Top News - June - 2003 Published June 9, 2003 Alberta First Nations protest Bill C-7 All-weather road to Fox Lake announced Aboriginal languages program offered at University of Alberta This is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the June 2003 issue of Alberta Sweetgrass. If you are not receiving your own copy of Sweetgrass, then you have missed out on a lot. Alberta First Nations protest Bill C-7 Yvonne Irene Gladue, Sweetgrass Writer, Edmonton A bill that would force guidelines to govern their communities upon First Nations is creating an uproar across Canada. On May 7, Aboriginal people from Edmonton, Alexis, Tsuu T'ina, Saddle Lake and Drift Pile braved the cool wind and light drizzle to participate in the First Nations governance act rally, a protest against Bill C-7, Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault's proposed accountability legislation. More than 200 people involved in the peaceful demonstration carried signs and chanted 'Kill the bill' and 'No way to FNGA' as they marched from the Shaw Conference Centre to the McDonald Hotel where Nault was meeting with the Treaty 6 Cree Women's Advisory. A drum group sang a number of honor songs in front of the hotel. "Today the First Nations are gathering and uniting because they oppose the bill," said rally co-chair Darrell Brertton. "We've never, at any time, relinquished our rights. We are born with these rights. We are feeling that we are having all these laws that will govern us and we were not properly advised on the agreement and we feel that they are stepping out of the jurisdiction." Prior to the walk, a pipe ceremony and speeches were held inside the conference centre. A petition protesting the agreement and material describing the details of Bill C-7 were also distributed. Guest speaker Eric Large from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation said the bill is just another way of First Nations people being controlled and a way for government to stop First Nations people from benefiting from a treaty agreement. "The minister is preparing medicine that he intends to give us for all that ails us. Like a doctor he thinks that by prescribing this medicine he is acting on our behalf," he said. Regina Crowchild from Tsuu T'ina said the government has a responsibility to continue to uphold the agreements that were negotiated with Aboriginal people a hundred years ago. "We have to make sure our children get to live on the land that our Creator gave us. Our people agreed to live side by side with the newcomers without interference, but that does not mean that we surrendered our lands. We have to make sure that all our children that are being born in generations to come still have a home. This is what the Canadian government has to understand, that we've accepted the visitors on our land. Now we find that the government is not honoring the treaties with the Indigenous people," she said. As the crowd ended the protest, co-chair Jim Big Plume said that Aboriginal people are planning to continue to oppose the bill. "This is just the beginning for us protesting," he said. Aleta Gaucher from Sucker Creek First Nation said that she felt honored being a part of the group. "I'm doing this walk because I believe in the cause that we should stand together and say no to the government," she said. Minister Nault did not address the crowd and was unavailable for comment. At the time of the protest, the bill was being debated by the members of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. On May 27, the bill was sent back to the House of Commons for second and third reading before going to the Senate for debate. Top

All-weather road to Fox Lake announced Yvonne Irene Gladue, Sweetgrass Writer, Edmonton It will take three-years to complete, but the community of Fox Lake in northern Alberta will be connected to the rest of the province by an all-weather road. The announcement was made by Indian and Northern Affairs (INAC) Minister Robert Nault on May 9 during a visit to Edmonton. The 60-kilometre road will be constructed on top of the winter road structure that currently serves the community. A short ferry ride across the Peace River will complete year-round access to Fox Lake. The road will run over marsh and muskeg and connect Fox Lake, a community of about 2,000 people, to Garden River to the east and John D'or Prairie to the west. Currently, the only way out of Fox Lake in the summer is by air in small planes, or by a barge that carries one vehicle at a time. After the road is complete, it will take about an hour to get to Garden River and 45 minutes to John D'or, where Highway 58 will give community members access to the larger centres of Fort Vermilion and High Level. Aldophus Laboucan, a band council member with Little Red River Cree Nation at John D'or said the road will be good for the community in a lot of ways, particularly in the area of safety. He said that in the fall, air service to the community was often hampered by the fog and shut down for as long as a week at a time. Laboucan also said the community is looking forward to the employment opportunities the project will provide. "We have people in the community who've worked on road building before, such as operating graders and back hoes, etc. We have