Shelley Niro’s visual art and film have explored a borderless continent, power and pop culture, life on First Nations reserves, and much more – never without a sense of self. Niro, born in 1954 in Niagara Falls, New York, is a Mohawk artist from the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ont. Living in Brantford, she works in film, photography, paint, and installation art to illuminate subjects—often herself, friends or relatives—in ways that talk back to normalized stereotypes of Indigenous women. This year, Niro is one of eight recipients of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, and a group exhibition of their works will be on view starting April 8 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. This recently spoke with Niro about her artistic process and the inspiration she draws from those closest to her.

When did you first get involved in art making, and what was your path to becoming a working artist?

I made art most of my life, but I really began to do it on a full-time basis around the mid-’80s. I said if I really want to become an artist, I have to develop some confidence in what I’m doing and stop doubting it. I just started to follow that path, to stop questioning what I’m doing and just go for it.

The photograph that drew me to your work was “The Rebel” (1991), which then led me to Mohawks in Beehives series (1991) and to your 1998 film Honey Moccasin. How did those projects come together?

In those works I used my family—my mother and my sisters. Mohawks in Beehives, that was right after the Oka Crisis, and I wanted to do something that was kind of uplifting, something that was not serious. During that time, every time we opened up the newspaper there was always something about, if not Mohawks, the Native population in Canada. It was always dark and dreary and you’d always see stories of suicides on reserves, poverty, and how Natives are taking money from the taxpayers. So, I was challenged to either try to change a perspective or just do something for myself so that it would make me not so depressed about what I’m reading.

“The Rebel” (1991)

Why did you choose to use family members and friends as models?

I really like using family and friends because it gives me an opportunity to be with them, even when they’re not modelling, but I can still respond to them as I’m working on a photograph. And I’m archiving them as well, as I keep using them.

A lot of your recent work, such as “Memories of Flight” or Flying Woman series, seems to look in two directions: inward and outward, to the past and toward the future. Is that how you see it?

Yeah, I do. I think you always have to look to the future, because if you do that there’s always hope there. If you stop looking toward the future, something’s missing. I think, too, looking at the past, looking through memory, and acknowledging ancestors is also something I find I have to do in my work, because it’s an element I grew up with and I want to continue doing that.

“Flying Woman”

How do you think oral histories translate into painting and still photography?

I can’t literally translate what the oral history is, but I think it’s important to know that history was passed down that way. I don’t like to be so literal in my art making that it’s like, “This is oral history.” I think it’s something that generates and inspires me to continue and to be inventive in the work itself. I get a lot of comfort knowing that those histories have been spoken about for many years, that I’m not just starting at zero. It comes through foundations and layers of knowledge that I know about and my friends and family know about as well. It’s just important to know that it’s not new.

You often have many types of media in one work, whether it’s performance, still photography, or 16 mm film. How do you navigate these different elements?

I see film as sculpture. As you’re shaping your film, you have to bring elements that will make it a lot stronger and entertaining. You don’t want to make a boring film. So I really try to think of those things, especially because I know Native people will be watching it. I want to put elements in there that they can relate to and hopefully appreciate.

Photos courtesy of Shelley Niro.

Photo by Mark J Chalifoux Photography

Montreal choreographer confronts street life, addiction, and the Canadian aboriginal experience

As calls for a public inquiry into the many cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada go unheard by the federal government, Montreal choreographer Lara Kramer’s most recent piece, titled NGS (“Native Girl Syndrome”), could not be more timely.

“Native Girl Syndrome” references a term Kramer came across as she researched her first dance piece on residential schools (a compulsory education system notorious for its abuse and assimilation of aboriginal children in Canada). The term refers to the likelihood of aboriginal girls who, upon leaving residential school, enter abusive relationships or prostitution. Too often,  these women also end up on the streets or in jail. “I thought the name was really potent,” says Kramer, “so I held on to it. It really helped shape the piece.”

NGS explores themes of addiction, cultural disorientation, and alienation, all in relation to the Canadian aboriginal experience. Performed by Karina Iraola and Angie Cheng, it unfolds against a backdrop of street and urban culture. Kramer says the initial inspiration for the work was her grandmother, who moved  from her remote community of Lac Seul in northwestern Ontario to live on the city streets in Winnipeg.

