Media.Knet.Ca

The Final Study report from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is now available online at http://www.nwmo.ca ... "Choosing a Way Forward: The Future Management of Canada's Used Nuclear Fuel" (451 pages, 11.9 Mb - NWMO Final Study - NWMO_Final_Study_Nov_2005_E.pdf).

Everyone is invited to order their own paper copy that is available free of charge. They still have a space online for leaving comments about their "study".

This organization that is funded by the producers of this deadly by-product of the nuclear industry claims ... "After a comprehensive three year study that engaged specialists, stakeholders and citizens from all walks of life, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has recommended Adaptive Phased Management for the long-term care of used nuclear fuel. The Government of Canada must now decide on an appropriate approach."

Basically, the disposal of this nuclear waste material will be done in a number of stages that include parts of the original options presented to people during NWMO's "information sessions". The end result is still the same where the industry hopes to create nuclear waste sites deep in the Canadian Shield. This plan was what was presented 25 years ago and is still their long term strategy, only now they have spent millions more dollars producing this "report" that is suppose to represent the opinions of Canadians.

On page 105 of the "study" under the heading "Siting" ...

"There was general agreement that a willing community should be sought to host the waste with the caveat that any willing host community must also be proven to be technically appropriate. ... There was some belief that an area could be found that is sufficiently remote to not be in anyone's community. Participants in Aboriginal dialogues suggested, with their traditional territorities in mind, there is no such place. ....

Reports from Aboriginal dialogues underline the high level of concern which many Aboriginal peoples have that their territory and traditional way of life will be impacted by any site that is selected, and that this impact will not be appropriately recognized, factored in to decision-making and addressed."

Another notice of importance on their web site, they are forced to acknowledge ... "On page 81 of the Final Study: Choosing a Way Forward Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) should be included in the list of Aboriginal organizations which argue that the NWMO Aboriginal Dialogues "are not 'consultation' as required by their interpretation of the law." 

From the Timmins Daily Press

School finally coming

Tayo Adesanya - Local News - Monday, November 14, 2005 @ 07:00

After a five-year struggle, students in Attawapiskat will finally get a new elementary school, that will be up to the same standard as the rest of the province.

MP Charlie Angus (NDP — Timmins-James Bay) and MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP — Timmins-James Bay) announced Friday a new elementary school will be built in Attawapiskat.

Bisson said Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has given the Attawapiskat education authority and band council the go-ahead to begin construction.

“You should have heard the kids,” said Chief Mike Carpenter. “I went to the school, I told the students by announcing it on the radio. They were all yelling.

“One of the teachers told me one of the kids had remarked, ‘Gee, now I’ll be able to graduate with a new school.’”

The fight for a new school began five years ago when the old school was closed after thousands gallons of diesel fuel spilled due to errors in construction of a fuel oil pipeline .

Since 2000, the students have been studying in up to 19 portables, said education consultant and former director of the Timmins Board of Education Bill Blake.

“It’s not a good situation at all,” he said.

“I don’t think there was any dispute over the need for the school. The students in Attawapiskat needed a school built to provincial standards, and it looks as if they’ll get that now.”

Bisson and Angus said the federal government had previously promised a new building, but those plans never came to fruition.

“This has been a five-year fight … five years since the families pulled their kids out of the condemned school,” Angus said.

Rabbit and Bear Paws now considered fine art.

"The 18th century, will never be the same"

Visitors to Toronto’s annual Pow Wow held at the Rogers Skydome November 26th and November 27th this year may be surprised to see one of the selected artists in the ANDPVA’s 9th Annual Fine Arts Exhibit. Rabbit and Bear Paws, a colourful comic strip drawn by local First Nations artist Chad Solomon, was picked by the Association for Native Development in the Performing & Visual Arts to be part of this years display.

Rabbit and Bear Paws was selected for representing the theme of the Fine Arts’ Exhibit this year which is “Seeing in a Sacred Manner: The Shapes of All Things”

“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, But anywhere is the center of the world and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as day-light and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy…”

- Black Elk: Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, 1863-1950

Rabbit and Bear Paws is set in 18th Century colonized North America and follows the story of two mischievous Ojibwa brothers as they play pranks and have amazing adventures using a traditional Ojibwa medicine that transforms them into animals for a short time.

