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Top News - December - 2003
Published December 8, 2003
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Beatty named to provincial cabinet post
Getting more youth involved in sports goal of program
Chartier makes a return to national Métis politicsThis is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the December 2003 issue of Saskatchewan Sage. If you are not receiving your own copy of Sage, then you have missed out on a lot.
Beatty named to provincial cabinet post
Stephen LaRose, Sage Writer, Regina
Joan Beatty didn't have much time to savour the joy of the ballot box.
Just over two weeks after she became the first Aboriginal woman elected to the Saskatchewan legislature, Beatty became the first Aboriginal woman to serve in the provincial cabinet.
The New Democratic Party MLA for the Cumberland constituency was sworn in as Minister of Culture, Youth and Recreation by Lt.-Gov. Lynda Haverstock at Government House on Nov. 21.
In an interview, Beatty said she wants to see her new department develop policies to encourage and promote the issues of Aboriginal youth.
To do that, she said, education and cultural identity are key.
"I believe the development of Aboriginal youth through the establishment of a strong spiritual and cultural identity is a very important part of the future of this province," Beatty said. She noted that while First Nations and Métis people comprise about 13 per cent of Saskatchewan's population, the birthrate among Aboriginal people is higher than in non-Aboriginal people in the province, and the median age of the Aboriginal population is much lower than the median age of non-Aboriginal people in Saskatchewan.
In short, this means First Nations and Métis people will make up a larger share of Saskatchewan's population in the future, and young Aboriginal people must be educated to be ready to take important roles in the province's economic, political, and social life, she said.
It's an issue that's close to Beatty's heart, and that of her constituents.
"A lot of my priorities, even before I decided to run in the election, were and are in dealing with the issues of Aboriginal youth," she said.
For example, 45 per cent of the residents of her northeastern Saskatchewan riding of Cumberland are under the age of 24.
"I have 33 nieces and nephews," she said. "I have an idea of the issues they and other young people today are facing.
"If Aboriginal young people are to become full citizens of this province, then recognizing Aboriginal culture will have to be a priority."
Her new cabinet position also requires her to oversee the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Saskatchewan Archives Board, the Saskatchewan Communications Network Corporation, the Western Development Museum and the Interprovincial Lotteries.A press release announcing the post-election cabinet shuffle said that one of Beatty's priorities will be to provide leadership in increasing the involvement of youth in government and public policy. It's a daunting task for a rookie MLA, but she says she's ready for the challenge.
"Becoming an MLA is just another level of involvement for me," she said. "It's certainly not that big of a leap.
"The biggest challenge as a cabinet minister is to learn how government works, from the inside. But in my department, I have an incredible team with me."
Beatty, who was a senior customer service manager with SaskTel before the election, has an extensive record of volunteer work. While with the provincial telephone company, Beatty founded the SaskTel Aboriginal Youth Awards of Excellence, now in its fourth year.
She's the past president of the Interprovincial Association of Native Employment, and has also been a member of the Saskatoon District Health Board, the Regina Board of Police Commissioners, the University of Saskatchewan Board of Governors, and the Saskatchewan Forest Science Advisory Board.
Before joining SaskTel six years ago, Beatty was a reporter and producer at CBC Television in Regina and an award-winning filmmaker.
Beatty served as a vice-president of the Saskatchewan NDP organization before winning the Cumberland nomination. She replaces Keith Goulet, who didn't seek re-election. She won the Cumberland constituency for the NDP with 69 per cent of the vote, receiving 3,268 votes.
Getting more youth involved in sports goal of program
Cheryl Petten, Sage Writer, Regina
The provincial and federal governments are pooling their resources, jointly funding a project aimed at getting Saskatchewan's youth more active.
The goal of the new Building Future Champions program is to provide the province's youth with more opportunities to get involved in sports, with a special emphasis on increasing participation rates among Aboriginal youth.
The program targets kindergarten, elementary and high school students, as well as Aboriginal sports leaders through its four components. The first of those components is the Canada Games Day program, which encourages elementary school- aged children to learn and take part in the sports that will be part of the Canada Summer Games when Regina hosts them in August 2005.
The second component is Saskatchewan Sport Match, aimed at youth in grades 7 to 12, and designed to help them find the sport that best matches their particular skills and strengths.
Component three, Aboriginal Excellence, is aimed at Aboriginal athletes, coaches, officials and volunteers, and will help raise their levels of performance. And component four, Aboriginal Games Management Mentoring, is a partnership between the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) and the 2005 Canada Summer Games Host Committee, and is designed to increase Aboriginal involvement in all aspects of the upcoming games.
