Trust. Integrity. Reputation.
1999 Windspeaker September Headlines
September - 99
"Tatanka," perhaps better known as Stuart Patrick Jr., was one of the more striking dancers at this year's Kamloopa Powwow held Aug. 20 to 22 at Kamloops, B.C. The dancer is from the Ucluelet Band on Vancouver Island.
Photo Credit: Terry Lusty
Nault replaces Stewart
AFN leader speaks out
Dissent evident at chiefs annual gathering
Strategy will ease pain of family reunification
Laughter soothes his soul
Unity '99 - more than just a conference
What about my human rights? - Guest Column
Out with the old . . .- Editorial
The above is only a partial list of all the stories featured in the September, 1999 issue of Windspeaker.
If you are not receiving your own copy of Windspeaker, then you have missed out on a great deal of news, information and humour.
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
OTTAWAJust days after Jane Stewart told the Assembly of First Nations' Vancouver convention that she was still personally committed to the idea of an independent specific claims tribunal, the former minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was granted what Ottawa insiders say was her expressed wish to move up in the federal cabinet pecking order.
Robert Nault is Stewart's replacement. In the Aug. 3 cabinet shuffle, the 11-year political veteran was appointed minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, his first cabinet posting. Stewart moves on to become minister of Human Resources Development.
The Liberal Party's website biography of Nault says he was first elected to represent the federal riding of Kenora-Rainy River in 1988.
Prior to entering the House of Commons, Nault studied at the University of Alberta and the University of Winnipeg, specializing in recreational administration and political science. He went to work for CP Rail in 1980 as a trainman. In 1986 he was elected chairman of Local 431 of the United Transportation Union, and he also served as the union's vice general chairman of CP Lines West.
During this time, Nault became involved in politics, heading the Kenora District Liberal Association from 1984 to 1986, and serving on the Kenora town council from 1985 to 1988.
Nault has held numerous portfolios since his election to the House of Commons. While in Opposition he served as chairman of the northern Ontario Liberal caucus, Opposition critic for Labour, associate critic for Aboriginal Affairs, and associate critic for Energy, Mines and Resources.
After the 1993 election, Nault was elected chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources, and was named chairman of the government task force on CN commercialization. In September 1995, he was named parliamentary secretary to the minister of Labour. In February 1996, Nault was named parliamentary secretary to the minister of Human Resources Development. He currently serves on the Standing Committee on Health.
Nault resides in Kenora. He and his wife Lana have two children, Samantha and Daniel. His constituency office is in Dryden, Ont.
Windspeaker and the new minister have had several near misses so far, but the new Cabinet member has not been able to find time for an interview. Nault's acting press secretary Bill Shaper attempted to arrange an interview on Aug. 24, but a late-running Cabinet meeting and ministerial travel plans made it impossible. Shaper apologized for the delay and promised the minister would be available in time for the next issue.
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AFN leader speaks outBy Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
VANCOUVERIn what some interpreted as a call for unity and others saw as a demand for absolute power to represent all Indigenous people in Canada, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine lashed out at his critics and dismissed claims by other national Native organizations during a July 21 speech at the Assembly of First Nations assembly in Vancouver.
On the second day of the four-day gathering, Fontaine, according to AFN staff, threw away his speaking notes and spoke for about a half-hour about his first two years on the job.
Noting that he and his fellow chiefs were "entrusted to make difficult decisions in hard circumstances to the good of the many and the detriment of none," Fontaine reminded the chiefs that in making their deliberations they should always think of a small child who will be affected by those decisions.
Chief Phil Fontaine, Assembly of First Nations
Perhaps thinking of the Ty and Connie Jacobs tragedy, which the AFN has followed closely since the impoverished mother and son were shot by RCMP during a confrontation on an Alberta reserve with great oil wealth, Fontaine said First Nations leaders have not done enough to deal with the crippling poverty faced by many Aboriginal children.
"I suggest we have imposed an unjustifiably hard burden on our young people," he explained. "I pledge that the principal agenda of the AFN in the coming year will be to address those conditions of poverty."
