Most of the attention on the subject of indigenous education in the last three decades has been on residential schools. But other aspects of this important topic have been ignored. Quite simply, the real tragedy of indigenous education is not that some indigenous...
Ontario’s appeal of the Restoule Court of Appeal decision was argued before a full panel of the Supreme Court of Canada on November 7th and 8th, 2023. The writer was present in the courtroom. Ontario was the only appellant. Canada supported the position of the treaty...
Most people have heroes, people in history or people still living, people who inspire, evoke strong feelings of admiration, respect, love. High on my list of heroes is Geswanouth Slahoot, aka Chief Dan George. The more I learn about him, the higher his name climbs. A...
From Truth Comes Reconciliation
In his annual State of the Climate report published on April 14, 2022, Dr. Ole Humlum, Emeritus Professor at the University of Oslo, examined detailed patterns in temperature changes in the atmosphere and oceans together with trends in climate impacts. Many of these...
I wrote an opinion column immediately following the May 27, 2021 announcement of the “shocking discovery of 215 bodies found in a mass grave at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.” In that column, I correctly stressed the need to wait for real...
George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. John A. MacDonald. These men are worthy of remembrance and acknowledgement for their contributions to the great nations of the United States and Canada. Unfortunately, as dead white males, they are also the targets of critical...
One of the main reasons for the lack of progress on the federal Indigenous file is the lack of united support among First Nations for real change. Sadly, our non-Indigenous political leaders do not talk about this, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau being one...
While activists and protesters celebrate the destruction of Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue in Montreal, they probably don’t want to be reminded that in neighbouring Ontario there stands another statue, one that has thus far escaped the wrath of Black and Indigenous...
First the radicals came for the statues, and some have already been taken down. That was easy because the statues represented dead white men. Now the radicals are coming for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR). Will it, too, be knocked down? Before the long...
Modern democracy is the crucible in which conflicts, grievances, rights, privileges, and power have been melded to produce a period of unprecedented peace following World War II, a period that gave rise to capitalism, to globalization, and to the vision of a global...
Canadian universities had been shut down since March because of the COVID-19 virus. Yet, during the first week of classes in September, university professors went on a two-day “Scholar Strike” to protest against “anti-black violence.” One wonders why this strike...
In 2020, for many Canadians in remote and Northern regions – in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities – access to reliable cell phone coverage is still a distant reality. That should be a national scandal. Politicians of all stripes continue to promise...
An infamous quote (“Screw the west, we’ll take the rest”) from then Liberal organizer Keith Davey during the 1980 election drove Albertans’ bumper stickers saying “let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark”. Pierre Trudeau and his notorious National Energy Program...
It’s easy to forget that at the beginning of the year, Canada was right in the middle of another crisis triggered by a series of protests over a natural gas pipeline being built through northern B.C. The issue of Indigenous reconciliation was front and centre in our...