Alberta Sweetgrass Briefs - May

Charges laid in tobacco seizure on Montana First Nation

The Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission has laid charges under the Tobacco Act in connection with 16 million cigarettes seized from a Quonset on the Montana First Nation on Jan. 5. Montana First Nation Chief Carolyn Buffalo, Rainbow Tobacco president Robbie Dickson, and Dwayne Ouimet each face charges of allegedly storing cigarettes not marked for sale in Alberta and for being in possession of more than 1,000 cigarettes. Dickson, Ouimet and Jason Lucas are charged with allegedly importing cigarettes without a license into Alberta. The seized cigarettes had “Canada Duty Paid” markings. The maximum penalties include $20,000 fines, six-month prison terms or both. If convicted, individuals could also receive an additional fine of up to three times the amount of tax avoided. June 23 has been set as a tentative court date in Wetaskiwin.

First Nations representatives protest RBS funding of tar sands development

Melina Laboucan-Massimo, of the Lubicon Cree and Greenpeace Tar Sands Climate and Energy campaigner, was among three First Nations representatives brought to Edinburgh by the Indigenous Environmental Network and the UK Tar Sands Network to attend the Royal Bank of Scotland annual general meeting as proxies for existing RBS shareholders. The representatives demanded that the RBS stops financing the Alberta tar sands industry. RBS is a key financial backer of Enbridge, which is headquartered in Calgary. Joining Laboucan-Massimo were Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, an activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice and tar sands campaigner with IEN, and Jasmine Thomas, a Dene woman from Saik’uz British Columbia.

Blood forms new tribal energy company

Kainaiwa Resources, Inc., the natural resource development company of the Blood Tribe, has formed Kainai Energy in partnership with Native American Resource Partners LLC. The formation of Kainai Energy positions the Blood Tribe to capitalize more fully on its oil and gas participation rights in two recent joint venture agreements with leading industry oil and gas operating companies as well as enables the Blood Tribe to secure expertise and investment capital. NARP brings Kainai Energy technical and commercial oil and gas expertise along with $100 million capital commitment. “The creation of Kainai Energy is a natural step for our tribe. Just as our sister tribes in the States have used their natural resource estates to create financial independence, we must become an active participant in the development of our resources in order to provide long-term financial stability to our tribe and greater social and economic benefits to our membership,” said Chief Charlie Weasel Head in a news release.

Piikani member among fist ACCs to graduate

Lawrence Jackson of the Piikani First Nation was among the first troop of Aboriginal Community Constables from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to graduate during a ceremony in April at RCMP Academy, “Depot” Division in Regina. An Aboriginal Community Constable  is an armed, uniformed peace officer at the rank of Special Constable. Their primary focus is to engage their communities in active crime prevention/reduction and to build positive relationships between their communities and the RCMP. ACCs will enhance, not replace, the work of general duty RCMP constables; they will have the capacity to provide tactical, enforcement and investigational support to other RCMP officers if required. “Among other qualities, these cadets will bring to our organization linguistic, cultural and community skills and knowledge that go beyond those taught at Depot,” said RCMP Commissioner William Elliott, in a news release. “Aboriginal communities identified a need for an alternate service delivery and we believe that the ACC pilot program will help answer that need.” The ACC pilot program is part of the RCMP’s ongoing commitment to the Aboriginal Strategic Priority. The seven new constables will return to their communities in Alberta, Manitoba, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories to begin their new assignments.

Wedding gift to Royal couple is donations to shelters

Alberta’s wedding gift to His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton will be a $25,000 donation in their names to youth shelter programs in the province. “This gift, on behalf of Albertans, reflects a concern of the Royal Couple and of Albertans that all young people have the opportunity to reach their full potential. It also carries out the Royal Couple’s wish for charitable contributions instead of gifts,” said Premier Ed Stelmach in a news release. The wedding gift donation will go to seven youth shelter programs to be used for a variety of needed items, such as clothing, shelter and meals. Recipients are Boys and Girls Club of Calgary, Avenue 15 Shelter and Youth Emergency Shelter Society of Edmonton (each receiving $7,500), and $2,000 each to Grande Prairie Youth Emergency Shelter Society, Lethbridge Emergency Youth Shelter, McMan Inn Between Youth Shelter (Medicine Hat), Red Deer Youth and Volunteer Centre, and Stepping Stones Youth Shelter (Fort McMurray). The Royal Couple got married April 29 and will be visiting Alberta this summer.