The chief called for more unity and less divisiveness at both the federal and local levels. Instead of dwelling on the seemingly insurmountable problems, he said, leaders should take their inspiration from success stories.
"In 1969, there were 80 First Nation students in post-secondary education. In 1999, there are 30,000. That's a tremendous achievement and that success belongs to our people because the turnaround occurred when our people began to take control," he said. "So I stand before you today and say with all my heart and soul, 'We are victims no more.'"
When you blame someone else for your troubles, he said, they have control.
"We are in control," he stated. "We are responsible for and capable of developing our own future." And if you have control, he said, it begs the question, 'What do you do next?' To that rhetorical question, Fontaine noted that while "political debate is the hallmark of democracy," the answer is to let the leaders lead.
"I would like to respond to those who say we're too cozy with the federal government, that we're pawns, that this partnership we have formed shows weakness. I suggest that they are wrong. Partnerships are the way governments do business. What are treaties if not partnerships? We seek the power to influence, not the power to annoy."
Fontaine pointed out that the AFN has grown significantly during his two years at the helm.
"Not only in the number of personnel, but in its influence."
He rapped the mainstream press for selecting only bad news stories to portray First Nations, noting the historic meeting of Canadian-based and United States-based Native leaders that was an integral part of the assembly's agenda rated little coverage in newspapers or newscasts.
He then turned his attention to rival political organizations, suggesting they are divisive and damaging to the cause.
"We have an organization that pretends to represent 800,000 of our people," he said, referring first to the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and then adding a reference to the Native Women's Association of Canada. "Another claims to represent 52 per cent. That leaves the AFN in a deficit position and, of course, that's not true and we have to resolve this."
Fontaine cited a Supreme Court of Canada decision which "named only the AFN as a legitimate government" for First Nations.
"We hold out our hands to all First Nation organizations in Canada," he said. "We say, 'Come and join us.' The selfishness of political aspirations must yield. We need strong, transparent, local, regional and national governments. I ask you chiefs, Elders, young people, women - all First Nation citizens - to come together to put your trust in us, the executive."
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Dissent evident at chiefs annual gathering
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
VANCOUVERIt began mid-morning on the first day of the four-day joint session of the Assembly of First Nations and National Congress of American Indians. Those who ventured outside the convention halls to enjoy the warm weather and the view of Vancouver's scenic waterfront - and there were many - heard the drums.
Those who went in search of the source of the drumming discovered members of the city's urban Native population, whose leaders have long claimed to have been ignored by the First Nation leaders meeting inside. They were attempting to enter the Convention and Exhibition Centre but were greeted by a wall of uniformed security guards. Frustrated by what they felt was another example of the indifference of their elected leaders, the placard-carrying protesters settled into what became a four-day vigil in the courtyard outside the front door of the facility.
National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) President w. Ron Allen.
The scene was reminiscent of the AFN assembly, nearly two years to the day previously in the same venue, where Phil Fontaine unseated Ovide Mercredi to become national chief. Many of the same people were sitting in the same courtyard with the same grievances, two years later. But the feeling of righteous anger that marked the protest in 1997 was missing this year because AFN staff met them half way.
After the protesters were prevented from entering the building, Fontaine personally met with their leaders and arranged to have a member of the Native Youth Movement added to the next day's agenda. The NYM has, in the past two years, occupied the Vancouver office of the British Columbia Treaty Commission and the Westbank First Nation band office in protest of the treaty negotiation process in the province.
NYM spokesman David Dennis took advantage of the opportunity and delivered a fiery speech to the chiefs, which Fontaine commended from the same stage immediately after the speech was completed. Fontaine even went so far as to gently pressure the chiefs to make financial donations to the NYM.
Fontaine later said that all the protesters needed to do to get on the agenda was to go through the proper channels.
"There's really no attempt to deny anyone their participation in their organization," Fontaine said, later. "But we would respect the various procedures and rules that are place now to help guide the organization in its deliberations. Those rules and procedures are not designed to deny anyone. They're in place to ensure that there's a systematic and orderly approach to business."