A total of $1.2 million has been committed to the Building Future Champions program, with $540,000 coming from the federal government, and $670,00 from the province over three years.
"The program comes from the need to provide more sport and physical activities for children and youth with an emphasis on Aboriginal children and youth," explained Art Lord, a sport and recreation consultant with Saskatchewan Culture, Youth and Recreation. "And there's evidence that Aboriginal people aren't accessing the programs that are offered as readily as others at this time. So there's a need to do more programming with an emphasis on that particular target group. Canada Sport, through the Secretary of State for Sport and Physical Activity, indicated that there's monies available to advance the Canadian Sport Policy within all provinces and territories. So they offered what we call bilateral assistance to help us within our province develop sport opportunities. So that's kind of what gave us the impetus to go ahead and develop a special initiative which we've called Building Future Champions."
The Canadian Sport Policy was created in 2002 and endorsed by all federal, provincial and territorial governments. The goal of the policy is to increase participation by all Canadians by 2012, with a special emphasis on improving rates between three groups seen as under-represented-women, visible minorities, and Aboriginal people.
The goal of programs such as Creating Future Champions, Lord explained, is to help eliminate the barriers that prevent some Aboriginal youth from getting involved in sports programs.
"In terms of barriers, I guess there's maybe a lack of leadership, to some degree, within the Aboriginal community. The fact that there's not as many programs offered because there might be a bit of a lack of facilities as well. And then there's geographic and economic barriers. There's a cost to accessing programs, and sometimes the economic barriers is a major one. And in terms of northern Saskatchewan and Aboriginal people living on reserves, there's sometimes a geographic barrier. So those are just, I guess, some of the things that are facing Aboriginal people as such," Lord said.
And the need to increase activity levels among youth is certainly not something that is limited to the Aboriginal community, Lord added, pointing to a declining level of physical activity and physical fitness among all youth across the country.
"What we're finding is that children and youth in general are less active today than they were two decades ago, and that there's a need to get kids more physically active. That's not a barrier as such, but it's definitely a problem that exists. And with all the distractions we have through technologies, television and computers and video games and so on, kids find their recreational time being taken up by less active pursuits," Art Lord said.
While there are, of course, physical benefits of a more active lifestyle for children, as well as adults, getting a child involved in sports has other benefits as well, Lord explained.
"I think there's the physical health benefit, which is obvious. But emotional health can be improved through physical activity, and it's been proven in the past that kids that participate in sport and physical activity have higher self-esteem. It provides kids with a positive interaction with their peers. And it also leads to maybe more family activity and family time. So kind of the emotional health of children and youth can certainly benefit from participation. And also I think then there's an improved learning capacity. The fact that there might be an improvement in academic performance with kids that are physically active," he said.
"I guess the overall benefit is that it's a positive experience. It gets kids doing positive things and keeps them from the negative activities that they could delve into. I think that's another benefit too."
Paul DeVillers, Secretary of State for Physical Activity and Sport, whose department is providing the federal portion of the Building Future Champions program, sees another valuable benefit that will come out of the initiative-creation of positive role models for Aboriginal youth.
"Tthat's part of this program, is the mentoring program. To be able to have trained Aboriginal coaches and officials to work with Aboriginal youth, I think, is very important. So that's another strong component that one gets from participation in sport, is you develop those role models.
"The Aboriginal athletes who perform well are going to be the role models, but also when we mentor the coaches and the officials, etc., then they're there to mentor in turn the Aboriginal youth," he said.
"I think in the Aboriginal community it's very important for Aboriginal youth to see Aboriginal athletes and coaches and officials. Then it's very evident that they too can reach those levels."
One of the goals of the Building Future Champions program is to help Aboriginal athletes, officials and coaches be prepared to take part in the 2004 Canada Summer Games. While the number of Aboriginal participants in mainstream provincial sports is increasing, the numbers still aren't where they could be, Lord explained.
"If you were to take a percentage of Aboriginal participants in the Saskatchewan games program, and those on teams representing Saskatchewan going to Canada games, both summer and winter, it wouldn't correspond with the population proportion. So yes, there is a lack of participation from the Aboriginal community. Although in our provincial games program, the Saskatchewan winter and summer games, we have created the opportunity for northern Saskatchewan to be now considered a zone. And we are starting to get more Aboriginal participants now into those games, simply because of the structural change. And still I don't think it's maybe proportionate, but is better than what it has been. And that's been in place for the 2000 summer games held in Yorkton, and the 2002 winter games held in Humbolt. So we're starting to make some inroads there, but we can certainly go further," he said.
