August 23, 2010
26 million hectares of forest, $17 billion, and one lonely bush pilot
For years, Joel Theriault has waged a losing battle against pesticide spraying in Northern Ontario forests. He’s made enemies in the logging business, the Ministry of Natural Resources—and even among his fellow environmentalists. What keeps him going? Illustration by Dushan Milic On a chilly afternoon in mid-June 2009, bush-pilot-turned-environmental-activist Joel Theriault is once again flying... [More >>]
June 1, 2010
Strapped for funds, Yellowknife’s prison has become a mental health ward
With just one overworked psychiatrist for the whole territory, the North Slave Correctional Centre has become a de facto psychiatric hospital. Stuck in legal limbo, dozens of prisoners wait—and then wait some more—for justice Inside Yellowknife’s courthouse, behind the plastic shield of the prisoner’s docket, Tommy is plucking his fingers: one, two, three, four, from pointer to pinky and... [More >>]
May 17, 2010
Borneo experiment shows how saving the apes could save ourselves
A reforestation scheme in Borneo could radically reshape wildlife protection, land conservation, and indigenous stewardship—simultaneously. Sugar palms are one of the crops that make up the plantation. Photo by Shawn Thompson. Halfway around the world, on the eastern side of the island of Borneo, near the oil city of Balikpapan, a new tropical rainforest is being created out of what was once a... [More >>]
March 31, 2010
Capturing the Life of Helen Betty Osborne, in words and pictures
November 13, 1971, The Pas, Manitoba. Four young white men drive past Helen Betty Osborne, a 19-year-old Cree girl. They call for her to get in the car and party with them. “I think I heard a yes,” one man taunts. When she refuses, the men pull her into the car and drive off. Flip the page, to illustrated panels showing the RCMP knocking on her mother’s door, about to deliver the news of Osborne’s... [More >>]
March 11, 2010
Review: The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill
In The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, Vancouver-based writer Gord Hill blends his visual and literary talents to tell the story of aboriginal life since the arrival of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere in 1492. If the book’s title isn’t enough to tell you what perspective Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, is taking, the names of the book’s three sections certainly will: Invasion,... [More >>]
March 10, 2010
Counting the Vancouver 2010 Olympics’ broken promises
One of Pivot Legal Society's Red Tents on the streets of Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Photo by The Blackbird. The five-ring circus has rolled out of Vancouver, but the tents are still up. Hundreds of red tents, which became as much a symbol of our 2010 Games as those maple leaf mittens, won’t be coming down until we get our housing legacy. That’s the pledge of Pivot Legal Society,... [More >>]
March 1, 2010
Supervised injection sites work—but the feds still don’t get it
The evidence in favour of safe-injection sites is overwhelming, but the federal government appears determined to shut Insite down. Despite ongoing efforts by the Harper government to shut it down, Insite, the Vancouver-based supervised-injection site, is alive and thriving, with over 10,000 registered users and around 800 daily visitors. To Mark Townsend, an Insite representative, it’s a success... [More >>]
February 17, 2010
Interview: sealskin clothing designer and lawyer Aaju Peter
Europe’s sealskin ban threatens her runway-ready apparel—and maybe the entire Inuit way of life Aaju Peter. Illustration by David Donald. A majority of the 27 member states of the European Union voted to ban the trade of seal product imports such as pelts, oil, and meat last July. The ban comes into effect in August 2010. Although the EU did allow a partial exemption for Inuit populations,... [More >>]
January 20, 2010
Innu village of Sheshatshiu out of crisis, into the classroom
A new school in Sheshatshiu, Labrador, has revolutionized teaching and re-energized the whole town. Photo courtesy Innu Nation via Flickr. Many Canadians associate Sheshatshiu with images of children sniffing gas from paper bags. The troubled central Labrador Innu community received nationwide attention in the ’90s as a place in crisis. Now, years later, with the opening of the new Sheshatshiu Innu... [More >>]
January 19, 2010
A modest proposal: turn all Aboriginal lands into the 11th province
Historic treaty boundaries between Canada and Aboriginal peoples. Not representative of any proposed outline for an Aboriginal province; vast areas of Canada have never been formally surrendered or ceded by Aboriginal peoples. Courtesy Ministry of Natural Resources. Click to Enlarge The Royal Proclamation of 1763 included a clause prohibiting British colonists from purchasing “Lands of the Indians,”... [More >>]
