Media.Knet.Ca

During the June 12-14 Chiefs of Ontario meeting that took place at Pelican Falls First Nations High School in Sioux Lookout, Cal Kenny interviewed a number of people to get their opinions about the use of communication technologies in First Nations. From the video footage obtained, Cal put together a 5 minute video entitled "Talking about ICTs with First Nation Leaders".

This short video is available online at http://streaming.knet.ca/chiefs_meeting.wmv (requires Windows Media).

Cal Kenny is K-Net's Multi-media Production Manager. He can be reached at calkenny@knet.ca. His personal web site can be seen at http://calkenny.myknet.org

From Government Response to the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development ...

No Higher Priority: Aboriginal Post Secondary Education in Canada

INAC Minister Prentice provides a response to the Sixth Report of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. Entitled "No Higher Priority: Aboriginal Post Secondary Education in Canada," the report was tabled in the House of Commons on February 12, 2007.

The response also includes specific information about concerning each of the recommendations and proposals made by the committee concerning how INAC staff are attempting to address the identified issues.

Detailed Responses to the Recommendations

RECOMMENDATION 1
RECOMMENDATION 2
RECOMMENDATION 3
RECOMMENDATION 4
RECOMMENDATION 5
RECOMMENDATION 6
RECOMMENDATION 7
RECOMMENDATION 8
RECOMMENDATION 9
RECOMMENDATION 10

Committee Proposals and Responses

Proposal 1
Proposal 2
Proposal 3
Proposal 4

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug: Our Home and Native Land

The following is a speech made by John Cutfeet on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007, at as part of a Roundtable on the Duty to consult aboriginal peoples and Ontario's Mining Act, at the Canadian Law and Society Association meetings at the Congress of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.

Greetings to all of you from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug!

These greetings come to you from 600 kilometers northwest of Thunder Bay. You may have heard of the legal issues surrounding our territory now I want to introduce you to our land, which we call Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug territory. I hope by the time I finish you will better understand and appreciate why we believe that we have a sacred responsibility to protect our home and native land for future generations.

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug territory, the heart of the north, is located South of the Hudson Bay coast. Kitchenuhmaykoosib means the big lake where the trout are found. Inninuwug means the people and when you put them together it means the peoples of the Big Lake where the trout are found. Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug is home to approximately fifteen hundred people who live on and continue to utilize the land and the waters in the same way as our ancestors have for centuries before us.

Kitchenuhmaykoosib is also the site where the adhesion to Treaty Nine was signed on July 5, 1929.

My grandmother Marion Anderson, an Order of Ontario recipient, and her best friend, Jemima Morris, were present at the signing of the treaty adhesion in Kitchenuhmaykoosib. Jemima, a living witness to the signing of the adhesion in July 5, 1929; was 12 years old when this took place. Jemima spoke with me while I was living in the city.

She said, “kuhoshehtoon shakeh, daaki.”

I didn’t understand or know why she was telling me this, as I've lived away from the community most of my adult life. I had only participated in traditional land activities until I was in my late teens. She was telling me that I had to create or make my land. I came to understand later that I had to create my environment with everything that was around me. What she was telling me was that I had the authority to be able to do that. That is a very empowering statement coming from an Elder.

I fully began to comprehend and appreciate these instructions after I was placed in a position of leadership. It is with this knowledge in 1999 when I became part of the leadership under the Chief and Council system that I became
responsible for the Lands and Environment portfolio. It is at that time that our community began to look at laws that would help us protect and preserve Kitchenuhmaykoosib lands for future generations.

My grandmother, Marion Anderson was 16 years old when the treaty adhesion was signed in our community. She was exercising leadership qualities at that age, unlike 16 year olds of today. She understood the rights that came from the treaty promises had to be respected; they were sacred.

What made them sacred was the language - using God's creation to symbolize how long the treaty commitments would last. To get Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug support, the Treaty Commission said that these commitments would remain for "as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow, and the grass grows."

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug recognizing the supremacy of God, who created the sun, water, moon and stars in the heavens, the earth and all creatures including man, understood this to mean that these promises would last forever. Marion Anderson heard these words but you do not see this commitment reflected in the treaty document.

The Treaty Commission arrived with the papers already completed, minus the signatures- with the paper written in English only.

Although the document was not translated at the signing, the words at the time were translated and that is what Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug understood to be the content of these documents. That is the basis for the sharing of the land and "all that it possesses."

In signing the adhesion, our forefathers understood that we would live in peace and harmony with the newcomers to this great land. They understood and we understand that we were to share in the wealth extracted throughout the territory under treaty # 9. Our ancestors never understood the signing of the treaty to represent a mass land surrender.

