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Top News - April - 2001
Elaine Bomberry (left) congratulates singer Susan Aglukark on her Juno nominations for the CD, Unsung Heroes, and presents her with an "Honouring Our Own" statuette at the 8th Annual Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Juno Awards 2001 celebration in Toronto on March 3. For more information on the awards see story.Photo Credit: Abby Cote
Atlantic chiefs united against DFO
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Time to speak up, chief - EditorialAboriginal Juno nominees honored
Achievement honored at star-studded gala
Atlantic chiefs united against DFO
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
MONCTON, N.B.Things are at a standstill in the Atlantic First Nations fishery talks. The chiefs say it's because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans isn't respecting East Coast treaties.
Last year's one-year fishing agreements are set to expire on March 31. As of March 20, Millbrook First Nation Chief Lawrence Paul says the ball is in the government's court and it's going to take a very significant change in position on the government's part before any Atlantic First Nation will sign up again. That's despite a commitment from Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Minister Herb Dhaliwal to spend up to $500 million over the next three years to help First Nations build their capacity to participate in commercial fisheries in the region.
The sticking point appears to be an unwillingness on DFO's part to recognize that First Nations have a treaty right - and a constitutionally-guaranteed right-to fish. First Nation leaders are willing to co-manage their fisheries, but since they have a right to fish, they wonder why the government insists on regulating their participation.
Observers see it as very significant that the chief of Millbrook, the first community to sign a fishing agreement with DFO last year, is so outspoken in his insistence that his people have a right to fish and don't need DFO's permission.
"What they want to do, they want to implement a treaty right by way of a fishery agreement and we said no," explained Paul, a co-chair of the Atlantic Policy Conference (APC) of First Nations Chiefs. "The only way that we'll implement the treaty right is to sit down, by way of negotiations and not by way of a fishery agreement."
Bruce Wildsmith is the Dalhousie University professor of constitutional law who acted for Donald Marshall, Jr. in the now famous Supreme Court of Canada case that resulted in a decision recognizing the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy peoples' treaty right to fish in the region. He framed a 10-page, contract-like template for the Millbrook band that the other Atlantic First Nations have adopted as their own. The document contains several clauses that state the Indigenous peoples of the region have a right to fish and don't need to sign any agreement with the federal government in order to lawfully access the fisheries. Chief Paul said DFO officials won't accept that idea.
"When we went to Ottawa, the deputy minister up there, this is what he said. He said, 'We're talking about an accelerated process to implement a treaty right.' I said there's no way that any First Nation on the Atlantic is going to sign any agreement to implement any treaty right by way of a fishery agreement. He said, 'We'll word the agreements in such a way that it will be acceptable to the First Nations.' But on the other hand, it will still be an implementation of a treaty right.
"So I told him, 'We've got a lot of Native people named Joe, but we haven't got many named Slow. So, by reason of your comment, now we'll have to go over that template, that the federal negotiator brings down, with a legal microscope and we'll look at it very carefully.' Which we did with our lawyers and they put together another template that protects our treaty rights," Paul explained.
"This is what we sent to them and told them this is what we would sign. We sent a copy of our template to all the First Nations in the Atlantic and they're all standing together in solidarity and unity now and the federal government doesn't know what to do."
Minister Dhaliwal has repeatedly stated he has the authority to regulate the fishery and demonstrated last year at Burnt Church and Indian Brook that he will use force to make First Nations submit their treaty right to his regulation. As things stand now, the agreements will soon run out and there could be 34 Burnt Church's during this year's fishing season.
"Well, I couldn't prophesize on that but we got our lawyers to put together a fishery agreement, a template, that protects our treaty rights. We gave that to the federal negotiator and he took it back to Ottawa and it was scrutinized by the Department of Justice," Paul said.
The sections that insisted that Ottawa recognize that Mi'kmaq and Maliseet fishermen didn't need the federal government's permission to fish didn't go over well in Ottawa. The Atlantic chiefs' template wasn't accepted.
"All they did was make a couple of little changes to a couple of paragraphs. That wasn't suitable to us so we said they'd have to go back and work on it some more," Paul said. "We don't know why they couldn't sign the template we presented to them because it protects our treaty rights. But they didn't want to do that."