Viola Thomas, the president of the United Native Nations of British Columbia, (a group which speaks for off-reserve residents in the province), told Windspeaker the urban Native people came to the assembly hoping, but not expecting, based on past experiences, to find a chief who would arrange for them to address the assembly. Her previous attempts to make the chiefs listen to the demands of off-reserve members had not prepared her to even consider applying for a spot on the agenda.
Throughout the four days, Fontaine insisted that the AFN is changing its ways with regard to access and openness. During a speech on the morning of the second day of the gathering, in which AFN media relations person Jean Larose said Fontaine departed from his prepared text, the national chief stated that political debate and dissent were the hallmarks of democracy. During a press conference after that speech, the national chief expanded on that remark.
"We made a commitment two years ago that we would endeavor to create a more inclusive organization. We've taken some very important steps in that regard," he said. "We now have a gender equality secretariat that is primarily responsible for women's issues so that everything we do as an organization will reflect the interests of women. We've now had three major gatherings for young people so that young people can express in their own way how they wish their organization to represent their interests. There are 246 Elders present at this assembly which I think is an outstanding testament to their commitment to the organization. And now with the recent court decision on Corbiere it is now possible for us to extend First Nation governance to wherever our members are residing and I'm referring particularly to First Nations residents in urban centres. So, we've taken some very clear steps to make this organization as inclusive as it can be."
The voice of dissent actually began during the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver gathering, when Penticton Indian Band Chief Stewart Phillip's turn in the long list of speakers arrived. The man who is also president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, a group that has been critical of Fontaine's method of dealing with the government, took a few shots at other members of the head table.
"I'd like to recognize Lady Jane and Sir John," Phillip began, irreverently referring to then-Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart and Indian Affairs Director General for the Pacific Region, John Watson, who were in attendance.
Phillip then went on to take a shot at Fontaine and his policy of working closely with the government.
"This organization has had many strong leaders in the past," he said, pausing for effect. "I miss those days."
He then remarked that the AFN had placed a great deal of trust in the federal government since Fontaine had been elected, "a trust that in my view we have misplaced."
Shortly after Phillip's remarks, Minister Stewart addressed the joint assembly. As she spoke, an unidentified male voice from the audience shouted, "There's no justice in Canada."
There did not appear to be any move to remove the heckler and the minister continued her speech, unruffled.
There were dissenting voices to be heard throughout the assembly. Perhaps nostalgic for the days when dissenters couldn't get past security, AFN staffers kept a watchful and nervous eye on Telqua Mitchell, whose name tag (provided by the AFN to all registered delegates) identified her as an Elder, throughout the four days. Mitchell attended several of the main sessions and workshop sessions. In each case, she challenged the panel members and levelled her criticisms at the Native leadership and the British Columbia treaty process. She was escorted out, under the watchful eye of city police, part way through a workshop on the evening of the convention's third day after angrily attacking a United Nations representative for not acting to help the disenfranchised, urban Native people in Canada.
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Strategy will ease pain of family reunificationBy Joan Black
Windspeaker Staff Writer
TORONTOThe joint management committee of the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy has released a report of a six-month study into the issues of Ontario-born Aboriginal children put in the custody of non-Native care providers outside their communities of origin.
The report, titled Our Way Home, was prepared by Native Child and Family Services in conjunction with the consultants Stevenato and Associates and Janet Budgell. It focuses on the problems of families that had children removed by provincial child welfare authorities during the late 1960s to early 1980s - the phenomenon known to Aboriginal people as the infamous "Sixties Scoop".
The study details the effects of adoption and foster care on children disconnected from their tribe and culture. It also identifies a variety of obstacles that Aboriginal people face in trying to re-establish family ties, and it sets out a four-phase strategy aimed at easing repatriation for those who desire it.
The study was undertaken by the Repatriation Research Working Group of the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy in Toronto. Participants included the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians; Grand Council Treaty No. 3; Nishnawbe Aski Nation; Union of Ontario Indians; independent First Nations' representatives; Federation of Indian Friendship Centres; Ontario Native Women's Association; Ontario Métis Aboriginal Association; Ontario Ministry of Health; Ontario Native Affairs Secretariat, Ontario Women's Directorate and the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The Ministry of the Attorney General was supposed to be on the committee, but was not an active participant, a spokesperson said.