New episodes of Rabbit and Bear Paws’ adventures can be found weekly at www.saymag.com. To read character biographies or to view missed installments, visit www.rabbitandbearpaws.com or vote for your favourite character at www.ayn.ca/AYNHome.aspx. Just scroll down the page to join the journey.

"Little Spirit Bear Productions" is a First Nations (Anishinabek, Ojibwa) Multi-Media company that was created in 2005 by Chad Solomon, grandson of a Native Traditional Healer and Justice Activist Art Solomon, to share the humorous adventures of Rabbit and Bear Paws.

Rabbit and Bear Paws is created and drawn with the guidance of Community Elders in collaboration with writer Christopher Myer. The first series of comic strips are based upon the teachings of the Seven Grandfathers (wisdom from the Anishinabek community) and are rapidly gaining enthusiastic fans for their vibrant and entertaining images of Native Traditions and Oral History.

Rabbit and Bear Paws is printed monthly in the community papers of "Anishinabek News" and "Niiji (Friends) Circle".

The Rabbit and Bear Paws graphic novel will be on sale in March 2006, along with a new installment of the comic strip series based on the second of the Seven Grandfathers' teachings.

Visit the The Toronto Pow Wow, the center piece of the Canadian Aboriginal Festival at the Roger's Centre (SkyDome) on Saturday November 26th and Sunday November 27th. As one of the chosen exibitors you can view Chad’s work as part of the ANDPVA’s 9th Annual Fine Art Exhibit,

For more information please contact chadsol@gmail.com

Sioux Lookout timber frame builder, Neville Bodsworth, is in the rainforest of South America working with a team of other members of the Timber Frame Guild (http://tfguild.org) constructing the Central Suriname Nature Reserve Visitor Center. Learn more about this special project and this group of volunteers by visiting http://tfguild.org/suriname/

A daily log of the raising of this building and picture display of the work being completed can be viewed at http://65.108.232.118/suriname/index.htm. The picture display requires Macromedia Shockwave to be viewed.

As well, one of the timber framers is maintaining a blog of his experience as part of this team. This blog contains pictures and stories about the work being undertaken. This story can be seen at http://jungleframe.blogspot.com/

One link from the blog is to the story of the Raleighvallen Rainforest School told by the four young people who live with their parents at the Central Suriname Nature Reserve. These students share their stories about living in the rainforest and being home-schooled can be seen at  http://mysite.verizon.net/vze6xt7v/index.html. This exciting view of their world provides very special and unique insights into the environment and conditions where this new building is being constructed. It also provides a very important model for other students to share their stories about where they live and attend schools.

From Cultural Survival - November 10 issue

Indigenous Peoples Present Demands at Fourth Summit of the Americas

By Darcie Mulholland

The second Indigenous Peoples Summit of the Americas, hosted by the Organización de Naciones y Pueblos Indígenas en Argentina (ONPIA) and the Assembly of First Nations in Canada (AFN), took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina from October 24-29. Indigenous groups met at the summit to draft a Declaration and Action Plan of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

The final declaration calls for improvement of indigenous education, respect of communal intellectual property, and ratification by all American states of the International Labour Organization Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries.

Celeste McKay, International Liaison for the Native Women’s Association of Canada, said in a phone interview that the draft evolved from three different symposiums and the First Indigenous Summit Declaration held in Ottawa, Canada, in 2001. The draft was presented at the Fourth Summit of the Americas by a delegation of indigenous representatives from the Indigenous Summit, reported Indian Country Today.

The Summit of the Americas, the highest political forum in the hemisphere, is attended by the 34 Heads of State and Government in the Americas. The fourth summit, which took place November 4-5 in Mar de Plata, Argentina, was themed "Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance." The summit was combined with an indigenous forum, the first of its kind to take place at the Summit of the Americas, according to acting AFN representative Darrel McLeod.