skilled people here who want to work," he said. "Hopefully construction will begin as soon as possible, said Jim Starko, communications officer with INAC, "but there are certain things that need to be taken care of, such as getting final approvals, that kind of thing. There is a ferry that the Alberta government is currently not using, so they are going to bring it out of storage and it certainly is the intention that construction will begin this year." Although the community has waited for more than two decades to see their dream of all-year access to the rest of the province become a reality, Starko believes that the major push to build the road came after Nault visited the community two years ago. "Nault promised the chief that, somehow, they would get this road done, so it was a very proud day for him too to be able to come to Edmonton and have a news conference and actually announce that the vision would now become a reality," Starko said. Fox Lake is located 556 kilometres, as the crow flies, north of Edmonton. Top Aboriginal languages program offered at University of Alberta Yvonne Irene Gladue, Sweetgrass Writer, Edmonton More than 70 Aboriginal language educators and community language advocates from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories and Alberta are expected to attend the fourth annual Canadian Indigenous Language and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI) summer courses at the University of Alberta from July 28 to Aug.14. The courses are geared towards Aboriginal language educators who want to expand their skills and to extend their professional growth. This annual institute gives them an opportunity to acquire university credits in a number of areas. They will have the opportunity to explore the use of drama as a tool for teaching language, learn how to write in their own language, use their Aboriginal language in conversation and see what web-based resource development for Indigenous languages is all about. The institute began in 2000 and was held in or near a First Nation community for the last three years. This year it was moved to the University of Alberta where the facilities could accommodate the number of students expected, said Dr. Heather Blair, a CILLDI instructor. Donna Paskemin and Blair are co-founders of the institute, which is modeled after a course in Arizona that specialized in retaining Aboriginal languages. Blair said they both spent time with the American Indian Languages Development Institute at the University of Arizona in Tucson. They were also inspired by the work of language retention activists Freda Ahenikew and Verna Kirkness. "Both Freda and Verna are retired and when we heard this, Donna and I kind of went 'Look at all the work that has to be done. Who is going to do it? We need to get some people trained', so we basically said that we needed a combination of the linguistic expertise, the expertise of the languages and we needed the teaching methodology expertise, so we put all of these things together to start with and that is how it kind of all came about," Blair said. "In the past we only had Cree and Dene speakers. This year we have a large contingency from the Northwest Territories and we may have six languages represented, such as South Slavey, Gwichin, Dene Suline, Nakoda, Inuktitut and Cree," she said. Paskemin said that interest is the course has grown since its inception. They had 15 students the first year, 22 students the next, and last year they had 32 students. "We think that it is a very exciting course. The students will be able to extend their growth as educators by learning a number of teachings. The Aboriginal language teachers out there have been at it for a while teaching their Aboriginal languages and they are running out of ideas, so they need new ideas to keep their students interested in the Native languages," said Blair. The institute will work with university students, as well as mature students who have never been to university or ever finished high school. Students are able to accumulate six credits and they can keep coming back year after year to get their other credits. "Our students return on a very regular basis. For last year's students we are finding that half of them are coming back and some of the students have been to all three summer courses," she said. Participants have to apply to the university by June 15. For more information you can call Laura Burnouf at 492-4273 ext. 277 or e-mail the university at daghida@ualberta.ca "The CILLDI program allows you to get a sense of community and closeness from the students. You get help from them and you work closely with the instructors. They are always there. All of us students have the same interest, expertise, and passion for the revitalizing of our languages. We all have the same goal," said part-time student and co-ordinator Burnouf. Barb Laderoute, a PhD student at the University of Alberta who is teaching one of the courses, said it is important for the languages to be retained so that children can pick up the language skills before it is too late and she said that the institute is creating an awareness for Aboriginal people everywhere. This year the institute will offer a Cree Immersion day camp for the children of the students attending. Top