharp contrast to the state of policing in Attawapiskat, or much of the other James Bay Coast First Nations.

In those communities only a handful of officers are available and they typically work out of a dilapidated, make-shift police detachment, Louttit said.

Ontario and Canada began funding First Nation policing in Mushkegowuk territory in 1994 when Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service entered an agreement with the two levels of government.

The spending framework in the agreement calls for the province to pay 48 per cent while the federal government takes care of 52 per cent of police funding.

An important resolution, cooperatively developed by health representatives at AFN, COO, NAN and KO was successfully moved forward and accepted by the Chiefs attending the Assembly of First Nations gathering in Halifax this past week. For KO Telemedicine, the resolution is another level of support that demonstrates these organizations' and the First Nation support for community-based telehealth services. With this support and direction to Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB), it is hoped that KOTM will receive its much needed sustainability funding from Health Canada when the current 2 year project is completed in March, 2008.

AFN Resolution, as it was presented to the chiefs for their consideration ...

SUBJECT: Telehealth/Telemedicine Development and Sustainability

WHEREAS:

A. Telehealth/Telemedicine facilitates access to priority services such as mental health, diabetes, chronic disease management and pandemic planning and improves community-based access to health services and capacity-building and training opportunities for health staff servicing First Nations; and

B. First Nations based and directed Telehealth/Telemedicine programs have demonstrated success as a proven model of facilitating health service delivery supported by First Nations; and

C. There is no current First Nations controlled process to address Telemedicine/Telehealth nationally;

D. First Nations Telemedicine/Telehealth Programming requires adequate funding to support local and regional ehealth initiatives.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that:

1. The Chiefs-in-Assembly, support the development of a First Nations controlled and directed National Telemedicine/Telehealth Program that clearly identifies First Nations Telemedicine/Telehealth needs and prorities as determined through legitimate First Nations controlled process; and
2. The Chiefs-in-Assembly, direct Health Canada – FNIH to ensure appropriate long-term sustainability resources be identified within the First Nation Telehealth / Telemedicine Program to maintain the development, operation, maintenance and capacity-development requirements of such Regional First Nation Strategies and Processes; and
3. The establishment of the First Nations National Telehealth/Telemedicine Program shall be without prejudice to existing and/or on-going initiatives with repect to First Nation Telehealth/Telemedicine programs, (for example, KO Telemedicine Program) and will provide these programs with necessary resources for sustainability, capacity-building, enhancement and expansion.

MOVED BY: Chief Randy Phillips, Oneida Nation of the Thames, ON

SECONDED BY: Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, ON

DECISION: The telehealth resolution was passed without amendment and without any opposition (as reported by Brian Walmark, KO rep and proxy at the meeting)

From The London Times ...

19 mins, -1.8C: the first swim at the North Pole
Alan Hamilton - July 16, 2007

Had it been just one degree further down the thermometer, not even the polar bears could have managed what Lewis Pugh achieved in the early hours of yesterday.

Mr Pugh, a maritime lawyer and environmental campaigner from London, swam a kilometre (.62 miles) at the Geographic North Pole to highlight the effects of global warming. At -1.8C (28.76F), it is believed to be the coldest water a human has ever swum in.

Clad only in his Speedo trunks, cap and goggles as required by the rules of the Channel Swimming Association – which also forbid any buoyancy aids, swimming caps that offer any thermal protection or trunks cut above crotch level – Mr Pugh spent just under 19 agonising minutes in the melted sea ice navigating a path in a crack between broken floes.

The feat would not have been possible ten years ago, when the water was entirely frozen over, even in summer.

Mr Pugh, 37, confessed afterwards that the pain was so excruciating he almost gave up several times. At dead of night, but seeing his way in the permanent Arctic summer daylight, he entered the water at 2 am and reemerged at 2.18 and 50 seconds, perished but ecstatic.