APC communications officer J.J. Bear said the chiefs in Atlantic Canada won't be pushed into a British Columbia-type treaty process because they already have a treaty.
"What the chiefs are saying is, the federal government has to recognize the treaties we already have, and to implement those treaties, before we can have any discussions around any sort of treaty process," he said. "It's not the chiefs. It's the government trying to sort of implement a B.C. treaty process on the East Coast. Right now, they're not getting anywhere with it and, actually, in a meeting with the chiefs back in, I think it was January, the minister said, 'Either you go with the treaty process or we're not going to discuss treaties.' It was sort of like a threat."
Until the minister recognizes that he's dealing with people whose right to fish does not come from DFO, the chiefs say, there will be no agreements.
"The chiefs are willing to sign agreements but (the government) has to negotiate in good faith, not just bring us an agreement and say sign it, sign it and we'll give you millions of dollars," Bear said.
The communications officer admitted that the minister had been pressuring the chiefs and the possibility they would be facing the kind of force employed against Burnt Church last year is on people's minds. But, he said, any violence won't be caused by his people.
"I don't think there's going to be chaos in the water. The only one's that are going to be creating it would be DFO, not us," he said. "Like before, like what happened at Burnt Church and Indian Brook. It wasn't the public that was creating chaos, it was DFO. DFO was the one that was out there enforcing and running over boats."
Aboriginal Juno nominees honoredBy Abby Cote
Windspeaker Contributor
TORONTO, Ont.Juno nominees in the Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording category were honored at a pre-awards show gathering on March 3 at Duke Redbird's the Coloured Stone in Toronto, a favorite nightspot for Aboriginal artists and actors.
The Honouring Our Own-8th Annual Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Juno Awards 2001 celebration paid tribute to Juno nominees Susan Aglukark for Unsung Heroes (EMI), C-Weed for Run As One (cweedband.com), Mishi Donovan for Journey Home (Arbor/Festival), John Gracie for Figure Love Out (Tidemark), and Florent Vollant for Nipaiamianan (Avanti Stella/Mucicor).
Only three of the five nominees were able to attend this fun-filled, pre-Juno event. Florent Vollant was represented by manager Ann Brascoupe, and Mishi Donovan was a no-show for both this event and the Juno Awards celebration the next evening in Hamilton, Ont.
Honouring Our Own was opened with a traditional prayer and song and concluded with a give-away. Veteran Canadian actor and honorary Best Music of Aboriginal Canada (BMAC) committee member, Don Francks, was master of ceremonies.
Nominees were presented with glass and silver awards in recognition of their Juno nominations. Winner of the first Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording Juno Award, Lawrence Martin (Wapistan), joined former Assembly of First Nations national chief Ovide Mercredi in the presentation ceremony. Also participating was past chair of the BMAC committee, Elaine Bomberry, who has devoted more than 15 years to bringing Aboriginal music, theatre, arts and entertainment to the forefront.
This was a free event and invitations were sent out to the local Toronto Aboriginal community, as well as to all Aboriginal press across Canada. Many people got the chance to come out and schmooze, as the saying goes, with the stars on the Aboriginal music, arts and entertainment scene.
John Gracie, who recently won the East Coast Music Awards Best Male Artist award for the third year running, was thrilled to have been invited to the gathering and to be given his award. The nomination of Gracie is precedent-setting in that he is the only non-Aboriginal to ever have been nominated in the Aboriginal category. He was nominated because his song "Figure Love Out" was written especially for the traditional Mi'kmaq drum group, Sons of Membertou, who performed the song on the CD.
"I am so honored to be here. I thought I was just coming to meet some people. I didn't know I would be given this wonderful award. I am so happy I could take my award and go home tonight. I don't need to go to the Junos now," he said.
The celebration was organized by the Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Committee (BMAC) for the Juno awards and sponsored by APTN in association with ANDPVA, the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts.
Achievement honored at star-studded gala
By Debora Lockyer Steel
Windspeaker Staff Writer
EDMONTONA frontier town met the final frontier when Edmonton played host to the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards on March 16.
This year's 14 award recipients were the stars set among a galaxy of planets, represented on stage by dangling globes of color and sharing space with the brown hand of the Creator reaching down from the heavens to clasp a world in his fingers.
