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Amateur video showing a federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans boat ramming and sinking a much smaller boat carrying three Mi'kmaq fishermen on Aug. 29 leaves very little doubt that government employees are prepared to use violence to enforce federal fishing regulations.

Burnt Church First Nation spokesperson Karen Somerville said the chief and council are demanding that RCMP investigate and charge the DFO agents. She said the video is evidence of attempted murder.

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Health issues affecting Aboriginal people in Canada will soon be specifically targeted for research funding, as the newly formed Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) begins to take form.

The CIHR was established in June by the federal government to act as a funding agency for health research, designed to connect and support researchers from across Canada. The CIHR replaces the Medical Research Council, the organization formerly responsible for funding medical and bio-medical research in Canada.

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Dwight Dorey wants all Aboriginal political organizations to pull in the same direction and stop allowing their differences to get in the way.

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The Anishinaabe nation of Treaty 3, a territory encompassing 28 communities and 55,000 square miles, is working on replacing an Indian Act governance regime with a traditional one, but it was only last month, with five years invested in the process, that leaders at the Grand Council's central office in Kenora issued a press release stating their "core governance is beginning to emerge."

Quebec Inuit were promised a gold-plated treaty in the 1975 James Bay Agreement. So why do they have one of the world's highest suicide rates, a plummeting life expectancy and a poorly funded health care system run by outsiders?

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Sarah Ningiuruvik Paulusi was 79 when a tragic accident at her camp in northern Quebec took her life last year. The Inuit Elder had poor vision and mistakenly filled a camp stove with gasoline, instead of kerosene. As she lit the stove at around 6 p.m., it exploded.

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The often strained relationship between the Lubicon Lake Nation, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the province of Alberta has become rockier over the summer and it seems the Lubicon won't be getting the reserve that was promised them in 1939 any time soon.

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With all the "hot spots" across the country this summer, even the most casual observer should get the point that Indigenous people in this country have had enough.

It may begin in Burnt Church, but it certainly doesn't end there.

From band office occupations designed to put some muscle behind demands by grassroots people for changes in the way band governments are run to the conflicts involving the leaders of those band governments with provincial and/or federal governments, there are so many situations it's hard to keep track.

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National Chief Matthew Coon Come made three statements at the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly that set out some parameters for the future:

1. The rule of law recognizes Aboriginal rights and title - the Delgamuukw Supreme Court decision.

2. Businesses wanting to extract wealth from First Nation traditional lands will have to do business with those First Nations.

3. First Nations will not be silent about the denial of their rights - the final arbiter is the international court.

Welcome to the post-Delgamuukw era.

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In a magazine (that shall remain nameless) specializing in new ways of looking at life, there was an ad for a spiritual development workshop called Cry for A Vision.

"Join us for four and a half days on the land as we traverse the shadow and retrieve the light. Ceremonies and teachings are based on ancient shamanic wheels and keys. Set your intent for the coming year and dance it awake."

The last names of the two dancing workshop leaders include Crystal Light Warrior and Butterfly Dreamer.