“The water was absolutely black – it was like plunging into a dark black hole,” he said as his body temperature slowly returned to normal. “It was frightening. The pain was immediate and felt like my body was on fire. I was in excruciating pain from beginning to end and I nearly quit on a few occasions. It was without doubt the hardest swim of my life.”

He had been inspired, he said, by his friend and fellow environmentalist Jorgen Amundsen, the great-great-nephew of the first man to reach the South Pole.

Mr Pugh, who trained in a glacial lake in Norway, said: “I will never give up in front of a Norwegian, let alone a relative of Roald Amundsen.”

Because of its salinity, seawater freezes at a slightly lower temperature than fresh water. But the surface water at the North Pole is of relatively low salinity, and at -1.8C was on the verge of turning to ice that not even the bears could have swum in.

Most people who attempted such a feat would drown within minutes as the intense cold disabled their muscles. Mr Pugh believes that he can raise his normal body temperature by one degree by concentrating on raising his heart rate.

Tim Noakes, of Cape Town University, an expert on the effects of cold water on the human body, monitored the swim and found that on leaving the water Mr Pugh’s body temperature had dropped to 36.5C. Twenty minutes later it had fallen even further to a dangerously low 35C, but within an hour it had recovered to a normal 37C.

“To swim at the North Pole is an incredible achievement, and is the culmination of years of unique endeavour by an astonishing individual,” Professor Noakes said. “At the end of the swim, Lewis was showing obvious signs of distress but he never faltered and his performance was the best yet.”

Mr Pugh holds the record for the world’s most southerly swim, on the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet, and last year became the first person to swim the length of the Thames. He claims to be the only person to have completed a long-distance swim in each of the world’s five oceans.

He has already attracted the nickname “Polar Bear” for his cold-water swimming. He trained for his latest feat by eating five meals a day for three months and putting on 24 lb. Mr Pugh reached the Geographic North Pole by hitching a lift on an icebreaking ship sailing out of Murmansk in northern Russia.

The North Pole challenge was organised by the Worldwide Fund for Nature to raise awareness of environmental issues.

Scientists predict that by 2040 the Arctic could be virtually free of ice in summer. Mr Pugh said yesterday that his achievement was a bittersweet victory. “It’s a triumph and a tragedy – a triumph that I could swim in such ferocious conditions, but a tragedy that it is now possible to swim at the North Pole.”

National Indian Treaties 1-11 Gathering

July 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 2007
July 22 - Elders Ceremonies
July 23 - Elders Forum

Open Letter to Chiefs

We have been given another opportunity to gather up about our Treaties One to Eleven.

At each gathering we are able to reach a consensus on how we can and must take action to protect our Treaties for future generations. Each gathering gives us the understanding and commitment we need to take the action needed to have Canada honour the Treaty Obligations of the Crown.

At this gathering we will need to understand how the failure to honour our Treaties on the part of Canada means that our hand has been strengthened, not weakened. Canada’s failure to honour The Numbered Treaties only weakens their claim to our lands and resources as well as their claim for full and exclusive sovereignty on our Traditional Territories.

It is my hope that at this gathering we will find consensus on how we can collectively attack by legal and international action the territorial legitimacy of the State of Canada.

Lets us put our minds and hearts together to rekindle the True Spirit of Treaties One to Eleven.

For Treaty Justice,

Chief Ovide Mercredi
Misipawistik Cree Nation
National Spokesperson, Treaties One to Eleven

Please Click Here for further details, poster and docs.

From CTV online ...

Kelowna not an 'expensive press release', says chief
Canadian Press - Jul. 12 2007

HALIFAX -- Native leaders condemned the federal government's assertion Thursday that the defunct Kelowna accord was nothing more than an "expensive press release," saying the comments do nothing to improve already strained relations with Ottawa.

Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations said the remarks by a parliamentary secretary for the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs reflect the Conservatives disregard for a document he says could have improved the lives of natives across the country.

"It's wrong to suggest to Canadians that the Kelowna accord is just an expensive press release," Fontaine, national chief of the assembly, said on the last day of the organization's annual meeting in Halifax.

