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Minister of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps announced Dec. 19, 2002 that $172.5 million in funding will be available for an 11-year project geared towards retaining and revitalizing First Nations, Metis and Inuit languages and culture in Canada.

During her opening comments in a media teleconference, Copps said the announcement was the beginning of a process for reconciliation, that Aboriginal stories were absent from the pages of Canadian history books.

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Laughter, extraordinary drumming and fancy dance moves were all a part of Oteenow Employment and Training Society's second annual round dance at Edmonton's airport hangar on Kingsway on Dec. 6.

More than 750 people attended the celebration, which included a feast and a give-away.

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The new Wingate Inn, a 106-room hotel located at 18220-100th Ave. in West Edmonton, is open for business. The hotel is 100 per cent owned by treaty groups 6, 7 and 8.

An official opening and blessing of the hotel was held on Jan. 2. The business offers meeting facilities for up to 200 people, an indoor pool, fitness centre, whirlpool and waterpark, deluxe breakfast buffet and shuttle service.

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It was another award-winning night for Terres en Vues/Land InSights on Nov. 17 as the Quebec-based cultural organization earned a Mishtapew Award for the second year in a row.

Last year Land Insights, which works to promote Native culture, was winner of the Mishtapew Award in the Culture category. This year, the organization received the award for Involvement in the French-Speaking Community.

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When work began on the Raglan nickel mine near Katinniq on the northern tip of Quebec in the mid-1990s, the nearby Inuit communities of Salluit and Kangirsujuaq wanted to ensure they were participants in, not just observers to, the development and its economic spin-offs.

In 1996, the two communities merged their land holding corporations to form Nuvumiut Developments Inc. and now, six years later, that company is one of the major players providing support services to the mine operation.

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Sylvain Picard believes it is the service Native Benefits Plan provides to its customers and the many business partnerships it has created that earned the company the honor of being named Aboriginal Business of the Year at this year's Mishtapew Awards gala.

Picard is executive director of Native Benefits Plan, which was originally formed in 1979 as a pension plan for Aboriginal communities. Initially created by and for the Attikamek Montagnais Council, the business has since expanded, both in the services it provides, and to the clientele it provides them to.

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It was a celebration both of Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal business success at the Capitole de Quebec Nov. 17, as the fifth annual Mishtapew Awards of Excellence were handed out.

Fourteen businesses were recognized at the gala, organized each year by the First People's Business Association (FPBA) to recognize the accomplishments of Aboriginal entrepreneurs, to help promote their products and services, and to promote partnerships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal businesses.

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More than 300 people were in attendance to celebrate the winners of the 2002 Nishnawbe Aski Nation Business Awards held in Timmins, Ont. on Nov. 27. It was the 12th year for the awards ceremony that honors Aboriginal entrepreneurs, executives, businesses and organizations within the Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory.

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After 18 months of cross Canada consultations, the Commission on the Future of Health in Canada released its final report on Nov. 28, and the document was met with a lukewarm reaction from the Aboriginal community.

The commission, which was headed up by former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, was given the task of talking to Canadians about the future of health care in Canada, and recommending ways the system could be changed to "preserve the long-term sustainablity of Canada's universally accessible, publicly funded health care system."

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Happily, we seem to be in the midst of a time of renewed interest in the life, performance art and literary work of Canada's own Pauline Johnston. With three new books available, Paddling Her Own Canoe and E. Pauline Johnson Tekahionwake, Collected Poems and Selected Prose by Carole Gerson and Veronica Strong-Boag and Charlotte Gray's biography Flint and Feather, there is enough reading material to keep us busy for hours on end.