There was also another pressing reason why our forefathers signed the treaty #9 adhesion. They wanted to put a stop to the harassment of our hunters, trappers, and fishermen by the Department of Lands and Forest, as they went about their daily routine of providing for their families from the land. In nineteen hundred and ten (1910) the province was parceling off our land, 19 years before the adhesion was signed in 1929. It is our view that they had no legal right to impose their laws and to even be in our territory before the signing of the 1929 adhesion.

The signing of the treaty adhesion became a mechanism for which we would engage with the newcomers to this land. The treaty land entitlement process became a way to which we could begin to settle the outstanding land that we claim is still owing to Kitchenuhmaykoosib Innininuwg. We filed a land claim in 2000 for the lands that we calculated were still owing, in the amount of more than 200 square miles.

In 2007, the province of Ontario, without the courtesy of written notice beforehand to Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, referenced our claim in court, saying that "it is tenuous at best and without merit."

Over seven years had gone by since the claim had been filed with no response from Ontario. When we challenged their practice of handing out a permit that will impact on our potential land selection, they came out and discounted our land claim. Canada still hasn't decided.

The land claim process was only one mechanism that we reviewed in 2000 that we could utilize to protect and preserve our territory and have a say in how development, if any, were to occur in our territory.

Over the years, we noticed that the Supreme Court of Canada had been making rulings that called for consultation and accommodation if treaty rights were going to impacted through the actions of the Crown. For Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, there was nothing in place at that time which said this is how we want to be consulted so we developed our own Consultation Protocol. This protocol was recognized by Justice Patrick Smith in the first two rulings along with the outstanding treaty land entitlement claim.

Although we utilized current processes like the Land Claims process and the Supreme Court ruling of consultation and accommodation, the Ontario government issued a permit to Platinex Incorporated (based in Aurora, Ontario) to come and install a drilling program in our territory. Platinex claimed that they were told that they had "quiet possession” of the land, so without our knowledge and consent, armed with a provincial permit, they proceeded toward a drilling program in February of 2006.

When Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug found out that there were intruders on the land without our knowledge, a protest was organized, until the drilling crew left and we were served with a ten billion dollar lawsuit plus change by Platinex. They also filed for an injunction to prevent us from interfering with their drilling program.

Justice Smith ruled in our favour by giving us an interim injunction for five months when consultations were to occur.

Since this ruling, free-entry into our territory is no longer free. There are now certain requirements that have to be addressed by the company, including: provisions for burial sites, environmental impacts; impacts to hunting and trapping; participation in decision-making, use of KI supplies and services; employment, and compensation and funding.

In the latest ruling, the court referenced treaties as being "special agreements, made between sovereign states." Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug have always believed that we signed the treaty sovereign to sovereign.

How, then, can a creation of Canada, a successor state, such as a province determine what happens on our land? As far as we are concerned, with the non-fulfillment of our treaty land entitlement, aboriginal title remains until the land claim is settled and the people have given their consent to give up all rights to land.

I would like to introduce you to a concept, a law, that we utilized in asking the drilling company to leave the territory.

In the absence of the Crown respecting its own processes and the Supreme Court ruling, the law of the land, we had to invoke Kitchenuhmaykoosib Ininuwug sacred law of Kanawayandan D'aaki.

As early as I can remember, my late father, Daniel Cutfeet, had used his skills as a hunter, fisherman, and a trapper to provide sustenance for his family just like his father and his father’s father before that. This land has supported generations of Cutfeet right to the present day. A culture built around hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering, and harvesting activities requires intimate knowledge and respect for the very land that ensures your very survival.

Even confined to his wheelchair, my father guided me on where to set nets during certain times of the year by drawing maps. His knowledge of the fish and animal patterns in the lake and on the land came from exercising these skills he learned from his father and his father before him. This knowledge accumulated over generations and Daniel Cutfeet understood and respected how this land sustained countless generations before him. He knew what Kanawayandan D'aaki meant.

Kanawayandan D'aaki! That is what the elders say when they give us the original instructions to look after the land.

Kanawayandan D'aaki means “look after my land”, but most importantly, it means “keep my land”. Kanawayandan D'aaki not only means you have a responsibility to look after the land but that you also have a sacred duty from our Creator "God Almighty" to fulfill this sacred responsibility.

This term represents the passing of the responsibility from generation to generation that occurred to ensure the survival of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug. Our primary responsibilities as keepers of the land revolve around our spiritual mandate to preserve and protect it Kanawayandan D'aaki!

The special, spiritual relationship we have with the land is based on how we interact with the land and the respectful way we view our land that provides for all our needs. It is only natural that we safeguard and preserve our
traditional lands that sustain our culture and our way of life if we are to be true to our core beliefs. We believe that there is no aspect of our lives that is untouched by the land and water, which is why there is a high priority on protecting the relatively unspoiled character of our land base. We also have to ensure that it continues to support our future generations.