The piece is not, however, a depiction of the one specific story of her grandmother, adds Kramer. Rather, NGS offers comment on street life, the addiction of two women—and something larger.  Kramer’s characters have a history. “NGS looks at the aftermath of cultural genocide in Canada, the whitewashing of native people in this country and its effects,” Kramer says, “When I see the vicious cycle of addiction and prostitution of First Nations women, I feel it’s part of something bigger.”

Since it was first performed last year, NGS has toured to Montreal, Vancouver, and Edmonton, among other cities. Kramer has designed the piece to be accessible to an audience beyond contemporary dance enthusiasts—she straddles the line between dance and theatre to be as realistic as possible. No background in dance is required to understand the themes and messages.

In this regard, NGS is characteristic of Kramer’s approach to movement and the body. She didn’t want to use the body as an abstract form, says Kramer. “I wanted to go from a realistic approach,” she adds, “so a lot of my approach to the body is giving the performer time to investigate the environment.”

Although Kramer’s roots, ancestors and much of her family are from the Lac Seul First Nation community, she was born in London, Ont. She has been dancing since she was three years old, eventually moving to Montreal, Que., to study dance creation at Concordia University, graduating in 2008. In 2012, she founded her company, Lara Kramer Danse, to support the research, creation and production of her work and community projects, such as offering school-age children an opportunity to connect with theatre and dance. Her work has become more politically charged with time and now focuses around human rights issues affecting aboriginals in Canada, which earned her recognition as a human rights advocate from the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre.

Next spring, Kramer will start on the creation of a piece titled Tame, which deals with the themes of restraint on self-expression and the boundaries between normalcy and creative expression, which she expects to be ready for fall 2015. Although no performances of NGS are scheduled at the moment, Kramer is planning some for the coming months, notably in the U.S.

Site of the now-rejected Kanata gravel mine on land owned by the Elizabeth Metis Nation. Satellite imagery via Google.

A project that would have provided hundreds of Metis with jobs and affordable housing was quashed on Tuesday, with a 7-6 vote by the Edmonton City Council. And though it may not seem so at first glance, that decision was likely for the best. While the project’s benefits were appealing, there were some deeper problems with the proposal, especially its environmental toll. But whether you agree with the Edmonton councillors’ decision or not, the case raises a host of important questions: how to address the pressing social and economic needs of Canada’s aboriginal communities, for instance, and how to balance economic prosperity with environmental sustainability. These are thorny, complicated, politically charged issues, so it’s important to pay attention to decisions like this and how they’re getting made.

Here’s the background: Kanata Metis Cultural Enterprises Ltd., which is owned by the Elizabeth Metis community, proposed a gravel mining operation to be started up on land it bought in 2009.  According to  the  corporation’s proposal, the mine would have been operated for three to five years, created up to 300 jobs for members of the Metis nation, and yielded 1.7 million tonnes of gravel, the profits of which would have been used to fund Metis-focused social programs such as building affordable housing.

Opposition to the mine sprung up because the proposed site was right beside the North Saskatchewan River and, according to local conservationists, better left untouched. The North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society posited that a gravel mine in the river valley could damage nearby wetlands and kick up large amounts of dust, harmful to area residents.

The argument against the mine was bolstered by the fact that the Edmonton Municipal Development Plan of 2010 specifically prohibits the harvesting of resources in the North Saskatchewan River Valley.

The task of the Edmonton City Council was to determine whether an exception could be made to the prohibition. Normally such a decision would be based on the potential value of the proposed project. But this particular case gave councillors much more to think about, as it raised questions about environmental protection, self-government, and aboriginal land rights (The Kanata Metis appeared to have taken on the role of standing in for Metis people across Canada, the term “our people” having been used frequently by proponents of the mine).

At a very basic level, the case could be made that Kanata Metis Cultural Enterprises should be allowed to mine the land because they own it. And although the city has prohibited activities such as mining in that area, the question of land ownership and use is complicated when it involves Aboriginal groups, self-governance being a stated priority of the Canadian government’s relationship with Aboriginal peoples. Although the mining proposal isn’t a cut and dried analogue, aboriginal communities’ autonomy is part of the mix of issues here.