"Through this report we are consulting with our communities and organizations as to how we can effectively assist these people and communities in this emotional healing process," said Garnet Angeconeb, Aboriginal co-chair of the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy's joint management committee.
The Ontario's Children's Aid Society was empowered by the 1965 federal-provincial Indian Welfare Agreement to reach into reserve communities and administer provisions of the Child Welfare Act. Large numbers of Indian children were removed from their homes, often as a result of distorted suppositions of Children's Aid Society workers about what constitutes adequate parental care and supervision in a culture unlike their own. Loss of the children's identities was the result.
"[The children] were not given any exposure to their culture; they have to know it's OK to be who they are," said Donna Simon, health policy analyst at the Ontario Native Women's Association, which was a partner in the study. "Denial of who a child is is a real travesty," she added.
It is not known how many Aboriginal children were claimed by the Sixties Scoop in Ontario or how many of them desire to repatriate. Those seeking repatriation typically want to meet or re-establish relationships with birth families. Some seek repatriation to regain Indian status, to live in their community of origin, or to uncover their families' medical histories, the report says.
The project came about because many Aboriginal people are seeking information from agencies that mostly don't have the will or the resources to offer repatriation services, according to Simon.
Mainly, the investigators wanted to find jurisdictions having a repatriation model that might be transportable to Ontario. Extensive consultation with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal repatriation organizations and child welfare authorities, Elders, "experts" in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, and with adoptees, adult foster children or Crown wards, birth families and adoptive parents took place.
They found three Aboriginal organizations focusing on repatriation based in British Columbia, and one in Manitoba. These are the United Native Nations, the Gitxsan Reconnection Program, the Wet'su wet'en Repatriation Program, and the Manitoba First Nations Repatriation Program. According to the Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Strategy report, there are no others working full-time on repatriation issues in Canada. It also discloses there is a seven-year wait for a search by the Ontario government's Adoption Disclosure Register.
The report recommends establishing a central Aboriginal repatriation office under the umbrella of an existing Aboriginal organization. The office would employ at least two staff: one to address policy, education and awareness issues, the other to fulfill the role of counsellor. The report further proposes access to Canadian adoption databases to conduct searches, access to internet databases, better co-ordination with other agencies and referrals to culturally sensitive professionals when required.
Repatriation services would include training and educating family support workers, and undertaking education and awareness campaigns. Counselling would be available to adult adoptees, foster children, birth families and adoptive families, the report says.
Simon's cousin, 42-year-old Katherine Pelletier, who works at the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa, applauds the aims of the proposed strategy. Pelletier was adopted in infancy by a French family and only found her birth family six years ago. Despite having "a very happy childhood," and "wonderful" adoptive parents, she says her identity crisis began at five years of age when she started kindergarten and physical differences between her and her adoptive family began to emerge into consciousness.
"It was very traumatic for me at that age . . . I was made fun of [by peers at school] . . . I grew up thinking I was ugly.
"If I had been within my own community, that never would have happened, because I would have looked like them - I would have fit in," Pelletier explained.
Discovering her roots became "very consuming - not painful," she said.
She located her birth mother in 1990 after the Secrecy Act was lifted, she says, and her mother provided her the name of her deceased birth father, who had come from Wickwemikong. Through a series of inquiries, Pelletier then found Donna Simon's mother, who is her closest natural relative on her father's side.
"When I found my father's side, lo and behold,I found I was like them. I act like them, I feel like them, I look like them. . . . I realize my spirituality, my heart, it comes from there," Pelletier said.
The search for her identity was confounded to some extent by the Children's Aid Society, who "either were not astute enough, or did not care enough" to provide her with correct information about her lineage.
"They gave me false information," Pelletier asserts. Not only that, but inaccuracies were recorded in her birth records. Pelletier says as Aboriginal people assume more responsibility for their own affairs, problems such as she had will diminish.