Justice Patrick Smith understood what we are talking about when he wrote:

The relationship that aboriginal peoples have with the land cannot be understated. The land is the very essence of their being. It is their very heart and soul. No amount of money can compensate for its loss. Aboriginal identity, spirituality, laws, traditions, culture, and rights are connected to and arise from this relationship to the land.

What he describes and says is Kanawayandan D'aaki!

It is under these teachings and beliefs that Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug acted on in our own defense by asserting our God-given authority to protect our lands in the pursuit of justice, justice that has until Justice Patrick Smith's ruling had been non-existent and remains elusive for Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug.

When the exploration company came onto our land without permission from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, it directly challenged our culture, our spirituality, and the sacred mandate that had been entrusted to us by the Creator to protect the land in which we were placed.

For too long the practice and exercise of this responsibility has been suppressed and demeaned by this government. Land and all that exists within it, including Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug continue to be stripped away. Our right to lands or the exercise of our aboriginal and treaty rights is denied, or ignored, at best.

The actions of the governments deny Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug a basic human right: the right to exist! The right to exist in peace and comfort; and to ensure that survival continues based on our worldview, culture and spiritual connection; and to be safe in our lives on our own lands within our own customs.

Before the signing of the treaty adhesion in 1929 in our community, the Crown was interfering in the lives of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug by harassing our people as they went about their daily lives of providing for our families as we have done since time immemorial.

Much like as it was before 1929, our experience remains the same. We have to continue to be vigilant when it comes to our wellbeing and our survival on the land that was provided for us. That vigilance includes watching the actions of those who made the treaty with us and whose descendents wish to deny historical sacred agreements to which all parties agreed.

The current Supreme Court ruling made the following statements about consulation:

First Peoples do not have a veto over development and the consultation and accommodation;

The process has to be meaningful; and it has to try to achieve the goal of Reconciliation between First Peoples and the Crown.

Our position asks how the process can be meaningful, if consultation and accommodation is only a formality and the project is a foregone conclusion.

The consultation process then becomes meaningless, as the process doesn't allow you to say No to project that can jeopardize your way of life and to your environment.

Our consultation protocol calls for a referendum, and in a referendum, you have the choice to say yes or no as part of the principles of democracy. How, then, if it has been recognized at the Superior Court level can this be denied to Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug?

In the first decision the judge referred to irreparable harm for KI by the fact that we would be losing a valuable piece of property which could potentially form part of our treaty land entitlement settlement. If staking and drilling continue at this point, a third party interest would have been created in the territory.

Under the federal land claims policy, these lands would be off the table and we would have lost a potential valuable piece of land. That is irreparable harm.

How can there be reconciliation if the Crown continues to wage war on our aboriginal and treaty rights on a daily basis?

On Wednesday of this past week, SLAAMB offically launched their new Centre for Aboriginal Apprenticeship Research (CAAR) initiative (http://slaamb.on.ca/caar.html). The initiative is receiving over three million dollars from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada over the next three years to support the development of this program.

CAAR is a three year pilot project utilizing new and innovative tools to promote Aboriginal Apprenticeships in Northern Ontario.

The Sioux Lookout Aboriginal Area Management Board (SLAAMB - http://slaamb.on.ca ) is establishing a new Centre for Aboriginal Apprenticeship Research (CAAR) in Sioux Lookout. CAAR's objective is to plan, implement and document the apprenticeship development services and supports developed for the Centre for Aboriginal Apprenticeship Research project. Goals are:

• Increase the number of Aboriginal people in various trades across Northern Ontario.
• Utilizing various ICT applications to enhance the delivery of service .
• Provide the support services needed for the participants
  Liase with First Nations, Ministry of Training, College and Universities and Employers
• Document all findings

An overview of the steps for getting involved in this new initiative can be found at http://slaamb.on.ca/apply.html

Step 1: Interested in a trade - How to apply

If you are interested in learning a new trade and willing to apprentice, CAAR will be able to assist you. Please visit or call our office to make an appointment.

Step 2: Qualifying - See if you qualify

Various trades have various standards for entry. At your appointment, please bring all your transcripts from school and a resume to see if you qualify.

Step 3: Challenging the exam - Written exam

Once you meet or exceed the mininum requirements, then you then be asked to challenge the exam. Once participants pass the exam, they can proceed to step 4.

Step 4: Placement - Earning time

Upon sucessful passing of the exam, participants can now start earning time towards their "ticket". Depending on the field, from time to time, individuals may require addition testing and/or class study during the apprenticeship.

The following stories demonstrate how different groups and organizations are helping to celebrate National Aboriginal Day ... On this, the longest day of the year, do have a GREAT day and find a way to learn about Aboriginal people and their special relationship to this land ...

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CBC press release ...

CBC is Pleased To Announce The Following Special Programming - Aboriginal Day Programming on CBC - June 21

First Stories - 7:00 p.m., Thursday, June 21 (check local listings)

First Stories is a one-hour special featuring a collection of short films by award-winning Aboriginal filmmakers from across Canada.