Alberta honours best apprentices, employers and instructors

Top Employer of Aboriginal Apprentices recipient for 2010 is Alberta Pacific Forest Industries of Boyle, which has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to recruiting and training Aboriginal apprentices. ALPAC was one of nearly 70 recipients named by the Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training Board. “The individuals being honoured with these awards are the best of the best and will help keep Alberta’s economy moving forward,” said Greg Weadick, minister of advanced education and technology, in a news release. “Trades are an integral part of our economic recovery and these awards celebrate the excellence and dedication of the apprentices and the many people who support them.” In Alberta approximately 60,000 apprentices participate in the apprenticeship and industry training system.

Research shows interesting TB trait

Recent research shows that remote First Nations communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, share the same dominant strain of tuberculosis because they all got it from French Canadian fur traders in the 1700s — a century before any TB epidemics were reported in those communities. The research shows that tuberculosis spread by a brief historical interaction can stay dormant in a community for 100 years or more before emerging as an epidemic, Caitlin Pepperell, the Canadian researcher at Stanford University who led the study, told the CBC. Only a few thousand French Canadian voyageurs were involved in trading furs with Aboriginal populations between 1710 and 1870, resulting in close trade relationships and intermarriages. After that, French Canadians had almost no contact with those distant, isolated Aboriginal communities. No large-scale TB epidemics were reported in Aboriginal communities until the late 1800s and early 1900s — about 100 years after the disease was first transmitted to them. Pepperell said epidemic TB likely emerged as a result of First Nations communities being pushed to the brink of starvation and crowded onto reserves and into residential schools.

Funding provides for additional mentors

Over the next three years, an additional $1 million in funding from the Alberta government will help youth, community mentoring organizations and government continue to increase mentoring opportunities for young people in Alberta. The Alberta Mentoring Partnership will receive a total of $4.2 million. The partnership, which includes representation from Alberta government ministries, community mentoring organizations and youth, supports programs in Fort McMurray, Lloydminster, Edmonton and Calgary that provide mentoring opportunities specifically for Aboriginal and immigrant youth. Over the past three years, the partnership provided online mentor training to more than 900 people, trained more than 1,000 students as mentors through high school teen programs, ran two mentoring recruitment campaigns, and helped raise awareness through more than 1.5 million website hits to albertamentors.ca. “When young people receive support from positive role models, they make better, healthier life choices, enjoy more success in school, and are less likely to become involved with drugs or crime,” said Premier Ed Stelmach in a news release.

Ash Poitras receives another award

Fort Chipewyan-born Jane Ash Poitras was recently awarded the 2011 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. Poitras, of Cree Dene heritage, is an internationally-acclaimed visual artist, best known for her mixed media assemblages in which she explores the impact of colonialism past and present. Over the past l0 years her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in commercial galleries, public galleries and museums in Canada, the United States and around the world. Her work is included in numerous public, corporate and private collections. The University of Calgary Press launched a book about Poitras recently, entitled Cultural Memories and Imagines Futures: The Art of Jane Ash Poitras, which highlights how Poitras has emerged in the past decade as one of the most important Canadian artists of her generation.

Church quilters donate to nearby shelter

Cochrane’s St. Andrew’s United Church quilters donated their work to Eagle’s Nest Stoney Family Shelter in the Morley townsite, where women and their children get away from domestic violence for up to 21 days. “I asked them if they’d be interested in taking the quilts before we began making them and they were really pleased. So I told them, it’ll be a while because we haven’t started yet,” Pat Hatfield told the Cochrane Times. Nearly all the quilting material has been donated by church and community members. Eagle’s Nest director Nora-Lee Rear said they are always looking for donations of bedding or linen for her shelter which is virtually always full. The shelter has 20 beds in five bedrooms, a play area and a counselling room. “In the Aboriginal community, statistically a woman will leave a relationship 20 times before she makes a change,” said Rear, adding that in the community at large, a woman will typically leave 15 times before either leaving for good or making a definitive change to fix the relationship.

Compiled by Shari Narine