Another major argument in favour of granting the Kanata Metis corporation exclusive mining rights to the area, was that the Metis nation, like many Aboriginals in Canada, are in need of assistance, and owed some form of compensation.

The 2006 census reported that the Metis employment rate amongst adults was 74.6 percent. Although this was a four percent improvement over 2001’s figures, it still placed Metis behind the non-Aboriginal population, whose employment rate was 81.6 percent. The 2006 census also reported that, as of the previous year, the median income for Metis was $5,000 lower than it was for non-Aboriginals. This inequity was even greater in Alberta, where the median Metis income was $6,600 lower than non-Aboriginals’.

Evidently a job-creation project with a focus on Albertan Metis deserves some thought, especially if it is also going to contribute funding to housing and training programs, as the Kanata Metis corporation said the mine would have.

But while the local Metis population would have benefited from the gravel mine, how should that be weighed against the environmental costs?

While campaigning in favour of the mine, Archie Collins, a councillor of the Elizabeth Metis settlement, described the Metis people as “stewards of the land,” a cliché about indigenous peoples often invoked by interested parties, aboriginal or otherwise, that portrays aboriginals as inherently protective and understanding of the earth and environment.

There are already conservation laws to which aboriginals are exempt because of their cultures’ unique relationships to nature. Hunting and fishing regulations, for example, do not apply to aboriginal Canadians, on the grounds that their cultural traditions, which include hunting and fishing, supersede Canadian laws.

Gravel mining, however, is not part of the Metis cultural tradition. It would have been undertaken only as a commercial opportunity, which makes it quite different from the hunting and fishing examples. Collins’s “stewards of the land” image, while romantic, does not exactly jibe with digging up a river’s watershed in search of gravel.

There is no doubt that the Kanata Metis Cultural Enterprises mine would have brought some needed material prosperity for Edmonton-area Metis. There is even less doubt that the Metis — like all Canadian aboriginal peoples — are owed some manner of reparations after a long history of oppression and marginalization. But there are better ways to help than the North Saskatchewan River gravel mine. There are definitely less environmentally damaging options. In the end Edmonton City Council made a tough choice, but it was the right one.

Metis National Council president Clément Chartier

Today we’ve got a new entry in the Verbatim series, the transcripts we provide of our Listen to This podcast. (Just a reminder that you can catch new, original interviews every other Monday—you can subscribe with any podcast listening program by grabbing the podcast rss feed, or easily subscribing through iTunes.)

In this interview, Nick Taylor-Vaisey talks with Clément Chartier, president of the Metis National Council, about the MNC’s relationship with the federal government, the legislative successes it has forged, what still needs to be done, and how the Metis nation’s interests coincide with First Nations and Inuit constitutencies.

Q&A

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: We’re talking about the future, in this podcast, of the Metis Nation, the Metis people in Canada. We’re a couple of days into a session of Parliament, on Parliament Hill, we’re sitting just a few blocks away from those politicians down the street. What kind of role do they play in the future of Metis people? How are you going to talk to them or engage with them, over the next days, weeks, months, and years?

Clément Chartier: Well, of course, as we know, Members of Parliament form government or opposition with other parties, and basically Parliament makes the laws, and the laws, since the inception of Canada in 1867, have had tremendous effect on the Metis Nation, and not necessarily always for the good. So Parliament is very important, all institutions of Parliament. This morning I did meet with the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, John Duncan, who is also what’s known as the Federal Interlocutor for Metis. And so we had a discussion about some of the activities we’ve been doing over the past two years with his predecessor, Minister Strahl, primarily on economic opportunities, economic development, some initiatives like the Juno Beach commemoration ceremony that we had last November, where there is now going to be a permanent display with respect to the Metis veterans’ contribution to world peace. So that, you know, is something that we have been doing over the past little while.