The line-up of films includes award winners Patrick Ross, by Ervin Chartrand, and Apples and Indians by Lorne Olson. Both films were winners of Golden Sheaf Awards at the 2006 Yorkton Short Film and Video Festival. The film Patrick Ross also won the "Best Short Film" at ReelWorld Film festival in 2006, and film maker Ervin Chartrand recently presented his film to Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaelle Jean.

The following films make up the one-hour TV special:

From First Stories: Manitoba
- Patrick Ross, by Ervin Chartrand, is a cinematic portrait of a 29-year-old ex-prison inmate and artist. The film follows Patrick as he creates one of his extraordinary paintings while he shares his thoughts on his art, his jail time and his hopes for the future.
- Apples and Indians by Lorne Olson draws its name from something thefilm maker was told as a young boy: that Indians were like apples – red on the outside, white on the inside. The film follows Lorne through the decades in search of his true identity.

From First Stories: Saskatchewan
- The Power of a Horse is the moving account of film maker Cory Generoux dealing with the scars that racism left on his life - both as its recipient and perpetrator. This potent, short film reveals a simple and beautiful lesson that changed his life.
- In ati’wecahsin (It's Getting Easier), film maker Tessa Desnomie celebrates the life and times of her grandmother, Jane Merasty. Born and raised on the trap line, this Woodlands Cree woman has witnessed significant changes throughout her vigorous 80 years.

And from First Stories: Alberta:
- Walking Alone is film maker Gerald Auger's edgy, searing debut about an ex-gang member trying to make peace with his past.
- Two-Spirited, by film maker Sharon Dejarlais is the empowering story of Rodney "Geeyo" Poucette's shattering encounter with prejudice and his journey to overcome it.
- Hooked Up: NDNs online, by film maker Jennifer Dysart is a fresh, inventive look at the net and asks us to consider this question: does the web provide aboriginal people with a sense of community?

Red Road Music - Stories and Songs from Native Canada 8:00 p.m., Thursday, June 21st on CBC Radio 2 98.3FM
- Hosted by Wab Kinew of CBC Radio 2 & Kimberley Dawn of NCI FM and featuring Eagle & Hawk with special guests JC Campbell, Tracy Bone, Don Amero, and Jared Sowan in a songwriter's circle.
- According to Native American tradition, walking the Red Road is a metaphor for living within the Creator's guidance - a life of truth, friendship, respect, spirituality, and humanitarianism. The lives of Aboriginal musicians are often connected to the red road, a life path, which ultimately leads to self-discovery and enlightenment.

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Many Waves, One Sea: Celebrating Canadian Multiculturalism Day in Manitoba. CBC is proud to support this free event at The Forks - Saturday, June 30th. Come experience an amazing day filled with wonderful activities for the whole family! Families will have the exciting opportunity to experience different cultures through music, dance, interactive games, storytelling and crafts. Jump on the "spiritual bus tour" at 9:30 a.m. For more information, log on to: www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/md/ .

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Live By The Drum
Airs Saturdays at 4 p.m.
Debut broadcast June 30/07
on CBC Radio One

This summer, CBC Radio One presents a new music program called Live by the Drum. Every Saturday afternoon, host Wabanakwut Kinew shares stories and music which reveal how different cultures use rhythm to express universal experiences. People around the world use beat-heavy
music to mark life-changing events: war and death, sex and celebration. From the chants of a Siberian shaman, to the funk in Brazil's poorest favelas all the way to foot-stomping Quebecois music, our whole world lives by the drum.

Wabanakwut Kinew is the regional host for CBC Radio 2’s new show Canada Live as well as Shaken Not Stirred on CBC Radio One. As a host, he walks the line between traditional and western culture. When he’s not making radio, Wabanakwut is a busy father and a rap artist who performs solo and manages his group "Dead Indians". He wants to see all the world has to offer, while representing his Anishinaabe heritage to the fullest.

Leona Johnson
Community Partnership Executive
CBC Manitoba
Tel: 204 788 3127
Fax: 204 788 3635
Cell: 204 791 1179

From the North Bay Nugget ...

Teepee helps teach about native culture; Occupations, standoffs could have been avoided, teacher says
MARIA CALABRESE - June 19, 2007

Teachers and students expected a six-metre teepee to crash to the ground "like pick-up sticks" as it was dismantled in moments in their schoolyard.

More educational experiences like this day-long demonstration of traditional native culture might have prevented some of the skirmishes the country has seen over land claims, said Stanley Peltier, a native teacher who visited Tweedsmuir Public School Monday afternoon.

"It's a lack of education on the part of how people feel about native people. If the history books were written in a more favourable light (about) the native people, I think some of the things that are happening right now wouldn't be going on," Peltier said.

