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Dear Editor:

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For the past four years, the National Metis Veterans Association has been fighting for the rights of their comrades.

With chapters in every province, the organization has been working tirelessly on behalf of Metis veterans who say they were denied services and benefits that were available to other soldiers when they returned home from the front.

One of the main priorities of the National Metis Veterans Association has been collecting names of Metis veterans who fought in Korea and the Second World War.

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When popular Canadian children's author Robert Munsch gave Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology permission to translate seven of his unpublished stories and three of his published ones into Ojibway, he made a lot of new young friends.

At least one thousand children, from Grade 4 down, came to the college for the launch of the first Ojibway translation of Mmm, Cookies! or Mmm, Pkewzhgaanhsak! in the Ojibway language.

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Most artists live well below the poverty line. They create art in a market economy that does not compensate them fairly for the work they produce.

According to a Statistics Canada special report from the late 1990s (the last time the arts sector was surveyed), the median annual income for writers was $7,500, and for painters and sculptors just $4,000.

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Many Aboriginal organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations, are crying foul after former British Columbia Judge David Ramsay was sentenced to seven years in prison (a term they think is far too short) for what they say are race-based crimes.

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A poll commissioned last summer by several federal government departments that asked grassroots on-reserve First Nation people what they thought about the First Nations governance act produced results that might surprise you.

The poll showed that more than half of the grassroots people wanted the legislation. Even more provocative, the poll showed that opposition to the act was high in higher income groups and low in low-income groups.

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John Kim Bell, the founder of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, has taken yet another step away from the organization he has led for the past decade.

Former chairman of the board Bill Shead made the announcement in a letter to stakeholders on June 11. The letter states that effect May 31, Bell retired as president.

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The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) came within days of disappearing from Canadian airwaves forever. A cash flow crunch put it dangerously in arrears with the company that transmits its signal.

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is not a topic a lot of people want to talk about, SAID Mary MacCormick who heads up a unique public education program aimed at preventing the tragedy. She has just finished training 10 facilitators at the Niagara Regional Native Centre to help spread the word about preventing SIDS.

When a baby dies, sometimes parents blame themselves and turn their grief inwards, or blame someone else in their family, but unfortunately that does nothing to prevent the next infant death.

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North Shore Public School in Keene held its tenth annual year-end powwow on June 11 for students, parents and community members.

According to Ojibway language teacher Elizabeth Osawamick, the language program has been offered at North Shore for about 15 years, but previous instructors did not include cultural events.