But I have a bigger agenda that I’d like to pursue with Parliament, and in fact have written to the former Prime Minister, Mr. Paul Martin, and to the current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, with respect to the big issues, such as the right of government, self-government, self-determination, the right to a land base, and that’s I suppose, when I mentioned earlier that Parliament has had an effect on the Metis, and I would think, a rather negative effect on the Metis, with respect to legislation passed in the 1800s, well, primarily 1879, which was the major one, where a system known as the scrip system was imposed on the Metis in terms of dealing with land rights. When the Metis provisional government in 1870 negotiated the entry of Manitoba into Confederation, under the leadership of Louis Riel, an accomodation was made with respect to land rights, and 1.4 million acres were set aside for the children of the Metis heads of families in the original province of Manitoba, which was called the ‘postage stamp province’ because it was 150 miles by 50 miles.

And there is a case working its way to the Supreme Court of Canada, whereby the Metis, the Manitoba Metis Federation, saying they didn’t get that promised land under Section 31 [of the Manitoba Act of 1870]. The two previous courts have ruled against them, so hopefully the Supreme Court of Canada is more favourable in its ruling. But based on that, to deal with the families, or the heads of families, the Dominion Lands Act in 1872 was amended to distribute scrip to the heads of families. And both of these initiatives worked towards the extinguishment of the unit title, preferred by the Metis. The term used at the time, of course, was ‘the halfbreeds.’ But we use the term ‘Metis’ now. And in 1879 it was expanded to include the Metis surrounding the original province of Manitoba, and basically the position of government now is that with the scrip system, and with several scrip commissions sent out, some starting I think with Treaty 8, where the commissioner was both the treaty commissioner and the scrip commissioner. And with that process the position of government, through their Department of Justice, is that whatever aboriginal rights and title the Metis had to land has been extinguished.

So that’s a big issue for us. But for the Metis in Alberta, there is no land base for the Metis within Canada. And in Alberta, in 1938, after a hearing into the issue, the provincial government set aside 12 large parcels of land for the Metis to live on. Eight of them have since been rescinded. Sorry, four have since been rescinded, eight are still in existence. They’re known as Metis settlements now, and there is provincial legislation dealing with Metis settlements and with governance on those Metis settlements. And so, again, but for that we have no land base. We were dispossessed by the system, and by and large, roughly speaking, about 240 acres per person were distributed, so-called, to the Metis population. But virtually, virtually all of it fell into hands of speculators, and so the Metis, as I say, became dispossessed.

So I did write, as I mention, to the former Prime Minister and to this Prime Minister, saying that we need to resolve this issue if the well-being of the Metis Nation is going to be dealt with, you know, the overall health of the Metis Nation, as a people, is going to be addressed and corrected. That we need to deal with this issue. And why I say that as well is, in 1994, the Metis of northwest Saskatchewan, the Metis Nation–Saskatchewan, and the Metis National Council filed a statement of claim in the court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatchewan, claiming continued aboriginal rights and title to all of the lands in northwest Saskatchewan — a statement or declaration to that effect — on the basis that the scrip system was such a sham that did not accomplish extinguishment of the aboriginal title rights of the Metis to those lands and resources. And that’s a test case. The problem is, we don’t have the necessary financing to engage the lawyers on a full-time basis to take this to court. A lot of research has taken place, but we anticipate a year-long trial, and so to engage lawyers to be involved in a year-long trial would be quite costly.

So we sought solutions. One of the solutions we offered to the government, both the Prime Minister and the previous Prime Minister is that they, who were the perpetrators of, or the persons that passed this legislation and imposed this system on us, should have the obligation to see whether that system validly extinguished our rights as a people. The onus should be on them, not on us. But we’re saying, if you choose not to do that, then, set up a commission, like to get a judicial decision, but if you choose not to do that, we have to take it to court to get the courts to decide, and set up a commission which will examine those issues and come up with recommendations at the end of the day, and failing that, then setting up a fund from which we can draw on to move it forward as a test case that we will drive, and that they will of course be participants in as, I suppose, as opposing our petitions. We haven’t had any full discussion on that yet, and that’s something we need to engage in.

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: Now, you mentioned former Prime Minister Paul Martin. He hasn’t been prime minister in five years. Prime Minister Harper has been prime minister since. What kind of response have you gotten? You say you haven’t had a full discussion. That’s a long time then, that you’ve been knocking on the doors.