Mohawks have occupied a quarry near Deseronto since March, demanding that its operating licence be revoked on land that is currently subject to land claim negotiations.

Since February 2006, protesters have occupied the location of an outstanding land claim at a former housing development in Caledonia. In 1995, a standoff at Ipperwash Provincial Park led to the shooting death of an unarmed protester by Ontario Provincial Police.

And a protest in Oka, Que., resulted when a police officer was killed, sparking a 78-day standoff in 1990 between natives and law enforcement officers.

Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to clear a backlog of more than 800 land claims.

Peltier's visit comes on the eve of National Aboriginal Day to celebrate native culture on the first day of summer, Thursday, while a national native day of action is planned for June 29.

He tailored his talk to the students according to their age, expecting the older ones to ask about the well-publicized protests. "I think some of the things that are happening in this country is some of the promises made in the treaty aren't being honoured," Peltier said in an interview while waiting for the next group of students.

Peltier, from Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island, said land claims can be muddied by government representatives who sold land without notifying the government, or misinterpreting language in treaties by imposing modern standards of measurement.

He was invited to the North Bay elementary school to teach cultural sensitivity through traditional symbols and stories - all under the canvas roof of the surprisingly sturdy teepee that was set up with the help of students, including his son, Vincent Peltier, who is in Grade 6 at Tweedsmuir.

Once in the teepee, the students sat in a circle representing the cycle of the seasons. Under their feet, the grass that they might have taken for granted is filled with medicinal clover, Peltier told them.

He's an Odawa native who speaks Ojibway with an "old" dialect similar to what is commonly heard in the Nipissing area.

The Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board and the Near North District School Board both offer native as a second language programs at elementary and high schools, particularly in areas with higher concentrations of First Nation students.

"It's important for our people to try to revive the language before it's too late," Peltier said.

From the Straight Goods ...

Treaties are just the starting point - Indigenous people work hard to recover their connection with their ancestors and with the land.
by Kate Harries - June 18, 2007

[Editor's Note: Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice says he's going to expedite specific claims, numbering around 800, as they arise from the government's failure to live up to legal obligations entered into by treaty. But specific claims are just the tip of the iceberg. Comprehensive claims arise where aboriginal lands were taken without treaties or other legal processes. And then there are a myriad of other disputes in which aboriginal rights run up against federal or provincial government regulation — such as the one involving the people who once lived on Trout Lake in northwestern Ontario. In the nearby gold-mining town of Red Lake, trapper Kaaren Dannenman and the Ontario government faced off in court recently over a community's attempts to recover lost skills and traditions. ]

In May 2006, the Ministry of Natural Resources office on Red Lake's main street was struck by lightning. Nature scoring a direct hit on the people who manage Ontario's wilderness.

"Maybe Creator was giving them a warning," my friend Kaaren Olsen Dannenmann laughed as we drove past the still vacant MNR building in early June this year. Her trial on charges laid by the ministry had just concluded, with judgment reserved until October, and after three days of handling her own defence, her relief was palpable.

The Ministry has thwarted the Trout Lake community's efforts to find healing and recover lost skills and memories, says aboriginal activist.

Trapper, teacher, activist, Kaaren's a force of nature herself. You might not give her a second look if you met her in the grocery store, a middle-aged Anishinaape woman wearing glasses, long black hair shot with grey cascading down her back. In fact, she says, it's a not uncommon experience for a cashier to look right through her at the check-up counter and prepare to ring in the next customer's purchases. "It's not on purpose," she says. "They apologize when they realize — but they just don't see us." That's how racism works, she says. The other — in this case, the aboriginal — is invisible. "It's as if we aren't there."

But she was a powerful presence in the Red Lake courtroom. She and her husband Phil are charged with building a cabin on public lands without a permit, and ignoring a verbal stop-work order. His case has been deferred. Robert Ponton, a justice of the peace from London, Ontario, heard Kaaren's case and he gave her considerable leeway in presenting the aboriginal perspective on the charges. Like the aboriginal worldview in which all elements of creation are interconnected, and community is a concept that includes people, trees, birds, rocks and visitors, her perspective was all-encompassing.

She quoted Judge Sidney Linden's report of his inquiry into the police shooting of Dudley George, at which the MNR acknowledged that "the historic policies and practices of provincial and federal governments have resulted in ongoing disenfranchisement and displacement of aboriginal people from their land and traditional practices in Canada."

She noted that the Ipperwash report refers to MNR's "high-handed and adversarial stance" in dealing with aboriginal people, using prosecution and other court actions rather than engaging them in determining the extent of their rights.

Evidence put forward by the Crown included a series of photos taken by James Guise, an MNR conservation office. One picture showed a motor boat. "Do you know what the significance of that boat is to us?" asked Kaaren, who cross-examined the MNR witnesses. "No, I don't," Guise replied. Kaaren explained that the boat was given to the Trout Lake people by the family of Dudley George and represents the strong connection the community feels to the inquiry. "I'm just surprised how little you know about the things you are photographing," she told him.