"With the Canada Games program, the intent here is again to I.D. kids for developing in various sports, and to provide incentives for the Aboriginal children that are interested in pursuing higher level sport development to actually do that. And then be invited to camps to try out for Team Saskatchewan, for various sports within Team Saskatchewan. So the intent then is to develop the athletes. And also parallel with that, the development of coaches so that there's a support then to whatever development that we achieve. And that it's not just a one-time thing, that there's some lasting benefit then of this program by having leaders such as coaches in place. And then also components within the Building Future Champions program allows for volunteer development, personnel development, and basically a support system then for the athletes within the Aboriginal sport system."
The Aboriginal Games Management Mentoring component will also contribute by providing a means for Aboriginal coaches to learn from more experienced coaches who have taken their teams to provincial-level competitions, Lord said.
"The intent of the mentoring program is really to associate Aboriginal coaches with trained coaches of a fairly high standing who represent Saskatchewan in terms of games teams. And to allow them to learn from others and then have the confidence and the training to go back and share that knowledge with their sport system and athletes."
The Aboriginal coaches participating in the mentoring program will also be learning more about how the provincial sports system works, and how they can gain access to the resources, programs and services that the system has to offer.
Yvonne Irene Gladue, Sage Writer, Regina
A video presentation on drinking and driving developed by the Yorkton Tribal Council Health and Social Development Program has begun touring the province, with its first stop at the Cowessess Community Education Centre on Nov. 17.
The tour of the new Heart 2 Heart video was timed to coincide with the launch of National Addictions Week. The first tour of the presentation took in four First Nations-Cowessess, Cote, Keeseekoose and Ocean Man-and reached close to 150 students.
Janette Reinson is one of the province's Aboriginal resource officers, who work to help Aboriginal victims of crime and their families. Reinson works out of the Yorkton RCMP detachment. She is also one of the presenters that took part in the Heart 2 Heart tour. Joining Reinson were Mike Pasloski, Elder and Yorkon Tribal Council addictions specialist Wilfred Whitehawk, Aboriginal debriefer Tammy Genaille and youth actors Randelee Ironstand and Steven Delorme.
The presentation includes a personal story from Michael Pasloski who was injured in a motor vehicle accident. Reinson also shares her personal story, which involved a vehicle roll over, and she talks about how accepting a ride with someone who was impaired changed her life.
Other members in the group talk about why they choose not to drink and drive, and about how some have lost family members in motor vehicle accidents involving impaired driving.
Reinson, who is Métis, has worked as the Aboriginal resource officer in central Saskatchewan for the past three years. She hopes the video will be presented throughout the province. "From the evaluation forms we got, all the kids were satisfied. They enjoyed the video and the presentation. Some of the feedback was the students wanted to hear more personal stories. I found that really interesting because I thought if we had too many personal stories that it would've been like preaching to them, but that is what they wanted to hear so that was really good," said Reinson.
She said the video sends a powerful message to those who watch it because of the story it tells.
"It is about a young girl and her boyfriend. In the morning she tells her little brother 'You know I cannot play ball with you this morning but tonight I will play ball with you.' She tells him that she is going out to the beach with her friends. The friends drive up and she hops into the car. When she hops into the car already her boyfriend is drinking. While they are at the party all the kids are drinking and when it comes time to leave the boyfriend is drunk but refuses to give her the keys of the vehicle. So he drives and the next thing you know the car is rolled, and she is thrown out of the car and killed," Reinson said.
"The police come and the ambulance comes and the ambulance driver in the video says she is not going to make it. They take her away in the ambulance on a stretcher in a bag, and they arrest him and he goes through the entire procedure, from blowing into the breathalyzer, being fingerprinted, being read his rights and being put into the cell. Then you can see the officer going into the young girl's home and telling the parents that there was a tragic accident and that their daughter was killed. It was really, really powerful," she said.
Bryna Neville, vice-principal and guidance counsellor at Cowesses Community Education Centre said the presentation was well done.
"Even the camera work was well done. The Elder was great. He talked to them about the changes that need to be done and of ways to educate kids so that they do not make a decision to drink and drive. The students really liked the video. It got to them emotionally. They were very happy with it. The entire video is made up of Aboriginal people but the dramatization in the video is suitable for both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal audience," she said.
Reinson said the video by Real Time New Media Communications is available for purchase at the Yorkton Tribal Council office. To purchase a copy call Vivian Cote at 782-3644. If you would like more information on the video you can also call Janette Reinson at 786-2416.