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Artist-Santee Smith

Album-Kaha:wi

Song-Konnoronhkwa

Label-Independent

Producer-Bob Doidge and Santee Smith

Kaha:wi is a traditional Mohawk name that translates as She Carries. It was the name of Santee Smith's grandmother Rita Vyse and was passed on to Smith's daughter. It is also the name Smith chose for the dance production she created and performed for the first time in Toronto this past summer and the CD featuring music from that production.

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Big business is solidly behind a new initiative to include Aboriginal and visible minority suppliers in their materials procurement chain, because it makes good business sense to do so, according to one of two Aboriginal board members of the newly launched Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council (CAMSC).

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It was a day to celebrate hard work, persistence and struggle for members of the Enoch Cree First Nation as the sod was turned on a multi-million gaming and entertainment project to be located on the eastern edge of Enoch territory on the fringes of west Edmonton.

There was much talk of hope and promise on Oct. 7 as Chief Ron Morin welcomed leaders of industry, government and Alberta's Aboriginal population to the ground breaking ceremony of the River Cree Resort and Casino.

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First Denver, Colorado in 2006, then Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in 2008. That's the line-up for the next North American Indigenous Games (NAIG).

British Columbia officials are thrilled Cowichan Valley, with a population of 75,000 people found in 11 small communities, has been selected to host. The official announcement was made Oct. 22 following a NAIG council meeting in Uncasville, Connecticut.

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The Metis Nation-Saskatchewan (MNS) has put its recent election problems behind it and is ready to move on, but the provincial and federal governments aren't quite ready to follow suit.

Both levels of government are continuing to withhold funding to the provincial Metis organization, and that isn't likely to change until a final report on whether its May 26 election was conducted properly has been reviewed.

That report, prepared by former provincial chief electoral officer Keith Lampard, was received by the province on Oct. 13.

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The decision has been made to keep an audiotape described as "explosive" from the public just a little while longer.

That was the result of a long, closed session involving Chief Commissioner Sidney Linden and about two dozen lawyers who represent various parties with standing at the Ipperwash inquiry into the death of Anthony (Dudley) George. Lawyers cannot discuss details because of the inquiry's confidentiality rules.

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Councillor Dave General, who gained national notoriety when he accused National Chief Phil Fontaine of "grovelling" before then-Indian Affairs minister Andy Mitchell at this year's spring confederacy of the Assembly of First Nation, is seen as the heir apparent to Chief Roberta Jamieson in the top job on Six Nations of the Grand River territory in Ontario.

While community sources say it's no secret that General will seek to attract Jamieson's core support, the departing chief chose not to publicly declare him her chosen successor.

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Canada's most populous First Nation will have a new chief on Nov. 20. Chief Roberta Jamieson announced in early October she will not seek a second term as chief of Six Nations.

The former Ontario ombudsman and the first Native woman in Canada to earn a law degree ran second to Phil Fontaine in the July 2003 campaign for national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). Her announcement changes the local and national political landscape.

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Just as the 14th anniversary of Neil Stonechild's death was approaching, the report from the inquiry into his suspicious death was released and spells out plainly that police activities in the final hours of the 17-year-old's life were highly questionable.

Stonechild's frozen body was found on the outskirts of Saskatoon in an industrial area on Nov. 29, 1990. Inquiry chief commissioner David Wright said there is no question that Stonechild was in the custody of police shortly before his death, something the Saskatoon city police have denied repeatedly.

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Flora Merrick, an ailing 88-year-old woman, has decided that the federal government's process designed to allow residential school survivors to seek justice outside of the court setting is not the way to go.

Ted Hughes, the chief adjudicator for alternative dispute resolution (ADR), was informed of Merrick's decision to pull out of the process on Oct. 14 through a letter authored by Winnipeg lawyer Dennis Troniak and sent to the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada (OIRSC).