"In Canada, as in many countries, those hardest hit by poverty are our indigenous peoples, and we must do far more to address the reality of this deeply human challenge," said Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada in his opening speech. "This is why I applaud the results of the second Indigenous Peoples Summit here in Argentina, for they provide a rich menu of approaches to redress the poverty gap and integrate our indigenous peoples into the economic mainstream," he said.

The key negotiating factor at the summit, which was not on the official agenda, was the implementation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The United States, Canada, and Mexico were among the 29 countries supporting the free trade agreement, while Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay wished to put off negotiations until the World Trade Organization (WTO) Summit in December in Hong Kong, IPS News reported. Venezuela openly opposed the FTAA, wanting the initiative abandoned entirely.

The disagreement primarily centered on United States farm subsidies, according to IPS. The indigenous declaration rejected "States’ assumption of the right to dispose of [their] lands, territories and resources," particularly through the implementation of agreements such as North American Free Trade Agreement, Plan Pueblo Panama, Plan Colombia, FTAA, and others.

Not all indigenous peoples feel that the Indigenous Summits are a true representation of indigenous concerns, however.

The first Indigenous Summit in 2001 was met with some hostility, as various indigenous leaders claimed that the "intention of the Canadian government appeared to be to make indigenous delegates endorse globalization agreements such as Free Trade Area of the Americas," Nilo Cayuquoe reported in Indian Country Today.

As a result of the dissention, several organizations including the Mapuche Confederation of Neuquen, the Indigenous Commission of the Argentinean Lawyers Association of Argentina (CJIRA), Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) organized a counter-summit—the Continental Summit—held in Mar de Plata, Argentina, October 30-November 1, three days prior to the president’s summit.

The Continental counter-Summit assembled its own declaration, which discusses the right to self-determination, the need for indigenous representation within international organizations, and the quick adoption of both the United Nation and Organization of American States declarations on the rights of indigenous peoples.

Sources and Further Reading:

[British Broadcasting Corporation] November 10, 2005

[Free New Mexican News] November 10, 2005

[IPS News Agency] November 10, 2005

Brought to you by the Union of Ontario Indians.
Funded in part by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

This is a Niijii (“friends”) Circle event.

GOAL:  To demonstrate the importance of building communications capacity in Aboriginal organizations and communities

AGENDA . . . associated with Anishinabe teachings

Monday November 21, 2005
Faculty Lounge, Lakehead University
Thunder Bay, Ontario

6:00 – 9:00 pm Networking Social
   Welcoming reception and drumming

Tuesday November 22, 2005
Bora Laskin Theatre, Lakehead University
Thunder Bay, Ontario

9:00 am Welcoming/Opening Remarks

• Elder
• Maurice Switzer, Director of Communications – Union of Ontario Indians
• Chief Pete Collins, Fort William First Nation
• Fred Gilbert, President, Lakehead University

9:15 am Overview – Conference moderator

9:30 – 10:30 am RESPECT: Panel “misconceptions and stereotypes” - This panel will discuss misconceptions and stereotypes perpetuated by mass media coverage of Aboriginal peoples and issues.  SUGGESTIONS: Good News and Bad News – Fort William FN sawmill project and Pikangikum suicides.

• Chief Pete Collins, Fort William First Nation

10:30 am  Break

10:45 am – 12:00 HONESTY:  Plenary “best practices”
This session will consist of sharing of best practices in public education about Aboriginal issues; SUGGESTIONS: Niijii Circle Pages in North Bay Nugget

Workshop A: Challenges in covering Aboriginal issues: discussion involving journalists, First Nations leaders

• John Size, The North Bay Nugget, North Bay, ON
• Joyce Hunter, Wawatay News, Sioux Lookout, ON

12:00 – 1:30  LUNCH – Faculty Lounge, Lakehead University
Guest Keynote speaker Grand Council Chief John Beaucage, Anishinabek Nation will …

1:30 – 2:45 pm SHARING:  Plenary session panel: In this session there will be sharing of experiences by Aboriginal communications professionals.

