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From The Ottawa Citizen

Halt more aboriginal funding until accountability is in place: Group

People can't be helped until it's proven that social programs work, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples charges

Jorge Barrera, January 19, 2008

CRTC Press Release ... 

CRTC Directs Funds in Deferral Accounts to Expand Rural Broadband and Services for Canadians with Disabilities

OTTAWA and GATINEAU, Jan. 17 - The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today approved several initiatives that will benefit Canadians with disabilities and expand broadband services to rural and remote communities. The major local telephone companies were also directed by the Commission to finalize proposals for the dispersal of the funds in their deferral accounts.

From Press Release

Government of Canada Reports Substantial Progress in Improving First Nation Water Quality

In less than two years, Government reduces the number of high-risk First Nation water systems by over half.

Historic government efforts to make it impossible for Aboriginal people to live and prosper in their own communities seems to be working with the migration of people relocating to urban environments to access services and "opportunities".

Examples of the urban strategy for taking care of themselves on the backs of remote and rural communities ...

COO press release ... 

Historic Achievement for Michipicoten First Nation

TORONTO, Jan. 16 - Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse extended congratulations to the Michipicoten First Nation on their historic land claim settlement with Canada and Ontario. Following a successful ratification vote held on January 12, 2008, Chief Joe Buckell and the Michipicoten First Nation Council authorized a resolution calling for the negotiated land claim agreement to be signed by all three governments.

As the Abriginal population grows and the same level of funding (or even less) continues to be made available by governments, this means that the already underfunded First Nations will be receiving less of these resources as the cities and their institutions, organizations and agencies demand more and more financial support and facilities to take care of themselves.

From Globe and Mail

From the Canadian Press

Most of Canada's 61 aboriginal languages continue decades-long slide

INUVIK, N.W.T. - The lively five-year-olds in Sandra Ipana's language class chant through the calendar in Inuvialuktun.

From the Globe and Mail

'To forget and forgive'

JOE FRIESEN - January 15, 2008

ROSEAU RIVER, Manitoba — Shirley Littlejohn lives on the Roseau River First Nation, about 80 kilometres south of Winnipeg.

She was born in 1947 on a reserve that sits in the flood plain between the Red and Roseau Rivers, just east of the highway that runs from Winnipeg to the U.S. border.

AFN Press Release ...

AFN National Chief says Booming Population of First Nations People Requires Urgent Government Action and Immediate New Investments

OTTAWA, Jan. 15 - Today's release of the 2006 Census by Statistics Canada indicates that the population of First Nations people has increased by 29 per cent in the last decade.

From the Globe and Mail

Guess who wasn't coming to dinner - The first ministers meeting left aboriginal leaders on the outside looking in

GINA COSENTINO - January 15, 2008