As people frantically try to get a handle on the explosive, never-a-dull-day developments in Indian Country lately, one recent exchange in the media caught my attention: the battle to characterize and frame the semi-spontaneous events on the ground collectively known as ‘Idle No More.’ The exchange began when National Post columnist Andrew Coyne asserted the […]
A Legion based out of Cranbrook BC is at the center of a storm over a racist joke printed in its August 2012 newsletter. The joke’s premise features non-native hunters from two different Prairie provinces discussing whether it’s okay to pick off Indians with a rifle. After the one shows the other how it’s done […]
An Aboriginal boxer competing on behalf of Australia who also maintains clear allegiances to his people has gotten into some hot water for his visible display of the latter at the summer Olympic Games in London this week. In what is perhaps an ironically telling comment on the state of that country’s effort at Settler/Aboriginal […]
Yesterday, as I watched the decisive re-election of Shawn Atleo as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, my thoughts couldn’t help but turn to the perennial question hanging over the AFN: as an organization funded so heavily from the coffers of the Canadian government, just how independent a voice is it, anyway? […]
An interesting theory has been floated in the Vancouver Sun by “an 87-year-old retired West Coast sea captain” about the Northern Gateway pipelines. In his editorial “Harper gov’t playing ‘shell game’ on pipeline,” Capt. Edward Wray alleges that “the [federal government’s] and Enbridge’s so-called plan” for the ultimate route relies on a diversionary strategy: get people […]