• Ron Desmoulins, CBC Radio, Thunder Bay

1:30 – 2:45 pm  Media Relations Session
Workshop B: Media Relations 101: hands-on session involving First Nations leaders, staff working for Aboriginal organizations.

• M. Switzer, director of communications, Union of Ontario Indians

3:00 – 4:15 pm STRENGTH:  Plenary session panel: Building communications capacity - As party of the self-government process this session will consist of brief presentations on building aboriginal capacities.

• Marlene Brant-Castellano, RCAP research co-chair
• Lakehead/Confederation faculty
• John Beaucage, Grand Council Chief, Anishinabek Nation

4:15 pm  DEBWEWIN CITATIONS
Fourth annual presentation of Turtle Island’s only awards recognizing excellence in Aboriginal-issues journalism

4:30 pm Closing by Elder

Governor General Michaëlle Jean dined with Kashechewan members at Odawa Native Friendship Centre in Ottawa this Wednesday night.

Pizza, salad, and fruit were dished out to many in attendance at the Odawa Native Friendship Centre in Ottawa last night - all donated to support the Kashechewan people evacuated to Ottawa and now in their second week here.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean graced us with her presence as she dined, chatted, and discussed the situation surrounding the evacuees.  She held a newborn baby in her arms while chatting to the young mother and was advised that the birth occurred here in Ottawa.

Extending offers of further discussions on First Nation and Aboriginal community issues, she suggested that she may visit Kashechewan personally in the future.  Until then, an invitation to visit Rideau Hall may be extended by her.

The Odawa Native Friendship Centre has undertaken to provide suppers to Kashechewan residents during the weekdays as a means to offer them a break from their hotels and by offering homecooked meals.  Donations of clothing, food, and meat are still pouring in from surrounding communities, including deer and moose from the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan (Golden Lake).  Local Ottawa-based organizations and individual residents drop off their donations on a daily basis as well.

Many volunteers show up daily to help cook, serve, clean, and look after the young children.  The Odawa Native Friendship Centre is pleased to be able to help out our Northern brothers, sisters, and elders.

Students from Dennis Franklin Cromarty High School’s newspaper club have launched their new webpage. The site can be accessed at http://dfcscoop.piczo.com

Parents, guardians and friends of those attending at DFC are encouraged to come and check out this page that is still currently under construction.

Events and happenings that occur at DFC will be posted to the site.

If you have any questions, comments or would like to share your feedback, the student news department would greatly appreciate hearing from you. You can email the site's moderator at JamesBen@dfc.nnec.on.ca

Keewaytinook Okimakanak is once again sponsoring a First Nations Youth employment project as one component of Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet program. A training workshop is being held in Thunder Bay this week at the Fort William First Nation Learning Centre (site of the Fort William KiHS classroom).

Twenty-eight youth from different First Nations across Ontario are hired to work with their local school and community supporting and developing ICT applications and new opportunities.

The YICT workshop in Thunder Bay is happening this week. Due to weather and other circumstances, several members of this project had to remain in their home communities. They are still able to participate in the workshop because all the training is being conducted online. It is also being archived and video taped to be put together into a series that will be used in future training initiatives.

Angie Fiddler and Tabatha Jourdain are coordinating this workshop. Jesse Fiddler, Cal Kenny and Aaron Hardy are working together to support the youth workers and deliver the training. Angus Miles, the lead instructor in the Cisco Academy ITE 1 course that everyone is taking, was unavailable to attend the session as planned but the rest of the team has been able to complete the planned agenda and successful deliver the workshop objectives.

Day One, Tuesday November 8, of the Youth IT training moved to the KO Research Institute for due to circumstances beyond anyone's control. KORI's offices are located at 135 Syndicate north, Suite 405. The last two days of the workshop  continued, as scheduled, on Wednesday and Thursday, at Fort William First Nation.

Click here to see pictures from Day 1 of the workshop.

Click here to see pictures from Day 2 of the workshop.

Other pictures of Day 1 can be seen by clicking here.