When one thinks of Indigenous engagement in the natural resource economy, one usually thinks of opportunities in the oil and gas industry or in mining. However, increasingly, First Nations are getting involved in commercial forestry. Certain provinces – including...
Last January, a group of breakaway hereditary chiefs from Wet'suwet'en First Nation in the interior of British Columbia erected a blockade at a remote forestry road in protest of the proposed Coastal Gaslink pipeline to Kitimat, BC. Eventually, the issues were...
Statistics Canada’s report on suicide among First Nations people, Métis and Inuit (2011-2016) released June, 2019, found that Indigenous people in Canada die by suicide at a rate three times higher than that for non-Indigenous Canadians. The preamble starts by noting:...
Last week there was yet another “round dance” held at Portage and Main, this one was in support of the “hereditary chiefs” of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation blocking authorized construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia. In spite of a court...
It is not entirely clear whether the Canadian and the global economies are heading for a new inflationary era. It may turn out that inflation is not only elevated from recent negligible levels, but escalates, steadily at first, and then dramatically, as it did in the...
In 1994, the United States, Mexico and Canada created a free-trade region with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Considering the fact that the USA is the largest economy in the world (from 1994 to present), NAFTA was a true asset for the Canadian...
National Chief Shawn Atleo is calling for more First Nations involvement in re-designing the post-Indian Act world. Atleo chastised the federal government's approach towards First Nations by calling it, "limited, narrow, piecemeal and unilateral." He also wants to...
A good First Nations story for a change is the high ranking Fisher River Cree Nation obtained this past year in the Frontier Centre’s annual Aboriginal Governance Index, owing to their progressive economic policies and good governance reforms.
A Manitoba First Nation chief is threatening to divide a reserve to resolve an impasse with community members. Some members are staging a sit-in at the band office. Buffalo Point First Nation is located near the Ontario-Manitoba border. Band administration has already...
Anyone of integrity in the world would be insulted that their government has a department that is strictly to oversee an ethnic group. That is Hitlerlism, that is apartheid, that’s everything this country and any country should be against.
Much is being made of Canadian references in the most recent presidential debate. Canada was mentioned three times by Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's nominee for president. Twice was in reference to the Keystone XL pipeline project, which Romney said he would...
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) responded to Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, by pointing out how other jurisdictions do not have similar disclosure standards. Well, this is not an adequate response. Full stop. It does not address the issue...
Frontier has been fortunate to provide some recognition of the highest scoring First Nations in each of the three Prairie Provinces in the form of a plague and a cheque for $5,000.
I was interviewed by a campus radio station in Winnipeg this morning. The main question was why I supported the proposed First Nations Property Ownership Act that is expected to be introduced in Parliament next year. The main reason I gave was the the federal...
National Chief Shawn Atleo Shawn Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) opened up the first session of the AFN's Special Chiefs Assembly on Education today. There were plenty of speeches and even some grandstanding vis-a-vis the federal government. But, let's...