Kaaren also pointed out that none of the photographs submitted to the court — taken by Guise at different times — showed posters on the wall of the cabin advertising upcoming gatherings. At her request, those photos were found and filed as evidence of the communal nature of the cabin. She told Ponton that she built the cabin as a gathering place for the NamekosipiiwAnishinaapek, who once lived along the waterways and forests of Trout Lake, Red Lake and Lac Seul. She recounted the sad history of her people following the 1925 discovery of gold in the Trout Lake area and the construction of two residential schools in Northwestern Ontario. "I don't think it was a coincidence that those two events occurred in the same year," she said.

Born in 1950 to an Anishinaape mother and a Norwegian father who obtained a commercial fishing licence and lived on Trout Lake, Kaaren remembers a community of some 100 people, still pursuing a traditional lifestyle — although the migratory patterns followed by their forebears were constrained by the flooding for a hydro-electric dam of seasonal harvesting places, and their subsistence lifestyle was running up against competition for resources from mining, forestry and tourism interests.

As the residential school children returned to their community, they turned out to have been poorly educated and lacking the skills to survive on the land. They had lost their language and they had been taught to despise who they were. "In the 1960s was when people really started drinking." she testified. "Within a 10-year span we lost a whole generation of kids to Children's Aid."

At some stage, she noted, perhaps in the 1970s, MNR decided that the Trout Lake Anishnaape had lost their right to live in their homeland and build residential shelters for their families. Their descendants number over 1,300, including adoptees who were dispersed across North America, some of whom are coming back.

Local community members, living in Red Lake, Kenora and Winnipeg, started holding regular meetings in 1998, first at the cabin on Olsen Island where Kaaren was born and grew up. There wasn't enough room there, and so construction began of the 24 by 24 foot structure on a beach on the north shore of the lake, where Kaaren has her trapline (an area along the north shore of Trout Lake where she holds a license to trap). This is where community members learn trapping and traditional skills, gatherings are held, and camps are organized for aboriginal and non-aboriginal children to gain an understanding of the ancient ways of living in the forest.

"I made every effort to have the lines of authority that I believed were applicable to us in doing this," she said. She met with MNR district manager Graeme Swanwick and told him what she was planning. She filled out an application for a work permit, amending the document however to read "agreement" rather than "permit."

"I believe there's a role for MNR," she explained, "but I don't believe it's policing us. I believe we're capable of doing that ourselves. The non-aboriginal community needs that type of enforcement in place." She took Stanwick's verbal stop-work order as a request that she chose to ignore, believing that an official order would be in written form.

The efforts of the Trout Lake community to find healing and recover lost skills and memories have been consistently thwarted by the ministry, Kaaren told Ponton. "Re-membering our collective life gives us strength and hope and joy. Why is MNR not working to facilitate that effort instead of putting all kinds of roadblocks in our way?"

She recalled that doing research in the 1980s, she found letters from tourism camp operators in MNR files dating back to the 1960s, requesting that the Indians of Trout Lake not be allowed to build any more cabins because they were "an eyesore" for the guests who were flown in to fish and hunt. Some cabins belonging to her cousins were torched by MNR officials. Another cousin had an attractive log cabin. It was dismantled piece by piece when he was away one summer and rebuilt on the property of a camp operator. When he returned he complained to what was then the department of lands and forests; they refused to help him. "My experience," Kaaren said, "has given me a strong message that MNR would much rather see me and my people homeless and drunk on the streets of Red Lake."

Under cross-examination by crown attorney Brian Wilkie, Kaaren agreed that her hope is for a vibrant permanent community to be re-established on Trout Lake. "If you had your way would you ever come back to Red Lake?" he asked. "No," she said. And the cabin on Anton Beach would be her permanent home base? No, she replied, that's not her vision of her permanent home on Trout Lake, "it's not what it looks like and it's not what it's going to look like."

Wilkie argued that the matter was an open and shut case. Kaaren had admitted to having built the cabin there, with a little help from her friends — whom she refused to name. While the Supreme Court has ruled that a cabin is needed for an aboriginal to exercise the right to hunt and trap, Wilkie pointed out that there were several structures on Kaaren's trapline that would provide the necessary shelter.

He challenged her portrayal of the cabin as a communal facility. On the shores of Anton Beach (the beach was named by Kaaren for her grandson) with a wonderful view of Trout Lake, the cabin is in an idyllic location, he pointed out. A satellite dish had been rigged up to provide reception for a TV and Dannenman built a child's playhouse at the request of her granddaughter. "It's a beautiful personal home," Wilkie said. "It's not some communal hall for 50 or 60 people. It's the sort of cottage all of us would like to have."

