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WWW.ONTARIOARTIST.CA

FRESH NEW WEBSITE FOR ONTARIO ARTISTS!

Many artists in Ontario are unaware of the information and services available to them.

The Ontario government recently created a Web site to provide them with information about a range of programs and services specific to their needs.

The new website - www.ontarioartist.ca - includes links to important information for artists such as:

• sources of funding
• professional development opportunities
• legal assistance
• how to market their work etc.

We’d like you to spread the word to as many artists in Ontario as possible.

As part of our media campaign to make a public call for the nomination of Truth and Reconciliation Commissioners we would like to ask if your organization and the TRC Roundtable organizations could post the following heading and link to our announcement on your website.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission - Nomination of Commissioners

http://www.irsr-rqpi.gc.ca/TRCappointment.html

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.  The Settlement Agreement is the result of negotiations between the Government of Canada, counsel for residential school survivors, church entities, the Assembly of First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations regarding the Indian Residential Schools legacy.  For further information about the Settlement Agreement, please click on

www.residentialschoolsettlement.ca.

The closing date for receiving nominations for commissioners is August 14, 2007. As we would like to give people as much time as possible before August 14 to submit nominations, posting the link at your earliest possible convenience would be greatly appreciated.

We hope that with your support we can reach as many of your constituents as possible with this announcement.

For more information about this posting please contact Kirk Brant at the following address:

brantkirk@irsr-rqpi.gc.ca
Kirk Brant
Communications Officer
Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada
Tel: (613) 995-0921
Fax: (613) 947-5794

Press Release ...

'GRAVE' Risk To Health On James Bay: Action Needed For Fort Albany Crisis

A northern medical team are warning of an urgent threat to human health in the isolated community of Fort Albany on the James Bay coast. The warning was issued by Dr. Robert Gabor of the James Bay Weeneebayko Hospital following a tour of mould-contaminated homes. He is calling for the immediate evacuation of a number of families from the worst of the homes and says the overall health risk to the community from mold and toxins is a grave risk to life.

Dr. Gabor carried out the inspection with Charlie Angus, MPP Gilles Bisson, MPP Andrea Horwath, MPP Michael Prue and representatives of the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council. Fort Albany is the sister community to the trouble-plagued Kashechewan reserve. Conditions they found were appalling.

"We are looking at a health horror story. In some houses we found elders sleeping in homes with rotted floors. In another home we saw a young child who is relying on steroids and ventilators to keep down the swelling and sores that are covering his entire body. These are families living with unbelievable levels of mould, fungus and toxins."

Angus says Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) needs to get involved to help avert a health crisis. INAC needs to learn the lessons of Kashechewan. They have been missing in action on this file. They cant sit back and wait for this latest James Bay crisis to blow over. They need to come to the table and take some responsibility for helping.

And Gilles Bisson says an action plan is needed. We have met with medical authorities as well as the chief and the council. We need an action plan that will immediately send in a team to assess the overall health risk, examine the state of the homes and ensure adequate funding to conduct a serious overhaul of the housing situation in Fort Albany.

Many of the worst houses are in a relatively new subdivision that has been plagued from the beginning by poor design and flooded basements. Bisson says the community needs a well-funded and planned out response. The situation in this subdivision is urgent. We have to get the families to safety. But then we need a commitment to get proper houses built that can be maintained on the muskeg conditions of the James Bay coast.

Fort Albany band council and the Mushkegowuk Tribal Council are working to get a full account of the health crisis affecting the community.

Dressed in Black n Blue, a band with members from Shoal Lake and Sandy Lake First Nations is making their songs available online for download.

MP3 copies of their songs are now ready to download on their MySpace web site. Everyone is invited to check out the music ... and thanks for the support ... peace

Click the link http://myspace.com/dressedinblacknblue

Posted in The Barrie Examiner and the Peterborough Examiner

"Canada's First Nations peoples must be seen as human beings" / "Only our abuse is denied"

BUD WHITEYE - Editorial - July 20, 2007 @ 07:00

In August, Indian residential school victims will become eligible to apply for a "common experience" payout resulting from a class action lawsuit launched about 10 years ago. In the lawsuit, victims are to receive $10,000 for the first year they spent in the away-from-home schools and another $3,000 for each other year spent there.