By Paul Melting Tallow
Windspeaker Contributor
BLOOD RESERVE, Alta.Everett Soop's body is frail and weak, but his heart and soul are as strong as the Rocky Mountains that watch over him and the land that he loves.
He's lived with the muscular dystrophy that has confined him to a wheelchair for 40 years, with diabetes further ravaging his body.
Despite all the physical adversity he's faced in life, his great spiritual strength has allowed him to look back with few regrets and little bitterness.
Born on the Blood Reserve in southwestern Alberta in 1943, Everett was raised in an area of the reserve known as Bull Horn. His childhood was typical for the children of the Blackfoot-speaking Bloods, or Ahkainah (Many Chiefs), as they call themselves, carefree with no concern for the world outside the reserve. Time was spent playing with his friends, riding horses and getting into mischief.
"For me it was a happy childhood because I didn't know what was going on. Ignorance is bliss, I guess."
His mother got a job as a janitor at St. Paul's, the Indian Affairs-funded residential school administered by Protestant missionaries. It was one of two residential schools on the reserve; the other, St. Mary's, was administered by Catholic priests and nuns.
Everett moved with his mother and his brothers into one half of a duplex built next to the school for teachers. At five years old, Everett was allowed to attend the school two years before the mandatory age, to help the school meet its quota of students.
"Whenever somebody was missing I would replace that number until I was seven, then I went to school full-time."
Although some of his friends claim they didn't speak English when they entered St. Paul's, Everett's recollection differs.
"I don't believe them. I don't believe a lot of people that says that. I know quite well when I was young I spoke both Blackfoot and English fluently. In other words, they were broken English and broken Blackfoot and I still speak that way."
Everett left St. Paul's in 1956 at 12 years old and transferred to a school in Cardston, a town adjacent to the reserve settled by Mormon immigrants in 1887. He soon realized the education he received at St. Paul's was far below the standard that other Canadians took for granted.
He remembers that the only instruction the residential school offered was spelling in the morning and mathematics in the afternoon. In fact, he said he was strapped when he was caught reading.
"So when I went into town, I was asked questions about Robert Frost or Robert W. Service's Cremation of Sam McGee, I'd never heard of such things. Throughout my school I realized what I should have been learning. Here [at St. Paul's] we never did. Most of the time I was like a dog at obedience school. We didn't learn anything."
He blames the poor level of education at the residential school on the fact that good teachers willing to teach in residential schools were hard to find and, when qualified teachers did appear the federal government and the Department of Indian Affairs quickly removed them.
"In them days you could tell which kids went to the Catholic schools. They all spoke English with a French accent because all their teachers were French. [Soop's friend) Layton Goodstriker used to laugh at it. We had a workshop in a nurse's retirement home and there was one nun who could barely get across with her English. He turns around to me and says, 'Now you know why my English is terrible. There's my English teacher.'"
Despite being years behind in his education, Everett's hunger for knowledge gave him the driving force to continue on at the Cardston schools until he eventually graduated from Grade 12 in 1963, unlike many who had followed him into town. He was one of only three Ahkainah students to graduate.
"In Grade 7, there must have been about 40 or 50 of us but they all quit."
Everett remembers the subtle and overt racism from the Mormon students that made it difficult for he and his fellow Ahkainah students to attend school. He said he believed that, in order to deal with the racism and ostracism, the two other Ahkainah students who graduated had to convert to the church.
"When you went to another school, they were white people, but in Cardston they were Mormons."
Undaunted, Everett's determination to succeed was as solid as the stone in the Mormon temple rising across the street from the school and he survived because, "I didn't give a damn. I just wanted to get an education and that was all."
In addition to his tenacity, he had his strong-willed mother, Josephine, to push him and support him through all the adversities. He said she began cracking her whip to drive him to work hard at achieving his goals when he was a child and, now that she's 85 years old, she's still cracking that whip over his head. But he knows the whip was wielded by a gentle, loving hand.
"I don't think any one of us could have made it on our own. She worked at three jobs and worked almost 24 hours a day for awhile there."
