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Review

Power-Journeys Across an

Energy Nation

By Gordon Laird

Penguin/Viking

328 pp., $35 (hc)

Freelance journalist-turned-author Gordon Laird spent almost two years travelling across Canada in search of interesting stories about interesting places. The result is a readable and fascinating look at the effects various energy industries have had, and continue to have, on the life of the nation.

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Indigenous people shared a circle of their own making on the world's largest political stage for the first time ever when they opened the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on May 13.

Nearly 1,000 people attending the inauguration in New York of the first full-time UN body devoted to Indigenous issues were greeted by Sid Hill, the tadadaho or spiritual leader of the Iroquois Confederacy.

"We know your journey here has been long and arduous," he said. "We will now wipe the dust from your eyes so you can see clearly the week ahead of you."

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Thomas Flanagan, a former policy advisor to the Reform Party and author of First Nations? Second Thoughts, the Donner Prize winning book that is critical of what the author calls "Aboriginal orthodoxy," is seen by many First Nations leaders as an arch political foe. He was subjected to five grueling days of cross-examination in Federal Court in Calgary in his role as an expert witness called by the Crown in a $1.5 billion lawsuit brought by the Samson Cree and Ermineskin Cree nations.

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Dwight Dorey, national leader of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), is finding he has the ear of many powerful people around the country these days. He admits CAP's decision to participate in the First Nations governance act consultations is the main reason why.

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Music Biz 101

Column

Powwow music is considered an extremely small niche in the music business. Regardless, the increasing popularity of drum groups in this niche market can be attributed to the availability of powwow music in secondary markets through craft shops, powwow vendors, and the distribution of CDs and tapes by the powwow drum groups themselves.

The issue of copyright and intellectual property rights as they relate specifically to traditional and powwow music is noteworthy.

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Some weeks ago, I had the culturally unique experience of attending my first professional lacrosse game at the Air Canada Center, where the Toronto Rock severely trounced the Vancouver Ravens. Of the 13,000 in attendance that afternoon, I wondered how many knew lacrosse has been acknowledged, culturally and historically, as Canada's national sport (but don't tell Don Cherry).

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I'm not the kind of person to spoil a ballot, any kind of ballot.

In fact, my reverence for the democratic process is so unwavering that I'll vote for anything-prime minister, premier, city council, school trustees, parent advisory committee, board of directors at the local Elks Lodge-you name it.

So when I spoiled my ballot in the Liberal government's long-promised referendum on treaty negotiations, I did so with great regret.

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Editorial

The proof is in the pudding, or so the old saying goes, and the Minister of Indian Affairs, Robert Nault, is preparing to serve up a heaping helping of governance initiative soon in Ottawa.

Once the prime minister gives the draft First Nations governance act legislation the once over, for the purpose of ensuring it's to his taste and serves his legacy issue requirements, no doubt, the country will see just how much $10 million in consultations buys.

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Even as First Nations chiefs rallied themselves to more effectively oppose the proposed First Nations governance act a few blocks away, Robert Nault, the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, was telling that he's more determined than ever to see the legislation through to completion.

Nault has a new office in the Confederation building on Parliament Hill, but nothing else has changed as he proceeds with his plan to introduce the act and get it passed late this year or early in 2003.

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Six Nations of the Grand River (Ontario) Chief Roberta Jamieson upstaged the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations on the opening morning of the special chief's assembly on governance held on May 22 and 23. But their messages were similar in many ways.