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  • Is the ‘secret’ of some First Nations’ economic success all that secret?

    A recent Globe and Mail editorial approves of a “special” Indian and Northern Affairs Canada project looking at “why some [65 First Nations] reserves are doing well economically.” The study’s aim: to “pinpoint the causes of their success.”

    The Globe then goes on to argue that a likely “common factor in these cases of prosperity” is their shared “openness to the normal range of commercial enterprises in broader Canadian society.”

    In short, those 65 First Nations embrace degrees of private investment from companies based off-reserve. But then the editorialist remembered something else distinctive about these communities:

    “This [openness to the private sector] is certainly not a panacea, because most of the 65 reserves are near urban areas, with which they have convenient economic relationships. Remote aboriginal communities, surrounded by boreal forest, would have enormous difficulties adapting models from southern Canada.”

    This should prompt us to ask: how many First Nations are located near urban areas? According to the 1998 edition of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Contemporary Conflicts, reserves located in ‘urban’ areas made up only 9% of all First Nations, while ‘semi-urban’ reserves were 21% of the total. (That does not necessarily include the 120+ so-called ‘urban reserves,’ a special category of land set up near/within cities for business purposes only, i.e., non-residential). The other 71% were therefore located in ‘remote’ (29%) and ‘rural’ (42%) areas. (All percentages rounded.)

    I apologize for the 12-year-old stats, but seeing as how reserves haven’t likely moved (or the likelihood that few have been added) in the interim, I am reasonably certain the urban/non-urban ratio among reserves has stayed more or less constant.

    So if 7 out of 10 reserves will never enjoy the competitive advantage of closeness to a major market for their goods/services, why hold up the other 3 as exemplary? Just asking.

  • Aboriginal Nominees for Gemini Awards in Canadian TV excellence

    This fall the Gemini Awards will honour the best in Canadian English-language television, and a handful of Aboriginal nominees are competing for some pretty significant hardware in the Program and Performance categories.

    Neil Diamond’s remarkable documentary Reel Injun is up for Best Social/Political Documentary Program. Don Kelly, host of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network‘s Fish Out of Water, is nominated in the Best Host or Interviewer in a General/Human Interest or Talk Program or Series category.

    In fact, quite a few Aboriginal productions that garnered nods come from APTN, including Wapos Bay for Best Animated Program or Series, and Down the Mighty River for Best Documentary Series.

    North-Wilson

    On the news front, CBC Manitoba‘s Sheila North-Wilson is also up for Best Breaking Reportage, Local, for her ongoing coverage of the “Homeless Hero” story that captivated the country in the spring of 2009, when Faron Hall rescued a teenager who fell off a Winnipeg bridge into the Red River.

    “It truly feels amazing to be nominated,” says North-Wilson from her Winnipeg home. “Especially because I wasn’t expecting to when I did the stories. I am proud of the stories I did on Faron but I surely wasn’t thinking about the Geminis while I was putting them together,” she adds. “Now that I am nominated though, I feel truly blessed. Astounded!”

    North-Wilson is known as an extremely well-connected journalist who, through her contacts, was able to find the remarkable story and continue to advance it as the week progressed. The coverage that followed painted the picture of a homeless Aboriginal man down on his luck who risked his life to save 19-year-old Joey Mousseau. As an added twist, Hall pulled another woman from the same river later that summer.

    Faron Hall and eyewitness Marion Willis (courtesy CBC)

    “To me the story is about pleasant surprises,” says North-Wilson. “It’s about seeing the diamonds in the rough. About not discounting people when I meet them, no matter what they look like or where they come from. Rich or poor. The stories renew my hope in humanity when there are other bad things going on.”

    The public and other media jumped on the story, waiting for the two men to be reunited, and wondering what would become of Hall in the spotlight. As North-Wilson observes:

    “I think people are intrigued by Faron Hall because of his willingness to give even though he looked like a person who didn’t have much to give in the first place. He was ready to give something most of us wouldn’t give — his life. I think people in a way wish and hope they would do it too, but aren’t sure they would. So instead they live vicariously through his deed and feel great that perhaps if someone with less stature or social class could do what he did, then ‘so could I!’”