To help bring much-needed money into the household, the stalwart student set pins at the local bowling alley and poolhall. Since the Mormon Church forbids the consumption of alcohol, bowling was a popular past-time in Cardston in 1956 and he earned up to $600 a month setting pins for the bowling leagues in southern Alberta, a lot of money in those days. As an added bonus, Everett was allowed to play pool for free and, for awhile, he became "a poolhall bum."
It was during his time at the Cardston schools that he first displayed his talent for cartooning; combining his acerbic wit and artistic talents to satirize his teachers, fellow students and family members.
After his high school graduation, Everett sought to enhance his artistic qualities by enrolling at art schools in Banff and Calgary. At the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, Everett once again encountered racism. An instructor told Everett that he didn't expect too much from him because he was Native and Natives were not known for their success.
"He said we've only had two and they didn't amount to anything.
One of them was Gerald Tailfeathers and the other one was Alex Janvier. Those were really good examples to fail and I wanted to become a failure like them."
Tailfeathers received commissions for his work from the Canadian Pavilion at Expo 67, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and Canada Post. Janvier was advisor at the Expo 67 Indians of Canada Pavilion, a member of the Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporated, represented Canada in a Canadian/Chinese cultural exchange in 1985 and was commissioned to create murals at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Unfortunately, since the provincial government sponsored his education, Soop had to abide by its rules. One rule was he could not miss more than 10 per cent of total class time; Everett missed 14 per cent so he was suspended for a year. Undeterred, he enrolled in the arts program at Brigham Young University in Utah. It was at the university that he discovered journalism could be the perfect medium to express his artistic abilities and his satirical wit.
"In the back of my mind I've always enjoyed editorial cartooning. It never occurred to me 'til I was down there... that [editorial cartooning] was my real interest."
He returned to Calgary to enroll in the journalism program at the Mount Royal College and to be closer to home and family. Unfortunately, social conditions prevalent in Calgary's newsrooms and the rest of the country did not favor Native journalists.
"There was just one other [Native journalism student] but I don't think she really pursued it. I don't think anybody was hiring Native people.
Even long after when I worked for Kainai News, I had an awful time breaking into the mainline."
At the end of his first year of studies in 1968, Everett got a summer job drawing cartoons for the Blood Reserve's Kainai News. The newspaper, one of Canada's first, albeit government-funded, Native newspapers, was just beginning its inaugural year of publication.
"My first day on the job they were having their editorial meeting and they were talking about the dog situation in Cardston. I started coming up with outrageous ideas like maybe the dogs were showing us the way. The Mormons in Cardston and the Bloods will not mix, but if the dogs can mix, maybe we can mix. The sarcasm went right to work and I felt right at home."
He didn't return to Mount Royal and the summer job turned into a career.
Kainai News became his home for the next 13 years.
Everett's political cartoons soon gained him fame and notoriety in Native communities across Canada and the United States. With each issue his cartoons became more and more outrageous and satirical until the editorial staff had to rein him in. Everett denies full responsibility for his stinging observations but, humbly, shares the credit with everyone at the newspaper.
"It became a lot of fun because I wasn't alone. Maybe it looks like I got the credit all the time but everybody had their input, throwing their ideas."
Everett's cartoons became so popular in the community that the paper allowed him to express his views in his own column. He continued to tickle the funny bones of his friends and admirers while ruffling the feathers of his victims.
"A person from New York wrote me a letter just a couple of weeks ago and asked me to send him copies of the cartoons that got me into trouble. So I was going through them and, I never realized, I think I offended somebody every time. That's what I was really working towards, to ruffle feathers."
Scorn and even threats of bodily harm from those that he offended did little to discourage him; instead, he developed a thick skin. Although, his favorite targets were the politicians he considered pompous and who considered themselves infallible, he addressed all social injustices and issues.
"Humor really has nothing to do with being funny. It's about being angry. Seeing all these things that are corrupt, that are destroying us, the injustices."
While most of his opinions were formed by his empathy for the victims of injustice, the underdogs as he calls them, he received encouragement from the more socially aware in the upper strata of reserve society.