Clément Chartier: Yes well we did sign a protocol, the Metis Nation Protocol, September of 2008, and basically in it we’ve opened the opportunity to address that issue. But because of this government and its bent in a certain direction, we’ve been deaing mainly with economic opportunities and economic development, which are also sorely needed in our communities. So the rights agenda as such hasn’t been pushed as hard as it could be because it’s not going to necessarily be embraced fully. So we’re, I guess, biding our time, but…

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: You’re trying to work with the government on issues you can work with the government on?

Clément Chartier: That’s true, but we also want to work on this issue, and that one of the things I’ll be pushing next year, is to address some of these outstanding legal issues. And in fact, with the Prime Minister’s apology, June 11th 2008, I was there in the House of Commons, and responded to that apology, and of course it didn’t cover us, it didn’t cover those that attended Metis residential schools, because the federal government said “we weren’t resposible, we didn’t pay the clergy to run those for you, so you’re not covered.” But nevertheless, we are still, even so, still pushing all these other aspects and that’s one of them, that still needs to be addressed. But coming out of that apology, or lack thereof, for the Metis, we ended up with, a couple months later, the protocol which enabled us to address the outstanding issues of residential schools, also the outstanding issues with respect to Metis veterans who served in the wars, particularly in this case the Second World War. To this day it’s only the Metis veterans now that haven’t been dealt with properly by the state. Everybody else has, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, so that’s still another issue. But we did do the June 11th monument at Juno Beach last November, so that’s at least a step forward…

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: Right.

Clément Chartier: There are still issues unresolved. So I’m hoping to move to the land rights issues, hopefully through the next year or two.

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: Right, now I’m looking at this protocol, which listeners should know is on the wall here on the office, and I see a lot of issues being set up for discussion: housing, child and family services, health, education, and training. A broad array of issues, and it was signed by the former minister, Chuck Strahl. But now, of course, there’s a new minister, have you, you said you’ve just met with the new minister, Minister Duncan. What kind of responses are you getting from the new minister?

Clément Chartier: Well, we had an hour-long meeting, and basically I walked through what we’ve done over the past two years with Minister Strahl, since we signed the protocol, and what led up to it, and we had a very good discussion on it, particularly emphasizing economic development, economic opportunities. And this agreement is also permissive in that we would like to draw in the five provinces, Ontario-West, within which the Metis homeland and those governments, by and large, coincide. And in fact we have been successful; we’ve had a Metis economic development symposium in Calgary, last December, where the aboriginal affairs minsters from Ontario-West, Minister Strahl, and our leadership got together for a political dinner between officials for two days of meetings, involving industry as well, and we’re going to have a follow-up meeting in January.

So in that sense it’s been doing good, that we’ve been getting this kind of engagement. And the minister this morning agreed that we would look at January 19th for the political dinner, the next two dates for our officials to meet, so he’s following up on what we developed with Minister Strahl, he doesn’t seem to be backing away from any of that. And I think our opportunities to work with him will be good. It’s hard to tell at this stage, but I get a good feeling that yes, we will continue with that momentum, and by and large because the Prime Minister as well has endorsed the Protocol and the relationship that we’re developing. We have letters from the Prime Minister, and so I think it’s an all-of-government approach with us where we’re making some small, incremental steps on the inssues, particularly economic development.

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: It sounds like the relationship between the Metis and the government is different than the relationship between the First Nations and Inuit, and government; different issues, different approach. What do you think of that?