Last week, the Roman Catholic Church in and around Los Angeles settled a lawsuit worth $660 million as a result of priests molesting church members when they were children. I searched, but I could not find one letter to an editor against that settlement. Indeed, there are letters that say how horrible those actions are by their moral leaders.

On the other hand, I have read letter after letter railing against the settlement with the native Indians in Canada. Letters that say much of what the Canadian residential schools' victims complain about is made up to get money from the government. In fact, I gave a talk early in 2003 where one of the white ladies in attendance said to another that what I said never happened, but that I made up everything I just shared that morning just before we sat down to share in a lunch.

How could she break bread with me, yet hate me so much as to say I could make up such a horror story and try to saddle her with the punitive costs? This lady never raised her hand to ask questions when I mentioned I would take them. All on her own, she made it her duty to put people "straight." How many others like her are out there?

In Los Angeles, the number of victims ended up being around 500. Their settlement would give them about $1,200,000 each; the lawsuit against the Christian Brothers of Newfoundland's Mt Cashel Orphanage settled out-of-court for $11.5 million, giving the 40 victims who filed about $287,000 each.

The First Nations victims have to settle for, on average, $20,000; 14 times less what the Christian Brothers victims are entitled, or any chance at compensation will be lost forever.

So many, many non-natives, including some very close friends of mine, have said no amount of money will take away the hurt caused by the despicable, filthy acts of those in charge at the many residential schools for Indian children across Canada. But we will never be seen as victims of anything until we are first seen as human beings. That day has not yet arrived.

Had we been seen as humans, we would not be in this situation. Today, people are complaining about paying out a mere $20,000 for animalistic acts against humanity, and the First Nations fighting for a semblance of justice as victims of those acts.

The possibility for the two of us (native and non-native) to see things from totally different perspectives - by being raised so differently - is not considered by those making condescending remarks.

Many, if not all, Indian children do not have the generation after generation of parents, grandparents and on back for 150 years of being doctors, lawyers, farmers, labourers or fishermen and such. In fact, until recently, the Indian children legacy was largely kids of kids who attended one residential school or another. The only job trail offered up was part-time farm worker, the rest were muskrat hunting and selling homemade baskets by the roadside.

Shortly after the residential schools closed, the job-hunting Indian youth couldn't even mention his background, hoping that part would be overlooked, but his "tan" gave him/her away. And, one of the great Canadian ironies of all time is that the "Indian" was removed from his home to make him a better person; more educated, more civilized. Yet, who knows anybody who has applied for a job where the mere mention of "residential school" got you that job.

But, to get rid of most of this animosity displayed in letters to editors and op-ed pieces, the First Nations must be seen as humans, not something less or far different.

Bud Whiteye is a member of the Walpole Island First Nation and is a communications consultant for the Heritage Centre at Walpole Island. Comments can be sent to writersgroup@ospreymedia.ca

On Friday evening, Lac Seul community members gathered in the Frenchman's Head community centre for a night of feasting, laughing, dancing and sharing with the board members from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

Garnet Angeconeb, a Lac Seul member and AHF board member, worked with the team from Lac Seul's Biiwaseya Healing Project to invite the healing foundation board to host their meeting in the Lac Seul traditional territory. The Friday evening celebration concluded their three day visit to the area.

The Biiwaasaya Healing Project is an innovative Lac Seul multi-year residential school healing project that has been operating since 2004 with funding support from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

AHF also funded Northern Nishnawbe Education Council for the construction of a memorial garden and gathering space for the survivers and their families at the site of the former Pelican Falls Residential School.

From the Toronto Star ...

Balancing the wheel of life
Christine Graef - Jul 22, 2007
 
In seeking good health, be mindful of the lessons of the moose, experience of native people suggests

OTTAWA – When loss of habitat resulted in a decline in the moose population in the Opasquayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, hunters were unable to provide for their families. They went on welfare and began drinking. The women no longer had the work of preparing meat or hides. Sons no longer had pride in going out with the men. Rates of abuse, crime and diabetes went up.

The government poured money into diabetes prevention programs – toward monitoring symptoms and glucose in the blood. The rates of diabetes and of crime continued to rise.