"It's simply wrong. It's irresponsible (and) too dismissive. We deserve better from the government."

Fontaine was responding to a comment by parliamentary secretary Rod Bruinooge who, when asked by reporters why the government shelved the accord, said the arrangement was a mere public relations exercise by the Liberals before the last federal election. "The previous government made an election promise at the last hour," Bruinooge said. "This was later dubbed the Kelowna accord. ... There was no agreement. It was a press release."

The comments echo those made by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice who recently referred to the accord as a "very expensive press release."

A dismayed Fontaine rebuffed the claims, saying the creation of the accord involved 1,000 people, 18 months of work and the agreement of the provinces, territories and aboriginal leaders.

"Once again the government has dismissed this important arrangement," he said. "The accord represents an opportunity to finally turn the corner to make things right."

Rick Simon, an Atlantic regional chief with the assembly, said the reference could further damage aboriginal relations with Ottawa as they try to move ahead with a backlog of stalled land claims and overall improvements to living conditions on reserves.

"For him to say there's nothing there, I think it's terrible," he said as the meeting wrapped up.

The wide-ranging Kelowna accord, signed with the former Liberal government of Paul Martin in November 2005, would have seen $5 billion go toward native education, employment and anti-poverty initiatives.

The Conservatives had said they were committed to meeting the accord's goals, but did not support a private member's bill backed by the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois, and NDP that passed in March. As a result, the government wasn't obliged to support the accord financially.

The Tories say they are taking a more "targeted approach" to dealing with specific land claims, concluding the residential schools settlement agreement and extending human rights protection to natives living on reserves.

Some native leaders wondered why Prentice didn't attend the annual meeting to explain the government's position.

Bruinooge said the minister was in Belgium attending ceremonies marking the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, where his great-uncle fought in the First World War.

Prentice's office sent a release stating he is also there to honour Cpl. Francis Pegahmagabow, Canada's most decorated aboriginal soldier who served at Passchendaele.

"We think we were snubbed by him not making the time to come here," Simon said. "It just shows where the priority is, and we're not."

Both Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton addressed the conference Thursday and decried the Tories failure to revive the Kelowna accord.

"I saw the work we did to come to this accord," Dion told hundreds of natives at the meeting. "It did not come overnight - it took a lot of work - but it seems that overnight the current government decided to get rid of this accord, and I share your disappointment."

The assembly passed more than 30 resolutions over the course of the meeting, many dealing with ways to improve conditions on reserves that have become so bad in some cases that international aid agencies have had to provide help.

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From the Globe and Mail ...

Natives upset by MP's comment on accord - Disparaging the Kelowna deal amounts to a snub from Ottawa, leaders say
OLIVER MOORE - July 13, 2007

HALIFAX -- Native leaders reacted with dismay and anger yesterday upon learning a representative of Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice had dismissed the Kelowna accord as "an expensive press release."

The comment added to a sour note caused by Mr. Prentice's absence from the 28th annual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations that wrapped up in Halifax yesterday. Rick Simon, a Mi'kmaq chief from Indian Brook First Nation, said it was a "snub" that showed how important the minister considered native issues.

The government said that Mr. Prentice was in Belgium helping to honour Corporal Francis Pegahmagabow, Canada's most-decorated aboriginal soldier, at a ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of fighting at Passchendaele.

Appearing here in place of Mr. Prentice was his parliamentary secretary, Manitoba MP Rod Bruinooge.

Mr. Bruinooge was uncontroversial in his prepared remarks but, while meeting with reporters, he was asked about the Kelowna accord. It was then that he made the comment later called "irresponsible" by AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine.

In his remarks closing the meetings yesterday, Mr. Fontaine noted that it took 18 months of work before agreements aimed at improving the lives of natives were finalized in November, 2005, only days before the Liberal government of Paul Martin fell.

"We deserve better from the government," he said. "To suggest that this was just something that was crafted on the back of a napkin ... [I'm] really disappointed in Mr. Bruinooge."

