Aboriginal Affairs Tag

10 Mar 2011 Accountability & First Nations: Bill C-575 Moves Forward

By My Canada, March 8 2011: Currently Bill C-575, a private members bill tabled by MP Kelly Block, is being reviewed by the committee before it heads into its third reading and final vote in the House of Commons. It is amazing that this bill has come so far already! If passed, the bill would require all First Nations bands to make public the salaries of chiefs and councillors, many of whom do not tell their band members how much they earn. This lack of transparency has been voiced by many band members on the CTF's (Canadian Taxpayers' Federation) Reserve Transparency website.

02 Sep 2010 Is Ottawa Beginning to Address the Multitude of Problems on Reserves?

Globe & Mail, Sept 1, 2010: Ottawa has quietly ordered a study of Canada’s most economically successful first nations, raising the prospect of a new approach to developing businesses on reserves while sparking fear among some native leaders that their rights to land and resources are at risk. A small but growing number of success stories are spreading across Canada as native communities break out from historic poverty thanks to millions in earnings as landlords of on-reserve condos, hotels, industrial parks and high-end golf resorts. Keep reading...

14 Jun 2010 Video: Canadian Aboriginals Offer Forgiveness to Canada and PM Harper

OTTAWA, June 10 /CNW/ - Thousands of Aboriginal individuals are assembling in Ottawa to release this weekend the forgiveness that Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested in 2008. The Prime Minister concluded his apology for Indian Residential Schools by requesting "the forgiveness of the aboriginal peoples of this country for failing them so profoundly." "At that moment" says Chief Kenny Blacksmith, "the onus was placed on our people as individuals to respond. The only way to come into our full healing as the First Peoples of Canada is to forgive. Forgiveness...

09 Nov 2009 Native tribe will petition Ottawa to remove its Indian status

Justine Hunter, Globe and Mail, Nov 9/09: A delegation of the Gitxsan people from northwest British Columbia is set to meet with Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl next month with a groundbreaking proposal: That the 13,000 members of their tribe be allowed to abandon their status as "Indians." The group is willing to relinquish reserves, tax exemptions, Indian Act housing and financial supports in exchange for a share of resources. Unlike most contemporary efforts at treaty-making, it would also abandon the ambition of a separate level of government. [Continue...

22 Dec 2008 Rory Leishman’s “Socialist Analysis of Aboriginal Dysfunctions”

The London Free Press, Dec 21 2008: By Rory Leishman [Used with permission]Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard are a pair of tough-minded socialist intellectuals. In a powerful new book, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, they dare to point that Canada’s hugely expensive aboriginal programs have served to enrich an aboriginal elite and their white advisers, while doing little to assist the needy.

08 Dec 2008 ARPA Canada Interviews Rod Taylor Regarding Canadian Aboriginal Affairs Policy

Listen online (click here) or download to your MP3 player by right clicking this link. In this first edition of the ARPA e-Luminary audio broadcast, we interview Rod Taylor from Smithers, B.C. to get some insight into the politics of aboriginal affairs. As is explained in the interview, Canada's aboriginal peoples suffer greatly. Bringing hope and healing is complex because there is no simple solution. But Christians have a special responsibility to work towards justice and healing. This broadcast is not an attempt to settle the matter or provide all...

30 Apr 2008 Maori provide lesson for Canadian aboriginals

Economic self-sufficiency has increased (Maori) cultural prideBy Dr. Barry Cooper - University of Calgary (Used with permission from Dr. Cooper. This editorial appeared in Calgary Herald, Wednesday, April 30, 2008) Former prime minister Paul Martin testified earlier this month before a Senate committee in support of Bill C-292, the Kelowna Accord Implementation Act. This private member's bill gained approval of the House of Commons with the support of the three opposition parties and should pass through the mainly Liberal upper house easily enough.Martin knows that for the past three centuries in parliamentary democracies, private-member's bills cannot commit the government to spend money. As the Speaker, Peter Milliken, put it, there is a distinction between bills that approve certain objectives and bills that approve the ways and means, namely money, by which the approved objectives are obtained. Thus Martin is asking the Senate and the rest of us to look at C-292 on its merits, knowing full well the implementation costs -- on the order of $5 billion -- are irrelevant.