Indian Country Today Media Network, based in New York City, boasts an international audience of 300,000 unique monthly visitors to its website, and a controlled weekly magazine print circulation of 22,500.
More than a month after members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa set up camp atop four oil pipelines to protest Enbridge Inc.’s alleged lack of easements across their tribal territory, they say the company’s main answer so far has been to buzz their encampment with low-flying prop planes and choppers.
“Dismissive.” “Out of touch.” “A travesty for the victims.” With these forceful words, one of the world’s leading human rights organizations fired back at Canada’s national police force and the federal government for their response to the group’s report alleging gang-rape, sexual assaults and other abuses of Native women by those charged with protecting them.
American Indian activist, author and educator Mary Ellen Brave Bird-Richard walked on at age 58 on February 14, of natural causes.
Métis people in Canada are jubilant after the Supreme Court of Canada resolved a legal land battle that was 143 years in the making, the second historic constitutional victory in months.
“My people will sleep for 100 years,” prophesied Métis leader Louis Riel before his Canadian execution in 1885. “And when they awake, it will be the artists who give them back their spirit.” For 36-year old installation artist Dylan Miner, the (in)famous insurrectionist’s words are a guiding force. It is a force which has seen him building and displaying his trademark – and distinctly Indigenous – low-rider bicycles across the continent.
Human rights and indigenous groups in Canada are celebrating after Parliament voted unanimously on February 27 to launch a special committee on missing and murdered Native women.
Carrying red and yellow roses symbolizing the 600 aboriginal women murdered and missing, respectively, thousands marched in cities across Canada on Valentine’s Day, banging on the door of the Prime Minister’s office in Ottawa and bringing outrage to Vancouver’s police station steps.
Explosive allegations of gang rape, widespread abuse and anti-Native racism have rocked Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which vowed on February 13 to investigate the claims by one of the world’s leading rights groups.
Idle No More’s founders and leaders are determined to keep the movement’s momentum going and to maintain pressure on aboriginal leaders and the federal government to enact concrete change.
When the housing crisis in Attawapiskat First Nation made headlines worldwide in October 2011 after the community declared a state of emergency, few had heard of the band’s chief, Theresa Spence. Now, because of a hunger strike she launched in the shadow of Parliament Hill, Spence has become a household name across Canada, and a symbol of the still-growing Idle No More movement.
David P Ball 