"But as we watched the moose population go up after a moose management program was instituted in 1975, we saw the diabetes and abuse go down," said Henry Lickers, a Seneca Indian, Turtle Clan, and director of the Department of Environment for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. "There's now about 1,250 moose. Men are out on the land. Sons and daughters have duties. Even the worst hunter in the community can bring home a moose."

Biologists had measured the moose population. Health Canada had measured the diabetes. But no one had thought of the two as interlinking components of the community's health. When the Mohawk department of environment partnered with the University of Ottawa's Institute of Environment and several First Nation communities to take a new look at the problems, the result was a community health indicator study, launched in 2000.

"When we went to the elders, we were told that `we do not need non-natives to study us and tell us we're not healthy. We know that,' " said Lickers. "They asked, 'who among you studies life?' "

Western culture tells people what is wrong with them by measuring descriptors such as disease, suicide and death, but not causes. It brings no hope, Lickers said.

The Circle of Health Indicator on this page is divided vertically. The right half of the wheel represents the spiritual side. The left side represents the corporal/physical world.

The circle is then divided in half horizontally. The upper half represents the intellectual aspect of the community. The lower half represents the visceral aspects.

In the centre is "Health." The segments around the circle are divided into eight opposite life indexes that balance each other: Environment/Morale; Economics/Values; Religion/Spirituality; Politics/Responsibility.

For the Cree Nation, Economy represented the number of moose and Value represented the number of successful hunters. Today, all because the moose are present, the community today has its own school, water treatment plants and a hotel. Energy once spent on bureaucratic issues has shifted toward youth programs.

"When we asked communities what we could measure in their community to indicate health, not one ever said death or illness," said Lickers.

A Davis Inlet community said a well-lit recreational centre was a component for their health. Environment, the amount of bright sunlight, was balanced with Morale, the community gatherings of picnics.

IN THE MIAWPUKEK First Nation in Newfoundland, playing drums equalled spirituality and having drums equalled religion.

"So they counted the number of drums and found there were more than 100, but no one was playing them," said Lickers. "The link between spiritual and religion was broken."

The community began singing and invited others to join them. They were again working together and motivated.

"The indictor has to give hope," said Lickers. "It has to give something that the people can do."

Lickers and George Haas, a research associate at the Institute for Environmental Research, began working on the health indicator study because of the impact of pollution in Akwesasne.

Akwesasne spans the St. Lawrence River where Quebec, Ontario and New York State meet. In 1957 the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed. On its shores, the Reynolds Metals Company emitted thousands of pounds of fluoride that settled on the lands, crops, animals, water and people in surrounding communities. Tons of PCBs were dumped into the river.

In the 1970s, people of Cornwall Island began to study the effects. But in 1985, health studies done with Health Canada and others concluded there was no link between the pollution in the river and the community's declining health.

"But diabetes was found in 75 per cent of adults," said Lickers. "The people had stopped eating fish, a high-protein diet."

As the Mohawk department of environment studied the river, they watched the impact on the people. Because of the warnings about toxic fish, fishermen were laying down their nets and turning toward new income found in border smuggling.

By 1990 there were also five casinos, causing splits in the community as some supported the gaming and others fought against it. In the summer of 1990, an army was sent in to quell a violent outbreak.

The governments were doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get a different result, Lickers said. Haas and Lickers sat down and asked how could they break the insanity.

"In the past, a doctor was the single extender of health into a community," said Lickers. "Then public health came in and doctors worked with doctors. Then there was a need for a team surrounding a doctor, such as nurses and midwives. Why do you believe health is from one doctor? It takes sociologists, psychologists, environmentalists, all the fields working together with communities to have health."

A community knows what is important to it, said Haas.

"Native communities were being told that diet and exercise would fix everything," said Haas. "That's offensive. It fixed nothing."

Haas said that when they asked the community about its health, the people said that pollution, high population density and men working isolated outside of their communities were major stressors.

"We structured a research model that was designed by the community and found exactly what they said – the high pollution, population density and working outside the community were all factors where we found diabetes," said Haas. "The way they look at it is different from the western components of diabetes."

The way many aboriginal people look at the world is as circles within circles.