The late Senator James Gladstone, Canada's first Aboriginal senator, saw the need for Everett's brand of humor and his criticism of politicians. The senator was there to give Everett emotional support when he felt like quitting.
"He talked to me for awhile and I was all perked up and ready to go again. With that kind of encouragement I got meaner and it got more fun."
With his satirizing of politicians, it was ironic that he ran for and won a seat on the Blood Band council in 1982. He claims government cutbacks that resulted in his losing his position at Kainai News forced him into the political arena. He had ambitions of returning to art school but the nearest ones in California and Indiana were too far away.
His stay in Utah had proven that it was too expensive for him to attend art school in the United States, especially with Canadian currency on the short end of the exchange rate.
"So I thought, 'why not go into council?' That would be equal to a Ph.D. in cartooning. Besides that, I had been calling them jackasses for 15 years. I wanted to know what it's like being a jackass."
During his time in office, Everett continued to champion the underdog and the disadvantaged, in particular, the physically disabled. He was appointed to chair the council's health committee in 1985 and was instrumental in the opening of the reserve's health centre. Although many in his community give him the credit for the health centre, his humility will not allow him to accept it.
"It was started a good 20 years before then. A lot of people worked towards it and it didn't happen until they were long gone."
It helped him to understand that the rewards of hard work don't become immediately apparent, unlike most politicians who he says claim the results of years of hard work by their predecessors as their own accomplishments.
"I think my cartoons did the same thing. There were a lot of things that I bitched about that began getting attention. That's the first thing in change, to get the attention that things need to be changed."
Everett left office in 1986 but he continued to contribute his time and services to various Aboriginal groups dealing with disabled and mental health issues. He hopes that he has helped to improve conditions for the disabled and promote mental health. He had no control over muscular dystrophy but he knows that diabetes was his own fault and he feels that, just by people viewing his condition, he has helped create awareness about the disease.
Everett's disabilities cannot help but play a major role in his life but they have never been barriers to living. He admitted that he did attempt suicide when he was first diagnosed with muscular dystrophy but he realized it was pride that drove him to it, pride that would not allow him to live life in a wheelchair. Fortunately, his love for life would not allow him to end it prematurely.
"I have to live. I don't know why, [maybe] because I don't know what life is all about. To kill yourself is like not completing your task to live. So you just have to suffer and make the best that you can out of it."
These days life is slower for Everett, diabetes and muscular dystrophy have all but consumed his body and put severe limitations on his activity. Most of his time is spent at home with his beloved mother. An accident has her confined to a wheelchair as well but she continues to care for her son. They still live in the duplex, now old and weather-beaten. It's home to too many memories for Everett to consider leaving, although, his mother talks of moving into Cardston.
The residential school next door has long since closed and the building was used at one time as an alcohol treatment centre. It stood abandoned for awhile after the treatment centre moved into a new building, but it found new life when it was renovated into an apartment complex. The school wing that once housed Kainai News was demolished a few years ago.
It's only a memory now, just like the defunct newspaper. One of many memories stored in his heart, many of them pleasant and a few not quite so pleasant.
He knows of the horror stories told by residential school survivors, stories of psychological, physical and sexual abuse and, yes, he was sexually abused as a child, but by his uncle at home. But he believes he's said enough about that.
He doesn't want to contemplate the past. Everett's looking forward to the future and renewed involvement with groups dealing with disabled and mental health issues.
Throughout the years of living with his disabilities, it was Everett's humor that gave him the courage to face life and it now gives him the strength to continue living. He's even able to find humor in the enormous difficulty performing simple functions that his disabilities have caused.
"I find every difficulty and every adversity in my life funny . . . .I think humor has been a gift given to me, not just to share with others, but for myself to survive, to be able to laugh at myself. Other than that, what else is there to do but cry?"
Unity '99 - more than just a conference
By Judy Mayer
Windspeaker Contributor
SEATTLE, Wash.Unity '99 may have officially started on July 7, but for a group of about 40 people, it actually started a few nights earlier.
In Regina. On a bus.