Echoing a comment the day earlier by Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald, Mr. Fontaine likened native displeasure with the stillbirth of the Kelowna accord to anger on the East Coast over the Atlantic Accord.

"They've experienced the same disappointment that we've experienced," he said. "A deal is a deal ... when someone makes a deal, the deal must be honoured."

Saying that "we deserve better from the government," Mr. Fontaine spent a good part of his wide-ranging closing remarks discussing the problems facing native communities. Touching on suicide, poverty, the lack of housing and the unreliability of drinking water, he argued that such conditions would never be tolerated in non-native communities.

Speaking later to reporters who asked him about Mr. Bruinooge's characterization of the Kelowna accord, Mr. Fontaine reiterated that it was "much more" than a press release.

"It's unfortunate that it's taken this very political turn," he said.

Asked what such comments would do to the AFN's ability to work with the government, he acknowledged that the relationship has already been strained.

But he also commended the Tories for advancing several files, singling out for praise the residential schools agreement and the proposal for a tribunal to assess so-called specific claims.

Mr. Bruinooge was unruffled by the response his comment had received.

"I did refer to it as an expensive press release by the Liberal Party in their dying days," he said by telephone from Toronto later in the day. "I'm the kind of guy who calls a spade a spade."

Mr. Bruinooge said he believes that the $5-billion plan has been afforded undue status for political reasons.

"It's begun to [be seen to have] qualities of an accord, a signed agreement," he added. "It was a goal-based document ... this Kelowna press release does not have an accord behind it."

From UNESCO news ... 

New youth internet radio initiative in the Caribbean
11-07-2007 (Kingston)
 
CYPCC Information Officer, Robert Bazil, broadcasting live from the Container Project in Jamaica.
© Commonwealth Youth Programme 

On 26 June, the Commonwealth Youth Programme Caribbean Centre (CYPCC) began broadcasting live on its new internet radio station.

Youth Vibes Radio, which has been launched in association with the Caribbean Internet Radio Portal (CIRP) and UNESCO, is currently in its testing phase but is already providing audio to millions of listeners around the world. It uses the m3w software, one of the best in the world in terms of quality.

CYPCC Regional Director, Henry Charles, hailed this new development as one of the most significant achievements in the history of the Centre. He noted that the radio station will provide an excellent avenue for collaboration with other Commonwealth organizations to deliver open and distance learning education for youth leaders and youth development professionals.

In the coming months, CYPCC will be developing a programme schedule to be posted on its website so that listeners can keep abreast of youth development events in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

The new internet radio station will broadcast live from the Information Department at the CYP Caribbean Centre in Georgetown, Guyana, and will have the capacity to transmit from other locations throughout the region by simple use of a laptop computer and other accessories.

The Regional Director has also stated that "this new initiative is an excellent tool to advance the youth empowerment agenda and to develop strategic partnerships with various strata of youth."

Under this initiative, CYPCC will be able to provide live and delayed coverage of its projects and events. The Centre also proposes to use the station to produce regular news clips, conduct interviews with programme staff, policy makers, partners and other stakeholders in youth development in the region.

CYPCC will use this medium to stimulate informed debate on such topics as effective youth participation, the Commonwealth Plan of Action for Youth Empowerment, the CYP Youth mainstreaming agenda, youth empowerment strategies to create a drug and violence free society, etc. It should also be a useful tool for ongoing analysis of the global challenges facing youth in the 21st century.

Listen to Youth Vibes Radio at: http://www.mcclinks.com/cirp/index.html

The archive of the two hour meeting, connecting 28 sites from across Canada is now posted as a Windows Media video and can be watched by clicking on

http://streaming.knet.ca/events/Green_Meeting.wmv

Many of the participants in this session had several people attending the meeting at their site. The meeting provided everyone with an opportunity to learn about using videoconferencing as one way to support the protection of our environment.