Clément Chartier: I’m not sure it’s different issues, but what it is, it is a different approach because, again, after 1870, particularly in the west, the government treated with the Metis differently than it did with the First Nations people. Treaty 1 was signed, I believe, in 1871. And in the meantime, with the Metis, who were looked at as individuals, and individual allotments were put in place with no guarantees of anything else. And with the treaty nations, of course, you have the treaties with guarantees in them, for land, for education, for assistance in times of need, you know, those kinds of things, and you have the Department of Indian Affairs, which is guided by the Indian Act. And even that, that is a big issue for us, and another one we’re trying to deal with, with my letters to the prime ministers, the former prime minister and this prime minister. In 1867, when Canada was formed, you have the federal powers under 91 [section 91 of the Constitution Act of 1867] and the provincial powers under [section] 92. The 24th head of power [section 91, subsection 24] for the federal government is “Indians, and the lands reserved for the Indians.” And the position of the federal government is that ‘Indians’ means Indians covered by the Indian Act. And in 1939 the Supreme Court of Canada said “no, ‘Indians’ includes Inuit.” There was a reference case. But the federal position is “yes OK, the term ‘Indians’ in 91-24 covers status or treaty Indians and the Inuit, but not the Metis, therefore Metis are a provincial responsibility.” The provinces said “no, Metis are a federal responsibility, constitutional Indians or Indians in the generic sense, ‘Indians’ and ‘aboriginal peoples’ having the same meaning.” And so that’s our position as well. And so it’s not that they’re necessarily responsible to run our lives, but it’s that they have the jurisdiction to deal with us on a government-to-government basis, so that we’re not divided up between five provinces and have five different kinds of regimes.

So that jurisdictional issue is still bedevilling us today. And so the federal position, by and large, for example, under health we have the First Nations and Inuit health branch, so the Metis aren’t covered there, except we have broken into it a bit since Prime Minister Paul Martin’s 2004 first ministers’ meeting on health. It brought us in to a small degree, but by and large we are excluded from a lot of the federal programs and services. Again, it’s based on that issue of jurisdiction and 91-24. So once they’ve dealt with us via the scrip system, and said our rights are gone, they just washed their hands off us. So that issue is one that we still need to resolve, and so that’s going to be an on-going issue, along with the land rights issue, it’s this whole jurisdictional issue.

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: We’re talking about the future of the Metis in this podcast, and I wonder how the definition of the Metis Nation — you just explained it geographically, historically — how do you ensure the survival of that nation long into the future? Not just years or decades, but centuries?

Clément Chartier: Well, it’s not only our challenge, if I understand you correctly. The First Nations communities as well, I know several years ago the Assembly of First Nations mentioned that there — because of the Indian Act definitions — that there are two reserves in Manitoba that have already reached the point where there are no ‘Indians’ left, by definition, and that in the future most of the reserves or ‘the Indian people,’ by definition of the Indian Act, would disappear. So we have to move to, and we’ve done that, we’re going based on citizenship, not like “OK, you have so much Metis blood in you,” so to speak. It’s basically those that have a connection to the Metis Nation historically, and can prove that. And that’s really all that’s required to be a citizen. And our culture is getting stronger. We’re working hard to preserve the Michif language. And we’re working hard to aquire our rights to a land base, not that we expect a whole lot of people to move onto a land base, but at least those that do want to live on a land base, that they should have that opportunity. But they should also have opportunities to enter into partnerships with resource industries to develop areas that were traditionally our homelands. And be part of that economic mainstream. Not to pillage the land but to sustainably develop and make a livelihood for ourselves.

So I think basically it’s identifying with a culture and with a people, and I think that is growing stronger as opposed to weaker. And I think that will stay in place. And I think that will be the same thing for First Nations as well, as long as they move to their citizenship criteria, that they have the right to manage and control and deal with, rather than the federal government saying “this is who — the person that’s recognised by us.” I don’t see imminent danger of the Metis people and culture disappearing. Now, if it’s only based on being, you know, Metis is only someone with mixed blood, and over time that goes away, and they have no culture or history or anything to latch on to, then I could see that possibly happening with that sector of the Canadian population, but not with those that identify as a people and as a nation with a history and a culture, and basically, an existence. So I really see no danger in that. I can’t see that happening.

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: Sure. Aboriginal education seems to be… there’s a lot of momentum gathering behind that. Inuit, First Nations, Metis leaders, including yourself, have all come out saying this needs to be on the national agenda. How can that contribute to the preservation and the celebration of the Metis Nation?

