Our daily blog

A collection of opinions and perspectives on the issues impacting you. Postings are from a variety of sources including our staff or other media.

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"Disappointing, ill-informed, patronizing"...

May 16 - Windspeaker Staff

Those are words that Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq used to describe a meeting with Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food. The Rapporteur rightly pointed out what is widely known but kept quiet – that up to 900,000 households and 2.5 million people in Canada, he claims, are too poor to afford adequate diets.

Many of these people are First Nations, Métis and Inuit. We need to discuss this in order to resolve the inequities. Keeping quiet will not affect change. What Minister Aglukkaq must keep in mind is that poverty has a direct impact on health. So long as many communities in Canada suffer the type of poverty that has been widely documented (live under boil water advisroy for years on end; live in homes that should be condemned; live in communities where junk food is cheaper than healthy food) we will never improve their situation.

Manitoba Grand Chief Nepinak has stated that he would trust the UN Rapporteur over Minister Aqlukkaq assessment of the situation speaks to the denial that has penetrated government.

The sad reality is that Minister Aglukkaq should know better, but is towing the line of the Harper Government much to the detriment of many of Canada's poor and hungry.

We must at least thank the UN rapporteur for bringing this issue forward and jump starting this much needed discussion.

Harper ministers blast 'patronizing' UN envoy for 'ridiculous' right-to-food visit

May 16 - Edmonton Journal

The Harper government struck back at a United Nations envoy Wednesday, saying he was "ill-informed" and "patronizing" and had no business "lecturing" Canada about hunger and poverty.

The terse comments, delivered by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, came after Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, told Postmedia News that people shouldn't be so "self-righteous" about how great Canada is, given how many families are unable meet their daily food needs.

"It's not because the country is a wealthy country that there are no problems. In fact, the problems are very significant and, frankly, this sort of self-righteousness about the situation being good in Canada is not corresponding to what I saw on the ground, not at all," said De Schutter, pointing to up to 900,000 households and 2.5 million people in Canada who, he claims, are too poor to afford adequate diets.

www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Harper+cabinet

UN probes Alexis food supply

May 14 - Edmonton Journal

A few kilometres from the shimmering blue waters of Lac Ste. Anne, Chief Cameron Alexis speaks about troubles not far from the surface.

The Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations opened consultations on food security at the Alexis Nakota Sioux Community School by talking about the nearby body of water elders called "God's Lake."

They would drink its water, set nets for its six species of fish, and hunt the waterfowl and moose along its edges. But seepage from the valley surrounding it - filled in recent decades with gas and agriculture, not far from enormous power plants - has changed that.

"As First Nations people, our lives have been altered because of industry," Alexis said. "The lake is contaminated, although it looks beautiful, so much so that the fish and wildlife officers have told our elders that we can only eat one fish a week from the lake."

Alexis's comments on Sunday morning - about a growing economy, changing relationships with the land, and an epidemic of diabetes - opened a meeting between local aboriginal communities and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

www.edmontonjournal.com/business/probes+Alexis

Aboriginal prayers likely to stay at mine project hearings

May 3 - QMI AGENCY

Taseko Mines likely doesn't have a prayer of getting Aboriginal religious ceremonies banned from a secular review of its New Prosperity copper and gold mine proposal in central B.C.

The company has written to the federal environment minister to ask that the review panel examining its re-worked mine project near Williams Lake not allow hearings to start with aboriginal prayers.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver gave the idea a chilly response.

"I don't want to comment on the specifics of a particular hearing, but as a general principle, I think we owe the aboriginal community that respect," said Oliver in Toronto on Friday.

He also confirmed that all projects will be subject to the streamlined reviews introduced in the March budget, once they become law.

www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives

First Nations - the last bastions of sober second thought?

May 1 - Windspeaker Staff

First Nations throughout Canada, and BC in particular, are speaking up and voicing their concerns regarding development of natural resources in or around their territories. First Nations are tied to their land and concerns about the impact of development on those lands have seen them labelled as anti-progress, as dysfunctional, as troublemakers and as potential domestic terrorists.

Mine development, pipelines, oil and gas exploration, expanded ports, increased tanker traffic and the potential impact on the environment are being scrutinized, discussed and debated.

The Harper government, in order to speed up the approval process (making it seem as if none of these projects can ever be rejected) is now taking steps to limit the length of debate as well as limit who can participate in the debate. Say what?

We then hear of a mining company that wishes to curb the use of Aboriginal spirituality in presentations to an environmental review panel. Taseko Mines Ltd. seeks to receive approval for its mine application after its earlier application was rejected based on the negative impact to the environment. It would seem, therefore, that Aboriginal spirituality must have played a role in the mine application being rejected the first time.

Contrary to what corporations and the Harper government may have you believe, Canada's vast resource wealth is not evaporating. It is not a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. These resources will remain valuable - perhaps even grow in value -  whether they are developed next year, in five years or next century.

First Nations are stepping up and making government and corporations more accountable and insisting that these projects be more closely evaluated not just for their economic merits but their potential environmental impact.

First Nations should be supported and thanked as the bastions of sober second thought.

Ottawa socking it to First Nations institutions

April 30 - The StarPhoenix - Doug Cuthand

As a disc jockey from the 1960s would put it, the hits just keep on coming.

For the past several weeks we have witnessed a succession of announcements that cut or eliminated funding from aboriginal organizations. Rather than announce it all at once, which no doubt would get the attention of the media, the federal government is releasing the bad news in dribbles.

When Pierre Trudeau came to power in the 1960s, he introduced the concept of participatory democracy. The idea was that all groups within society should have a voice, and the resources needed to get their voices heard. They shouldn't fall victim to the tyranny of the majority.

For the past 40-plus years this concept has been a part of the fabric of Canadian democracy. Non-governmental organizations received operating grants, and were also able to access program areas, research funds and other funding sources. National and regional organizations grew over the years and established institutions such as the First Nations University of Canada, the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies, and so on.

www.thestarphoenix.com/touch/news/story.html?id=6527476

Aboriginal reconciliation: An open letter to Stephen Harper

April 30 - Globe and Mail - Richard Wagamese

Dear Prime Minister:

When I heard your words in the House of Commons that were deemed an apology for the debacle of Canada’s residential school system, I was heartened. At that time, it was nothing short of amazing to hear a prime minister use the word “wrong” in reference to Canada’s treatment of aboriginal people. Now, nearly four years later, I look at the astoundingly hurtful cuts to organizations whose sole purposes are the re-empowerment and well-being of aboriginal people, and I am disheartened. Hell, Mr. Harper, I am downright angry.

You said “sorry” and you were not. In aboriginal context, an apology means that you recognize the flaw within yourself that made the offence possible and you offer reconciliation based on understanding the nature of that flaw. That reconciliation takes the form of living and behaving in the opposite manner. You have not done this. In fact, you have continued in the same vein that made the original apology necessary.

www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/aboriginal-reconciliation-an-open-letter-to-stephen-harper