Windspeaker celebrates 12 years of publishing

Twelve years! Five since the demise of the National Native Communications Program and two months since we went monthly. Contrary to popular rumor, we are doing great and hanging in there.

The response that we have received from our loyal readers is that they really enjoy Windspeaker's new monthly format with more of the news, features, entertainment and culture that they have come to expect from Windspeaker.

Page 10

Dr. Vince Tookenay is a pivotal part of the growing crop of Canadian Aboriginal physicians and medical students.

In 1980 he left Health Care Concepts International in Minnesota to become director of Indian and Inuit health policy for Health and Welfare Canada. That year there were reportedly just six Canadian Aboriginal physicians working in North America.

Page 9

As a Native writer, there are always three questions I get asked, ad nauseam, whenever I do a lecture or a reading for a non-Native audience.

Question one: How do you feel about cultural appropriation?

My answer: About the same as I feel about land appropriation.

Question two: When you write your plays or stories, do you write for a specifically Native audience or a white audience?

My answer: I'm usually alone in my room when I write except for my dying cactus. So I guess that means I write for my dying cactus.

Page 6

Read an article in the Insight Section of the Toronto Star not too long ago. It was intriguingly titled: Has the culture of victimization gone too far?

First I took it to mean that a person - or a people - can take the notion of being a victim - or a nation of victims - too far at times.

Page 6

When a government cuts, it seems to be inevitable that internal government programs get cut the last, and the least.

Witness the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the bureaucratic behemoth that all of us love to hate, and usually for good reason.

Page 5

Successful self-government and accountability go hand-in-hand, the federal minister of Indian Affairs told reporters on a nation-wide teleconference.

According to the framework agreement for self-government being developed in Manitoba, First Nations can only stray eight per cent over the limit of the proposed $500 million budget or the process grinds to a halt.

Page 4

Rent increases fuel uncertainty over long-term leases

Homeowners in a prestigious Vancouver neighborhood that sits on an Indian reserve got a bit of a shock when they opened their mail recently. In it their landlord, the Musqueam band, was asking for an 8,000 per cent hike in rent for the land.

And raising the rent from about $400 a year to more than $36,000 a year in one case is all perfectly legal.

Page 3

The final touches are now being put on a bold and far-reaching self-government arrangement for the Inuit-dominated Nunavik region of northern Quebec.

Under the deal, still being negotiated with the separatist Parti Quebecois government, a regional assembly of 23 to 25 elected representatives will take over the running of all public services in Nunavik, including justice, law enforcement, education, health care and social services.

Page 3

Six Treaty Eight First Nations have ratified a protocol for negotiating treaty entitlement agreements with the federal government.

Five of the First Nations are in the southern N.W.T., and one, Smith's Landing, is just across the border in Alberta.

Smith's Landing negotiator Francois Paulette joked that the protocol tells the government, "For the last 95 years, you've been in our territory and you haven't paid rent. Cough it up."

Page 3

While many federal departments face significant cuts after Finance Minister Paul Martin's budget, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development will see marginal funding increase over the next three years.

Ron Irwin, the minister responsible for DIAND, announced increases of six per cent for fiscal year 1995-96 and three per cent increases for each of the next two years. The total gain for the department will be about 12 per cent from a starting point of more than $5 billion in 1994-95.