LAST WEEK the Federal Government released its 2024 Federal Budget. With nearly $500 billion in new spending, there is significant funding Indigenous communities: $2.3 billion over five years to fund existing program commitments (p. 280)​​ and an additional $32 billion in spending committed in 2024–25.  That being said, depending on the specific area, this funding is multi-year and, in some cases, extends over a decade. In other words, this is not a single fiscal year allocation, and while it is an increase from last year, it is much lower than the previous Liberal budgets on Indigenous i ..read more

Anishinaabemowin is on the brink of extinction. Saving it requires working with current speakers, a coordinated revitalization strategy including immersion opportunities, and a commitment from our leadership and communities more generally. It also requires resources – it requires zhooniyaa. It just so happens that Anishinaabeg in the Robinson Huron Treaty (RHT) areas may soon have significant resources as a result of the Restoule Case and the subsequent Robinson Huron Treaty Settlement. Through extensive community engagement sessions in 2023 into 2024, all 21 Robinson Huron Treaty First Nation ..read more

The climate crisis grows more critical each year. Despite this, and despite the fact that Anishinaabek and Cree, among others, are on the frontlines of land and water preservation and revitalization, Canada (federal and provincial governments and industry) continues to break treaties and, in so doing, threaten the livelihoods of Indigenous people. .  Grassy Narrows, or Asubpeeschoseewagong, is a small community one hour north of Kenora. It’s where I grew up understanding Indigenous sovereignty as stewardship of the land and challenging environmental racism. We are under constant pressure ..read more

In 2019, Canada enacted An Act Respecting First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Children Youth and Family. The Act recognized and affirmed Indigenous peoples’ inherent right to self-government over child and family services, established national standards related to the best interests of Indigenous children, and protected Indigenous jurisdiction over children from provincial intrusion. In short, the Act responded to Indigenous peoples’ calls for support in their care of their children and families, and for Canada to begin to fix over a century of harm caused to Indigenous peoples by the removal and ..read more

Where in the hell of Gaza is international law for Palestinians? For months, UN experts and hundreds of international law and genocide scholars have been warning of genocide in Gaza: as schools have been transformed into field execution sites, homes and hospitals have been turned into mass gravesites, entire family lines have been annihilated, more than a million have been displaced into “safe zones” where they continue to be incinerated, and so many Palestinian children have been simultaneously orphaned and maimed that a new medical acronym – WCNSF, “Wounded Child No Surviving Family” – has h ..read more

There is widespread discrimination in the Canadian criminal justice system.  Indigenous Peoples represent 4.5 percent of the Canadian adult population1 but 26.3 percent of new admissions to federal prisons.2 Compared to non-Indigenous offenders, Canadian Indigenous offenders are over-represented among those in structured intervention units (formally known as administrative segregation), released later in their sentence, and are often denied parole.3 Both legislative and judicial attempts to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples4 have been ineffective, as overrepresentation ..read more

On June 21, 2023  – Indigenous Solidarity Day – the House of Commons introduced Bill C-53, An Act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, to give effect to treaties with those governments and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. This Act follows the Ontario government’s recognition of seven historic Métis Communities in Ontario in  2017, and the 2003 Powley Supreme Court decision that created a test for the existence of historic Métis communities for Métis to access constitutional rights under Section 35.  Adding t ..read more

Earlier this year, provincial Métis organizations and Métis people across Canada proudly celebrated the 20th anniversary of a landmark Supreme Court decision on Métis constitutional rights. The 2003 ruling, R v Powley, 2003 SCC 43 (Powley), formulated a test to define what a Métis constitutional right is and who is entitled to exercise it. Simultaneously, Ontario First Nations and their supporters gathered on the steps of Parliament1 in opposition to Bill C-53, An Act Respecting the Recognition of Certain Métis Governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan, which would, among other things ..read more

What has the world been witnessing in Israel-occupied Gaza? Not a “humanitarian catastrophe,” but a human-engineered atrocity: an entire population being bombed, starved, dehydrated, “voluntarily emigrated,” and blockaded into collective death and submission – a continuation of the decades-long ethnic cleansing of Palestine – while Canada and other “liberal” democracies refuse to call for a ceasefire and the US continues to supply the “precision” bombs. Even in the hours preceding a promised temporary four-day “truce” set to begin Friday morning, Israel has persisted in unrelentingly “bombing ..read more

The week leading up to CBC’s Fifth Estate documentary investigating Buffy Sainte Marie’s claims to Indigeneity was tense with anticipatory grief, anger, and anxiety. Our conversations were dominated by what might be revealed about the internationally recognized singer and beloved community member.  Another line of discourse focused on the timing. It seemed like a convenient distraction from Israel’s total siege and unrelenting bombardment of Gaza since the Hamas surprise attack on October 7. There isn’t much to laugh about these days, but I did chuckle at Darcy Lindberg’s X (formerly Twit ..read more