    “It wasn’t easy trying to keep on top of the story because it was overwhelming Faron. It was hard to see him being shaken by all the sudden interest in him by the public and media. He is such a strong person in many ways but he needed help and guidance from others on how to ride the media wave. In that, I never forgot how to relate to him as a person. I’m very grateful to Faron and Joey for letting me be the first to tell their story. For trusting me. Thanks to his friends who helped and thanks to CBC for allowing me to tell the story how I saw it.”

    The 25th Annual Gemini Awards will be handed out in Toronto this November.

  • POLL: Should Aboriginal people be required to register their long-guns?

    The long debate over the long-gun registry may finally come to an end next Wednesday when Parliamentarians vote on a bill to kill the controversial system. Private Member’s Bill C-391, sponsored by Manitoba MP Candice Hoeppner, would, in her words, “end the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry” so that government might “put more emphasis on policing and licensing of firearms.”

    Portrayed as an issue that divides along city/rural, northern/southern lines, Aboriginal people seemed to have been more or less lumped in with rural northerners by the media. Along with the debate over the registry’s effectiveness in stopping long-gun-related crime and over its costs (Hoeppner maintains “the registry cost $71 million, not $4 million as is often stated by Opposition MPs”), Aboriginal leaders wonder whether the registry infringes upon their peoples’ rights to hunt. According to CBC,

    Teslin Tlingit Chief Peter Johnston said First Nations do not want more regulation for a tool that they use for basic survival and traditional practice: “I mean, it’s our inherent right to have that ability to harvest.”

    For their part, the Inuit organization Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) “fully supports the safe use of firearms,” said Acting President James Eetoolook in a media release. That said, Eetoolook believes

    “the Firearms Act does not take account of the realities of life in Nunavut. Firearms are essential tools used by Inuit to hunt for food and provide for our families. Trying to impose bureaucratic registration and licensing procedures designed for southern Canada interferes with the ability of Inuit to use firearms for hunting, but does nothing to enhance safety of police or the public in Nunavut.”

    The release goes on to say that Inuit in Nunavut possess “the right to hunt without any form of license or permit” under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. The feds disagreed, precipitating a fight that led to a July 2003 territorial court injunction “halt[ing] the enforcement of the registration and licensing provisions of the Firearms Act against Nunavut Inuit” hunters.

    Between now and the Sept. 22 vote, we want to hear what you think, with our newest MI poll. Comments are also welcomed.

    [polldaddy poll=”3780024″]

    [ Image via civilization.ca ]

  • Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan: Menacing or Muzzled?

    A well-researched missive this week over at The Dominion (“New Minister a ‘Declared Enemy’ of First Nations”) examines whether the August 2010 appointment of combative MP John Duncan as Indian and Northern Affairs Canada minister was the harbinger of a new, nastier tone to come in federal Aboriginal policy.

    I have to admit, reviewing some of the things the man has said about such policy while in Opposition, I too expected that some degree of his trademark heatedness would follow him into power as a member of government. Take for example, these Parliamentary bits of bluster:

    Feb. 6, 1998: Mr. Speaker, the fisheries minister keeps insisting that a race based commercial fishery is legal. He has ignored advice from native and non-native commercial fishermen that racial tinkering leads to racial tension.

    Mar. 18, 1996: Allow me to focus my comments for a moment on [INAC], otherwise known as the money vacuum. … It is a history of misguided priorities where the current minister feels that maintaining this native dependency on the federal treasury will deliver these people to self-sufficiency, dignity and a stable future. It is a denial and a cruel manipulation of these people that is demeaning and paternalistic; keeping his charge in poverty paralysis, fed and warm but never to let them break the surly bonds of welfare and dependency unless they are the elites at the minister’s trough. Furthermore, it is a cruel, unfair hoax on the Canadian taxpayer because despite all the federal largesse and misguided paternalism, those status Indians who live on reserves do not pay income, property or sales taxes on purchases delivered to the reserves.