Staircases wound their way up to the outer reaches where Saturn's colorful rings provided a backdrop for a horse and rider in a full bonnet of feathers and with a spear held high, chasing down a buffalo.
While not the most elaborate or innovative set design in the eight-year history of the awards show, it served the stated purpose, which was to represent the mystery and glory of the universe and its complexities.
John Kim Bell, the founder and chairman of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, the organization that puts on the awards night, said the set represented both inner and outer space, with the stairs forming double helixes, the determiner of all life on earth. The microscopic organisms found inside our bodies, explained Bell, have no concept of the whole of the hosts they occupy, and mankind has no concept of the whole of the universe that we occupy or the nature of the plan the Creator has for us all.
The plan for the evening, though, was well known to the members of the packed Jubilee Auditorium. It was to be introduced to and honor 14 exemplary individuals who occupy places of importance in our universe, who have made our planet a better place in which to live, and who have been shown to be luminaries in the Aboriginal community.
The lives of Mariano Aupilardjuk, Dolly Watts, Freda Ahenakew, Roman Bittman, Mary Thomas, Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe, Richard Nerysoo, Leonard S. Marchand, Fred House, Zacharias Kunuk, Nicholas Sibbeston, Tomson Highway, Lance Relland and Harold Cardinal provide us with inspiration and the knowledge that a better day for Aboriginal people is upon us. Short video productions described each winner's achievements and the contributions made to society.
Brought together to help pay tribute to their stories was a group of exceptional performers, including a proudly pregnant Fara, whose voice becomes richer and warmer with each passing year.
Always astounding is mezzo-soprano Marion Newman, who was joined by Carey Newman and Melody Mercredi in singing "The Prayer" in a stunning finale complete with laser light show.
But it was young Krystle Pederson who stole the evening with a cute shtick. She sang "At the Beginning" from Disney's Anastasia to the bedazzled Lance Relland, the youth award recipient. Pulling Relland from the audience and up onto the stage, she tugged him close and coyly wrapped his arms around her waist and, in the bargain, the audience around her delicate little finger. Her fresh, innocent face and powerful performance will be a favorite memory of this year's awards show.
A pre-show show included a performance from Moving Spirit, a drum and dance group that performed a rather long intertribal, though expertly. The Edmonton Métis Cultural Dancers were also on hand and got the house doing a jig in their seats. It is unsure whether these performances will reach the larger audience when the show is broadcast on CBC.
The spirited Lorrie Church primed the audience with an energetic rendition of I Ain't Perfect, an odd choice considering the evening's intentions.
"Well, I ain't perfect, baby, but neither are you," sang Church as perhaps a warning to anyone who might take aim at Bell, who routinely draws fire from critics for the choices he makes in the production of the awards gala.
And this year's show was not without its problems.
From the "I was held captive on the Starship Enterprise and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" file . . .
Yes, by all means, we have to thank the sponsors, but the bludgeoning the audience suffered through in the unending barrage of commercial spots and speeches from individuals, including the premier of Alberta, for goodness sakes, paying homage to the almighty buck, left us exhausted and wasted.
Giving thanks is a delicate business. Showing appreciation takes skill and grace, as does accepting the thanks and the appreciation of others. What took place March 16 wasn't skillful or graceful and ultimately paid a disservice to the organizations that chose to honor Aboriginal achievement.
One must have faith. Either the premise of the awards night is a good and worthy one, or it isn't. Either the companies that support the show believe in its worth or they don't. If what is required to continue the tradition of honoring good people is to go cap in hand to big business, then perhaps a rethink is necessary, because such crawling diminishes the awards, their recipients and all of Aboriginal Canada.
Absolutely, we give thanks, but it is the way thanks is given and received that marks the quality of the gift, the giver and the recipient. A show of dignity is required.
Altogether out of place during an evening devoted to the achievements of the individual was a business award called the Ontario Aboriginal Partnerships Recognition Award. As well, the award is not national in scope, as are the achievement awards, but limited to highlighting successful Ontario-based business partnerships.
More video time was devoted to the story of the winner of this award than it was to any one of the achievement award winners, which was unfortunate. Perhaps Bell's foundation is expanding into a new, lucrative achievement field, but the award presentation would have been better left to an evening intended to honor economic development, such as the Canadian Council For Aboriginal Business's Circle of 2015 annual gala, where I first saw the video presentation.
