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Strong communities start with youths - CCAB president

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Helping young Natives become well adjusted, contributing members of society means taking preventive action, says George Lafond.

The new president of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business thinks communities need to take a new approach and start creating alternatives to futures that offer little more than drug or alcohol addiction and slim hopes of meaningful employment.

NCN lawyerless

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The Native Council of Nova Scotia needs a lawyer and they're looking through their own constituency to find one.

The council, which represents approximately 15,000 off-reserve Natives in the province, spent almost $100,000 on legal fees for outside law firms last year, says

Dwight Dorey, director of the council. As negotiations with the province on Native self-government heat up, the council might spend even more this year.

Baton reaches its final destination

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On Thursday, August 18th, Vancouver Island's three First Nations - the Coast Salish, Nuu-cha-nulth and Kwakwaka'wakw Nations - came together in a powerful display of tradition and unity.

Representatives, dressed in ceremonial regalia, delivered the Queen's baton to the inner harbor of Victoria city, to mark the start of the XV Commonwealth Games.

The baton was hand carved in silver by Native artists Richard Hunt, Charles Elliot and Art Thompson.

Pitcher armed with talent

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Connie Ness usually plays fastball with players much older than she is. It's been that way for years, said the 14-year-old star pitcher, after she led the Edmonton Warriors to a 9-5 win over host Surrey, and a Western Canadian PeeWee Fastball Championship. "I've always played about three years ahead of myself," Ness continued. "But this year and next I'll be only one year ahead. That'll be better."

Chrome and granite meet creative spirits at Calgary art festival

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At first, Daniel Beatty's singing seemed like a voice crooning in an urban wilderness of glass, chrome and polished marble.

His ballads about green grass, trees, blue skies, love, alcoholism, poverty didn't seem to fit with three floors of up-scale boutiques and grey suits of Bankers' Hall.

But Beatty, and other participants of Calgary's sixth annual International Native Arts Festival, reveled in the seeming disparity. One must look below the granite and chrome surfaces, added Ernie Whitford, former executive director of the festival.

Health policy makes Indians sick - Treaty Six chiefs

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The federal government has gone too far in shrugging off its responsibility for Aboriginal health care. And the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations are sick of it.

The Confederacy held a press conference Aug. 12 to discuss the chiefs' main complaint with the current state of affairs in health care. That complaint centres around Alberta premier Ralph Klein's new cost-conscious health care scheme known as the Regional Health Authorities Act.

Chalmers smokes 'em to capture gold

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Angela Chalmers of Victoria was a hugely popular gold medalist on the second day of the XV Commonwealth Games track and field competition.

The half-Sioux originally from Brandon, Manitoba, smashed the Canadian record in the women's 3,000-metres by five seconds to successfully defend the title she took four years ago to Auckland, New Zealand.

Native dancers dazzle crowds at opening of Commonwealth Games

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The artistic portrayal of the legend of Kawadilikala was a highlight of the opening ceremonies of the XV Commonwealth Games in Victoria, B.C.

Towering, fantastic puppets were accompanied by beautifully costumed performers and elaborate tents, in order to convey the legend. The story of the transformation of a wolf spirit into human beings was told for the first time to an audience outside the longhouse at the opening ceremonies.

Legacy of misery not a myth

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The Assembly of First Nations' study on residential schools entitled Breaking the Silence has - among other things - made a lot of people very uncomfortable. In Natives creating residential school myth, written by columnist William Johnson for Southam News, Johnson accused National Grand Chief Ovide Mercredi of using words that "illustrate the verbal and ideological overkill which has become characteristic of the AFN. The same ideological excess is evident in the study itself Breaking the Silence...