In her reply, Kaaren explained that the reason there were several cabins on her trapline was that the layout was designed by her brother — the head trapper on the line until he died in 1998 — to accommodate trapping patterns without snow machines. Each cabin was a day's travel apart.

"We have recently started talking about going back to snowshoes and walking trails to work the trap line, not so much because of the exorbitant price of gasoline, but mainly because we have found that, as soon as we step onto a snow machine, we are disconnected from the land. We have found that the more powerful the machine, the more we are disconnected from the land."

She also answered the question that Wilkie didn't ask about her vision of her permanent home. It provided a stark contrast to his take on her "cottage."

"I want my own personal shelter to emulate the shelters of the past, bent saplings covered with bark, stitched with pine roots," she said "Big enough to have a bed made of moss, balsam branches and moose hair. My shelter is going to have the ground as the floor and a stump for my table. I will have a wood stove small enough that I won't need a chain saw or maul. I will be making the shelter of my dreams when my old age will limit my abilities to work like I am able right now."

Ponton has given himself more than four months to ponder Kaaren's position that the cabin is a step down the road to achieving redress for oppressive and genocidal practices — and decide what weight to give to the evidence she brought forward, which ranged from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (adopted last year by the UN Human Rights Council but not yet bought before the General Assembly for ratification because of opposition from Canada) to the letter her brother Harald wrote to the MNR a few months before his death in a hunting accident, urging that they not clearcut his trapline.

"I find evidence of the lives of my ancestors all over the bush," he wrote. "Trails hundreds of years old, medicine taps on ancient tree stands, birches still standing with the bark peeled off, mounds where camps one stood and flourished.

"When I relate my findings to my mother, she verifies it all and tells me a lot more. In the vast storehouses of the memories of my mother and other elders and sacred teachers is information that is more valuable to us than any other. Every square foot of the land was known and occupied. The foods from balsams, birches, ashes and other hardwoods, from the shrubs and water plants, are plentiful in this forest area.

"My time out here is more than for economic reasons in hunting and trapping and fishing. It is time of constant spiritual renewal, growth and rebirth through not only my daily activities, but in personal rituals and the sacred ceremonies of my people."

His request was not granted. Clearcuts have erased the ancient trails, and now it falls to Kaaren and other Trout Lake people to, in her word, "re-member" the community and the land.

Kate Harries is a journalist specializing in environmental and First Nations issues. She can be reached at the following email address kateharries@gmail.com

Over the last few weeks the First Nations Education Council has been organizing an awareness-building and public relations campaign intended to denounce the underfunding of First Nations education. You can find all the details about our campaign at www.avenir-future.com.

To this end, a number of events have taken place over recent weeks and several others are in the pipeline.

We are currently developing an alliance project with all the First Nations organizations throughout the province of Quebec. We wish to extend our campaign throughout Canada’s Aboriginal organizations and Councils. To this effect, we will send you shortly an information package as well as the alliance project document.

Meanwhile, we invite you to visit our new Web site at www.avenir-future.com , in the web site, you will find a section where you can forward support letters to different political parties as well as to the FNEC.  Please note that the content of the site will be updated on a regular basis.

Should you need any further information on our awareness-building campaign, please do not hesitate to contact me at the FNEC.

Thank you for you support.

Thanissa Lainé
Conseil en Éducation des Premières Nations
First Nations Education Council
95, rue de l'Ours
Wendake (QC)   G0A 4V0
Tel.: 418-842-7672
Fax.: 418-842-9988
www.cepn-fnec.com

The following press release describes the grant that will presented to KO today at 1 pm CDT via video conferencing. The web cast of this event can be watched by visiting http://webcast.knet.ca/events

KORI press release ...

GRAVELLE ANNOUNCES SAFER AND VITAL COMMUNITIES GRANT FOR THUNDER BAY – SUPERIOR NORTH ORGANIZATION

Thunder Bay, June 19, 2007 - Michael Gravelle, MPP for Thunder Bay – Superior North, was pleased to announce today that the McGuinty government under its Safer and Vital Communities Grant program is awarding $19,500 to the Keewaytinook Okimakanak (KO), a tribal council serving First Nations in Northwestern Ontario.

“Working together with police services and community groups, our goal is to help make a real difference in making our Northwestern Ontario communities safer,” said Gravelle. “We need to support activities such as KO in order build safe communities for our children, our youth and our seniors. We will continue to support community organizations in their efforts to prevent crime.”

The Keewaytinook Okimakanak Research Institute (KORI), a department within Keewaytinook Okimakanak, located in Thunder Bay, will adminnister the grant by seeking to facilitate eight online workshops to promote public safety awareness in Nishnawbe-Aski Nation First Nations communities. The workshops will be broadcast via IP videoconference and streaming video.  Each workshop will be archived on the project website. Topics will include: creating job opportunities on-reserve for youth; helping teachers, parents and youth in their response to youth gangs and violence; and developing skills in mentoring and leadership among youth. The workshops will run for one to two hours with a presentation, followed by a question and answer and discussion period. The objective is to engage youth in public safety awareness and have them supported by parents, elders, teachers and community.