"In the smallest circle that we can look at as an example is a sub-cell," said Lickers. "Then at an individual. Then a family or group. Then community. Then nation. Then nation within a Confederacy. Then in the spiritual realm around us. So when we say diabetes, we see it as a whole. We don't just treat the individual. We treat the family too, as, for example, encouraging gardening. Family is in community, so we look at that too."

IN THE EVENTS that arose in Akwesasne after the river was polluted, the sub-cellular level was the fish. Then the individuals, the fishermen, took the consequences.

"Then the family lost that income and had to look for another income," said Lickers.

"Then community respect of trade between fishermen and farmers was lost and politics changed. Then the nation approaches the issue.

"The Confederacy is now impacted. Canada and United States call in the police, call in the army and spend billions of dollars since 1990."

The cause of the uprising and the diabetes at Akwesasne was not economics, he said.

The cause was PCBs in the river.

"Between 1990 and the present, Canada has spent about $2.5 billion on policing Akwesasne," said Lickers.

"A fraction of that money could instead have cleaned the river and sustained community health."

Dr. Terry Anderson, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education at Athabasca University, spent some time this past week meeting with Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff at the K-Net office in Sioux Lookout and the KORI office in Thunder Bay.

Dr. Anderson is working with the KO team to complete an evaluation of the Keewaytinook Internet High School (http://kihs.knet.ca). The evaluation team is lead by Brian Walmark, KORI Coordinator. It is supported by KIHS (Darrin Potter, KIHS Principal) and Freda Kenny (KIHS Vice-principal) and K-Net staff (Brian Beaton, K-Net Coordinator and Penny Carpenter, K-Net Business Manager).

For more information about Dr. Terry Anderson, visit his homepage at http://www.athabascau.ca/html/staff/academic/terrya.html

From Timmins Press ...

Company launches Cree language website
Scott Paradis - July 19, 2007

A Cree organization has officially launched a version of its website in its native tongue.

Five Nations Energy Inc. has launched the Cree-language version of its website, which will run alongside its English version. The electricity transmission company is Ontario's only Aboriginally-owned company of its kind and it has had an English website available since 2000.

Making a Cree-language site available was vital for the company to more comfortably serve some of its customer base, a company official said.

"Many of our community members use Cree as their first language," said Mike Metatawabin, president of Five Nations Energy Inc.

"We translate our First Nation Energy Inc. newsletter into Cree and it was important for us to make the website available in Cree, as well. "We are always looking for new ways to get information out and improve communications with the communities and this new website is a result of that ongoing effort."

Metatawabin said the website, both the English and Cree versions, contains all important, up-to-date information regarding the company, its operations, as well as information about the First Nations communities it serves.

Some of those Northern communities include Fort Albany, Attawapiskat and Kashechewan

The project of translating the English web content into Cree was a first for Stephanie Hajer, communications advisor.

"It was a long, ongoing project," she said.

Metatawabin acted as the translator as the Cree-version of the website was assembled.

Because the project had a single translator the content from the English site became "bottle-necked."

But eventually the group was able to work through its challenges to get the site up and running.

There still is, however, a slight difference in the speed at which the two versions of the site are updated, Hajer said.

"Sometimes the translator gets busy," said Hajer.

"We don't want to hold our English (content) back."

Updating the Cree version of the website continues to get easier. Hajer said she has also become more comfortable with the language since she started the project.

Hajer had no prior experience with Cree nor the syllabics that make up the language.

Wasaya Group Inc is sponsoring a Free Concert in Sioux Lookout featuring the music of "SAGATAY".  Everyone is welcome!!!

This free concert featuring First Nations recording artists "SAGATAY" will be held at the Legion Hall  on Wednesday July 25, 2007 from 7:00 - 10:00 pm.

This event will kick off a series of fundraising events to purchase a CT Scanner  Unit for the new Sioux Lookout Menoyawin Health Centre in memory of the late Grace Teskey.  Wasaya kick-started the $2 million CT scanner fund by contributing $505,000 on April 3, 2007.  SLMHC will make a brief presntation on the CT unit during the concert.  The public is invited to attend and show their support.

There will be a free draw for a trip for two donated by Wasaya Airways.

See you there!

(Need additional info? Eric @807-628-7454) or email ekudaka@wasaya.com

www.wasaya.com