Several comments were made throughout the meeting about learning from these types of experiences. The video archive of the session is a good way for everyone to take a look at what other people are seeing and hearing. The archived session provides people with an opportunity to examine the features of the session that are working well but it also gives viewers a chance to do some critical examinations on what might be changed to make the meeting that much more effective for all the participants.

Everyone is invited to visit http://videocom.knet.ca to learn more about the VideoCom research project that hosted this event. Please take the time to LOGIN either as new member of the K-Net Meeting Space or to join this particular group (if you have any problems logging in please contact K-Net).

After logging in please consider posting a message in the discussion forum so everyone can continue discussing and sharing stories and experiences that were started during Thursday's meeting.

As well, as local champions it is important that everyone continues to “spread the word” by working with others so they too can know about this work and the opportunities that videoconferencing brings to First Nations.

From Saskatoon Star Phoenix ...

AFN calls for massive investment in languages
Charles Mandel, CanWest News Service - July 12, 2007

HALIFAX -- An Assembly of First Nations call Wednesday for $2.6 billion over 11 years to revitalize aboriginal languages resonated with Deborah Jacobs.

The 50-year-old educator and member of British Columbia's Squamish Nation is minimally fluent in her own language. But then that's not surprising when out of the Squamish Nation's 3,600 people, only 15 are still able to speak their native tongue.

The problem came into sharp focus during the second day of the Assembly of First Nation's annual meeting on Wednesday. Band chiefs and delegates from across Canada listened as Katherine Whitecloud, a regional chief from Manitoba and a member of the Dakota Nation, told the gathering: "Our languages are the cornerstone of who we are as people. Without our languages, our culture cannot survive."

Whitecloud blamed the decline of the languages partly on the residential school system, in which aboriginal children were removed from their homes and sent to live in the schools, where they were abused for speaking their own languages, among other things.

Whitecloud said when the children of residential schools became parents, they refused to teach their own children native languages because the ability to do so had been beaten out of them.

The residential school system remained in effect for more than 100 years in Canada and the intergenerational effect of their "destructive policies" continue to be felt to this day, Whitecloud told the assembly.

"We are in a state of emergency respecting our First Nations' languages. Statistics show that 50 out of 53 First Nation languages are declining, endangered, or in danger of extinction," Whitecloud said. "First Nations languages in Canada are in a desperate state."

Statistics on fluency and other data on aboriginal languages is currently limited. At the assembly, questionnaires on the languages were circulated in an attempt to gather more information.

Whitecloud criticized the Conservative federal government for cutting $160-million in funding for aboriginal languages in 2006. In its place, the government made available $5 million per year for aboriginal languages, amounting to $5 for each native in Canada to learn aboriginal languages, Whitecloud said.

"These funding levels are unacceptable for First Nations, especially when you consider that in budget 2007, the federal government announced that they were going to spend $642 million over five years for the promotion and development of official languages in Canada."

She said the federal government has a legal obligation through various treaties and legislation to provide adequate resources to support First Nations' language preservation. "Canada has no national policy or legislation that recognizes the distinct status of First Nations' languages as the original languages of Canada,'' she said.

The AFN wants $2.6 billion over 11 years to follow through on its National First Nations Language Strategy that would see the languages back in common use by 2027.

Jacobs believes the money the AFN wants for language funding is reasonable given the language needs in the many aboriginal communities. "I find it's a rather thrifty number that's been put out there."

Chief Lance Haymond of Quebec's Eagle Village First Nation also supported funding for languages. "We need the investment to maintain and recreate our languages. Most of our culture, our history, is related to language."

He said in Kipawa very few people spoke Algonquin, the native language, and those who did are over 50 years of age. Haymond himself is bilingual -- in English and French. He doesn't speak his own language.

After Whitecloud addressed the assembly, a number of delegates expressed their frustration with the state of education and negotiations over funding with the federal and provincial governments.

"We're not the second, third or fourth: We're the first government of this land," one said to loud applause, before adding his annoyance over band chiefs being unable to secure meetings with government representatives.