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In the same week that Grand Chief Chris McCormick of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians told the United Nations that First Nations health in Canada is in pitiful condition, a British Columbia chief told Windspeaker that money allotted to First Nations health concerns was not distributed in the last fiscal year.

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Kanesatake, the Mohawk settlement located at the halfway mark between Montreal and Ottawa on the edge of the Quebec town of Oka, is in turmoil-again.

Many will remember that this community was the site of the Oka Crisis, a 78-day stand off with the Canadian military in 1990 that brought worldwide attention to the land claim complaints of the 1,200 people who live there.

Some may not remember, however, that later that same decade, fields of marijuana crops allegedly planted in co-operation with biker gangs based in Montreal were discovered on the territory.

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Dear Editor:

I am a 22-year-old member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, which is also known as Old Crow, Yukon.

The first experience I had with touring to help protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge came to me when I was 14 years old. I had the opportunity to travel down to the United States with 13 other members of Old Crow to meet with various people-reporters, school students, senators-on this issue and tell them how important it is for the Gwitchin Nation to keep the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge free from oil development.

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Dear Editor:

Just to make a comment about this letter in Volume 22 (April 2004) pertaining to "We are all Anishanabe." For whoever is interested, the proper definition of that word, Anishanabe, the traditional word really means "From whence he was lowered." It doesn't really mean "human being." That came afterwards, but originally that's what it was "From whence he was lowered."

Thank you, have a great day, and I like your paper.

-Roger, the Elder in residence with the

Aboriginal Students Centre

at the University of Manitoba

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Dear Editor:

Windspeaker did an excellent job at explaining the escalating risks journalists face as they work to keep communities informed in the article entitleds "Heavy price paid to bring you the story"-May 2004 issue.

We were also glad to see the story take the lid off a topic rarely covered in the Canadian media: the unbalanced coverage of Aboriginal issues in that same mainstream media.

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Dear Editor:

Our Native leaders have problems of their own. Over the summer I posted a comment on Windspeaker saying how it would be nice if Native leaders took steps to make themselves known to the general public. That would help us constituents to possibly identify with and understand what each stood for. Maybe, as an informed public, we could say that we or I stand behind this person and his or her ideas. Here we are nine months later and we still don't know much ado about Phil [Fontaine].

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The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is about to embark on an ambitious and far reaching exercise, preparing a detailed statement of the First Nation position on what self-government should look like.

It will do so in the full expectation that a Paul Martin government will keep its word and actually treat First Nations as full and equal partners in a joint relationship that can work towards that elusive goal. (Although we'll believe that when we see it.)

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A popular, comprehensive and rigorous field of study at Negahneewin College of Indigenous Studies in Thunder Bay is its Aboriginal Law and Advocacy program.

Graduates are finding the program prepares them not only to be court workers and legal advocates across the spectrum of social service-related jobs, but it gives them the solid grounding in Aboriginal history, politics, and the land and self-government issues that community leaders and rights and treaty negotiators need today.

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Bernice Downey, a registered nurse and founding member of the Aboriginal-controlled National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO), has recently been appointed the organization's executive director.

Since 1999, when NAHO was little more than an idea on paper, Downey has worked in many facets of health promotion, most recently as a policy analyst. She has seen the organization grow from six employees to 59, as the work of the organization got underway in earnest in 2000.

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The Greater Sudbury Police Service (GSPS) and the Sudbury Youth Referral Program (YRP) are co-operating to steer first-time offenders away from the court system.

Such prevention measures are mandated by the Youth Criminal Justice Act that came into effect on April 1, 2003.

Under the program, youth who have committed non-violent offences such as shoplifting, mischief or minor assaults are introduced to extra-judicial remedies.