    Now, to be fair, Duncan uttered these comments while representing what were technically different political parties (Reform and Alliance). Nowadays, he speaks on behalf of a new team, the Conservative Party of Canada. And maybe that’s the real point to focus on here.

    When Duncan was freshly appointed as Indian Affairs minister, our poll on the matter revealed that just under 61% of voters felt INAC policy would be the same no matter who is Minister (although 25% did think Duncan’s appointment signaled a change for the worst). But what if that dismissive view of Duncan’s impact is closer to the truth? What if, far from displaying his more menacing persona (a shtick more easily cultivated in the much-less-consequential realm of Opposition), Duncan is now effectively muzzled into taking whatever orders come from his boss Prime Minister Stephen Harper?

    As evidence for this possibility, I firstly submit these March 12, 1996 criticisms by then-Reform MP John Duncan concerning proposed federal compensation to a group of Inuit for a decades-old transgression:

    Mr. Speaker, newspaper reports indicate that the minister is to enter into an agreement for $10 million in compensation for 17 [sic] Inuit families that were voluntarily [sic] relocated to the high Arctic in the 1950s. Although the move was not without its hardships, the new community is reported to be among the most successful in the high Arctic. Contrary to documentary evidence and the good reputation of government officials at the time, the politically predictable Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples condemned the move and recommended compensation. The Globe and Mail suggested that this would apply a retroactive morality, satisfying a need to assert the contemporary cant of political correctness. Rather than engaging in historical revisionism and settling old grievances, imagined or real, the government would be better advised to focus on contemporary needs.

    Some 14 years later, guess what Duncan’s very first words in his very first public act as the new Indian and Northern Affairs minister were? Yep, you guessed it:

    “The Government of Canada apologizes for having relocated Inuit families and recognizes that the High Arctic Relocation resulted in extreme hardship and suffering for Inuit who were relocated. We deeply regret the mistakes and broken promises of this dark chapter of our history.”

    Part of that apology included a series of commemoration projects and a $10-million trust. (Duncan will attend said commemorations, but there’s no word yet on whether crow is the main course on any of the dinner menus.)

    And as for Duncan’s utter, unwavering opposition to “race based” Aboriginal fisheries? His growl has seemingly become a grin:

    I’m happy to announce an investment of $7.7 million in federal support for Atlantic First Nations fisheries enterprises. … We will continue to make such investments because we know that increasing Aboriginal participation in the economy is the most effective way to improve the quality of life and secure a prosperous future for Aboriginal communities. That’s good news for all Canadians.

    Now, these absolute about-faces by Duncan may, by themselves, prove nothing in the long run. Maybe the leopard will eventually show his old spots, as one critic put it in The Dominion.

    Or maybe Harper — whose agenda, tactics and judgment seem shrewder and subtler compared to Duncan’s historic bull-in-a-china-shop approach — has simply schooled the rookie Cabinet minister well in the ways of politics.

    In any case, Duncan’s not lived up to his rock-em-sock’em reputation, and, so far, that’s better than the alternative.

    [ Images of contrite, happy Duncan via INAC website ]

  • AUDIO: Winnipeg’s mayoral race finally (if faintly) mentions Aboriginal people

    Another week, another installment of MEDIA INDIGENA as heard on THE WORD, first broadcast live every Tuesday on STREETZ 104.7 FM at noon central, 1 pm eastern.

    This week, MI’s Rick Harp and THE WORD host Lady V renewed their discussion of Winnipeg’s mayoral campaigns, where the A-word was finally uttered — that’s right, “Aboriginal” — by the front-runners.

    MI on STREETZ: Sept. 14, 2010
    [audio:https://mediaindigena.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MI-StreetzFM-Sept14-10.mp3|titles=MI-StreetzFM-Sept14-10]

    [ Image via ponixproductions.com ]