Geordi Kakepetum, Executive Director of Keewaytinook Okimakanak, is pleased with the announcement.  “KO is the leader in First Nations connectivity, telecommunications and community-based applications.  We welcome the opportunity to work with the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services  to promote discussion and dialogue among First Nations community members on community safety through the use of IP videoconferencing,” he said. 

Funding was provided as part of the Safer and Vital Communities Grant program that supports the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services goal of working with partners to promote a safer Ontario. The program provides $792,800 province-wide to fund local crime prevention projects in areas such as youth crime, seniors’ safety, and protecting young Ontarians from Internet luring and child pornography. The grant program was made available to not-for-profit organizations and First Nations Band Councils.

Michael Gravelle, the Member of Provincial Parliament for Thunder Bay-Superior North will present Keewaytinook Okimakanak with the cheque on Wednesday, June 19th at 2 pm Eastern Standard Time at 216 Algoma Street south in Thunder Bay.  Media is invited.  RSVP franzseibel@knet.ca

Chiefs of Ontario press release ...

Ontario First Nations Reject Settlement Offer To A Share Of Provincial Gaming Revenues

TORONTO, June 18 - The First Nations in Ontario today rejected a settlement offer from the Province that would have involved the payment to First Nations of a share of provincial gaming revenues in order to settle disputes related to Casino Rama based on the Province collecting a 20% tax on the Casino Rama gross revenues in breach of promises made at the time Casino Rama was established.

The Province's settlement offer involved the payment of 1.6% of provincial gaming revenues to First Nations that could have amounted to $125 million per year for 20 years. This would amount to an average of less than $1 million annually per First Nation. However, it also involved:

• Compromising First Nations jurisdiction and sovereignty for generations to come;
• The First Nations being subject to an array of restrictions covering the use of the funds;
• The First Nations giving up their interest in Casino Rama, which should generate $10 billion in gross revenues over 20 years; and,
• Abandoning a lawsuit against the Province under which the First Nations are claiming over $2 billion in connection with Casino Rama.

The First Nations and the Province had signed a non binding Agreement-in-Principle in March 2006 outlining the proposal. However, the proposal that the Province finally presented to the First Nations contained significant provisions and restrictions that were not referred to in the Agreement-in-Principle.

Angus Toulouse, the Ontario Regional Chief, said "We are all extremely disappointed that the Province's proposal was so one-sided and contained provisions that the First Nations could not accept, particularly when these provisions had not been raised at the Agreement-in-Principle stage. As everyone knows, many of our Nations are in dire need of funding to break the cycle of dependence and poverty that plagues them. This seemed like a promising way in which a portion of the needed funding could be provided. However, the province cannot expect the First Nations to agree to unreasonable terms and conditions attached to the receipt of that funding. While the proposal involved a lot of money, there is more at issue than money."

A formal response will be forwarded to the Province that suggests positive next steps and a willingness to reach a suitable and reasonable agreement.

For further information: Pam Hunter, Policy Advisor, (416) 597-1266 Office, (613) 203-3233 Mobile

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From the National Post ....  (another example of biase headlines)

Ont. Natives fold on proposal to share gaming revenues
CanWest News Service - June 18, 2007

TORONTO -- The First Nations in Ontario on Monday rejected an offer from the province to share provincial gaming revenues.

The province had offered to pay 1.6% of its gaming revenues - an amount estimated to have been worth $125-million per year for 20 years.

But when divided among Ontario's 133 aboriginal communities, that would have resulted in an annual payment of less than $1-million per First Nation, the native group said Monday.

Chiefs, who were expected to ratify the proposal on Monday claimed in a prepared statement the deal would only compromise:"First Nations jurisdiction and sovereignty for generations to come.

"We are all extremely disappointed that the province's proposal was so one-sided and contained provisions that the First Nations could not accept, particularly when these provisions had not been raised at the agreement-in-principle stage, " said Angus Toulouse, the Ontario Regional Chief.

The proposed revenue-sharing deal with provincial lotteries and casinos would have doubled the communities' yearly revenue share by providing a percentage of gross revenues from all provincial gaming operations. Native groups currently receive gaming money from the operations of Casino Rama, in Orillia, Ont.

The deal also called for the First Nations to give up their interest in Casino Rama - a proposal they opposed.

The new agreement would have settled a series of lawsuits against the Ontario government that stem from the funding generated by the Orillia casino. A group of Ontario chiefs have challenged a 1996 decision by the former Conservative government that directed a cut of Casino Rama's profits into provincial coffers.

The Casino Rama operation was originally set up so that all revenues went to First Nations.