Shannon Avison, the Indian Communication Arts (INCA) program director at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College (SIFC) in Regina, organized the bus trip to Seattle. Thanks to her, students in the INCA Summer Institute program, some journalism instructors and some working journalists were on their way to the largest gathering of journalists ever: Unity '99.
The bus trip originated in Regina, but the people on the trip came from places like Moose Factory, Ont.; Ottawa; Winnipeg; Inuvik, NWT; Montreal Lake and La Ronge, SK; as well as Saskatoon and Regina.
A big part of the trip for this group was just getting to know the other people on the bus.
John Lagimodiere, the president of Aboriginal Consulting Services in Saskatoon, didn't see too many familiar faces when he began the trip.
"I knew one person," he said.
While the traveling time gave people the chance to get to know each other, what remained was the bitter reality of spending about 40 hours on a bus.
"It was freakin' awful," said Danny Eegeesiuk, a summer student in the INCA program. "The best part was making it to Seattle."
The first event of Unity '99 was the opening ceremonies, and it was kicked off with a bang. The bang of a drum, that is.
Music and dances were performed by groups representing the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA); the Asian American Journalists Association (AAHA); the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
The musical numbers had one common theme: the drum was the only instrument played.
Everyone in the audience was given a pair of drumsticks to take part in the celebration too.
"I was in awe," said Lagimodiere. "The percussion was just fantastic and the crowd interaction with the drumsticks too. I felt like I fit in with everyone else there."
Another INCA student on the trip agreed.
"It started out on the right note, using drums to show that we all have something in common," said Janine Blake, who came from Inuvik. "It really got you juiced up for the week."
Speaking to the audience during the opening ceremonies, Unity '99 and AAJA president Catalina Camia re-enforced the point that all four groups share common ground, and she received a rousing round of applause for her message.
"The picture we paint does not discriminate," she said. "It includes a colorful palette of people and voices. We refuse to sit back and wait for someone else to lead the way. Today we stop asking the question, 'Who will tell our story?' because we know we will tell our story."
Telling the story is precisely what the conference was about. The dozens of workshops each day gave journalists in every news medium the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience with others.
"I attended a workshop put on by [Windspeaker publisher] Bert Crowfoot," he adds. "It was helpful because I realized that when he started up (a newspaper) he went through the same trials and tribulations with lots of hard work and sacrifices. I realized there are others in the same boat as me. It increased my fortitude."
Nelson Bird, a videojournalist for CTV in Saskatchewan, also attended the conference with the group and found the knowledge he gained to be very useful.
"I'm relatively new in TV and the workshops I attended were really helpful," he said.
With more than 7,000 journalists attending the conference, it might seem that 40 people would not make much of a mark. That was not true with this group.
"We're kind of famous down there," said Blake.
"People in the job fair would see that we were from Canada and ask 'Are you one of the people from the bus?'"
And, with more than 7,000 people, it may seem that 40 people could easily get separated for the entire conference.
Again, not so with this group.
A smoking area outside the conference building doubled as a meeting spot.
"It was a good place to meet up with others," said Eegeesiuk
"You knew youíd see someone you know there," said Blake.
"That's true. Someone would always show up. Even the non-smokers," added Bird.
"That was home base," said Lagimodiere. "No matter where you were, if you wanted to see what others were doing at the conference, that was the place to go."
It wasn't all work at the conference, however. A NAJA picnic to celebrate their 15th anniversary and a traditional feast were just a couple of events for people to take in.
"That to me was the NAJA aspect of the whole conference," said Bird. "The feast made me realize that we're together and we're out there. I really felt the kinship, maybe that's because I'm Native."
For Avison, the chance to show students the opportunities that await them and to help working journalists perfect their craft is what makes her hard work worthwhile. She feels it's not just about educating the students, however. It also educated the sponsors.
"It gave those organizations the chance to have representatives involved and it helped make them aware of the quality of qualified individuals that are out there for the job. I think (Unity '99) is inspiring for everybody because it's more than what any one of the organizations could do. It's the magnitude of it all," she said.
