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The Drumheller Native Brotherhood met May 10 with the Task Force on the Criminal Justice System and its impact on Native people of Alberta. The Fifth Estate was well represented and we got credible media coverage. Our statements about what we considered important received adequate attention and coverage. Now all that remains to be seen is the priority the government will place on what has been gathered by the task force. We are aware we echoed much of what was said across the province. The problems do not change much from place to place, only the players.

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In two recent rulings the Supreme Court of Canada has upheld aboriginal rights under centuries-old treaties, even when they clash with federal and provincial laws.

The rulings will help Canada's 500,000 status Indians in their chronic struggles over land claims, affecting such projects as the James Bay hydroelectric dam in Quebec and logging plans in the Temagami area of Ontario.

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Alberta's Native elders don't want idle promises and false hopes from their people who are forced to bend to Canadian laws. As judicial revelations have unfolded across the nation, their greatest fears have become a reality.

The names of Donald Marshall, Helen Betty Osborne and J.J. Harper all surfaced during the opening day session of the aboriginal policing services conference last week in Edmonton.

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Publicly Blackfoot Indian leaders praise the efforts of the Alberta government to help preserve a part of their heritage lost when Native spirituality was taboo to early North American settlers.

But privately they fear the meaning of their sacred treasures will be lost if they remain hidden behind museum glass.

The unveiling Thursday of the largest Blackfoot collection ever acquired by the Provincial Museum of Alberta in Edmonton has fuelled their fears.

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Plagued with a constitutional crisis, the 47th annual assembly of the Indian Association of Alberta got off to a slow start. Board members met behind closed doors to iron out their legal obligations to proceed despite the president's objections.

After a three-hour delay, assembly co-chairman Eugene Creighton announced the meeting would be held according to the schedule set out by the executive committee and elders during the 45th annual assembly held in Fort Vermillion. But association president Roy Louis maintained the gathering had to be held in July.

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An historic Supreme Court of Canada decision to recognize aboriginal hunting and fishing rights will push traditional lifestyle before commercial gains and will give Indian bands the edge in negotiating future land claims with the federal government, says the nation's top Native leader.

George Erasmus, grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa, said the unprecedented May 30 ruling "is a very significant victory for all first nations that have treaties."

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The 100-year-old rift between Native elders and the RCMP over policing procedures affecting Alberta's aboriginal population was the center of attention during a conference in Edmonton on policing services.

Stirring presentations by Indian and Metis leaders highlighted the opening day of the brainstorming sessions entitled Sharing Common Ground.

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Canada's top Mountie has announced sweeping changes to policing services for the country's Native people which could put special constables on an even footing with regular RCMP officers.

RCMP commissioner Norman Inkster outlined the reforms to Native policing procedures on Wednesday in Edmonton during a keynote address to a conference on aboriginal policing services.

But the reforms - one of which will provide Natives with the training and education needed to become Mounties - are being viewed cautiously by Alberta Native leaders.

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Indian cash is keeping dozens of small towns located near reserves alive.

"If cut off, they would not be there," said Daniel Skarlicki, director of the Center for the Advancement of Native Economics.

"The towns enjoy and depend on reserve spending."

Research shows less than 10 per cent of the millions of dollars spent by Native people for goods and services like gasoline, cars, clothes, groceries, doctors, and lawyers is spent on reserve, he said.

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The environment can't be traded for jobs, warns Goodstoney Chief John Snow.

"Unless we respect Mother Earth, we will destroy ourselves," he told graduate university students heading out to Alberta reserves to work as consultants for the summer.

Despite a desperate need for jobs - the Stoneys have a 90 per cent unemployment rate - Chief Snow sad economic progress can't come at the expense of destroying the environment.

But that poses a problem, he admitted.