Clément Chartier: Well we’re looking at the capacity and the ability to be engaged in the education of our people, not necessarily outside of mainstream education as such, because we have a good track record in Saskatchewan. We have the Gabrial Dumont Institute, which is this year celebrating its 30th anniversary. And one of the programs under the Gabriel Dumont Institute is called SUNTEP (Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program). And it’s graduated close to a thousand people, or teachers, with a Bachelor of Education. And so they’re instilled with their own values, of course. They know the culture, and of course they study the Metis history, and also the other prerequisites to become an educator. And so they can then go into the schools and impart that knowledge. And that’s been very helpful for us. They don’t all stay in the education field, some go off to do other things, but they still have that in-depth knowledge. And we also have, that’s GDI, we also have Dumont College which is affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan, and they offer some arts programs and things of that nature. And so it’s getting involved, not assimilated but intergrated, into that system, and getting our poeple into the system of education itself and also then into the communities. I know in my community, in Buffalo Narrows in northwest Saskatchewan, a lot of the teachers are now Metis, a lot of them are right from the community, whereas in the past, when I went to school, it was all outside non-aboriginal people coming in, into the schools. So I think we’ve come a long way in that respect. The Metis, however, don’t get the same degree of education assistance as the First Nations and Inuit. They probably don’t get enough as it is, but they do get some, which is beneficial. And we don’t hold that against them at all.

Nick Taylor-Vaisey: Any final words for listeners?

Clément Chartier: Well, the Metis Nation has a lot of challenges, but we’ve also had some successes over the years, with different prime ministers, different political parties that have formed government over the years. We just continue to persevere and we believe that as a people we will continue to make movement forward. The big issue for us, though, is to address this whole issue of land and jurisdiction, just so that we can get back to the table to the same degree that other aboriginal peoples and nations are.

Winners of the 2010 Governor General's Awards for Visual and Media Arts. Left to right: Claude Tousignant, Ione Thorkelsson, Rita Letendre, Gabor Szilasi, Tom Sherman, Terry Ryan, Robert Davidson, André Forcier.

The winners of the 2010 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts were announced today in Montreal. The winners receive $25,000 to support their work and recognize their contributions to Canadian visual art. From the press release:

Haida sculptor Robert Davidson, filmmaker André Forcier, painter Rita Letendre, video artist Tom Sherman, photographer Gabor Szilasi and painter Claude Tousignant won the awards for artistic achievement. Glass sculptor Ione Thorkelsson won the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in fine crafts, while Terry Ryan received the Outstanding Contribution Award as long-time general manager of West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in Cape Dorset, Nunavut and director of Dorset Fine Arts in Toronto.

Click on any of the thumbnails below to see some of the winning works.

Cover of the March-April 2010 issue of This Magazine. Click to enlarge.

The March-April 2010 issue of This Magazine will be landing in subscribers’ mailboxes this week and is now on most newsstands coast to coast. (If you haven’t subscribed yet, this is a great time to do it, locking in a great price before the HST comes along. Just sayin’!) As always, the stories will all appear here on the website over the next few weeks. We suggest subscribing to our RSS feed to ensure you never miss a new article going online, following us on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook for updates, new articles and other sweet interwebby goodness.

On the cover this issue is John Duncan‘s investigation into the Canadian Forces’ future plans in Afghanistan. As the clock ticks down to the 2011 date for pulling out, Duncan finds, there are plenty of reasons to doubt that deadline will be met, and that Canada’s military is quietly prepping for alternate scenarios — including the possibility of Canadian CF-18s supplementing the Nato air campaign. And Aaron Broverman finds that militarization is creeping into other aspects of our lives as well, in the form of a global geopolitical struggle to control the ebb and flow of information on the internet. As repressive regimes abroad—not to mention law-enforcement agencies here at home—look for ever more intrusive ways to monitor civilians online, a small clutch of Canadian hackers are fighting back and working to keep the lines of communication open. And while the Communist Party of Canada has long been in the political wilderness, finds Eric Rail, its leader, Miguel Figeuroa, has been busy anyway, serving as party leader for 17 years and changing Canadian electoral law in some pretty substantial ways in the process.

There’s plenty more: Ashley Holly McEachern sends a postcard from Honduras reporting on the coup that has thrown the country into turmoil; Nav Purewal uncovers the unlikely origins of a Canadian movement to ban the burka; Alison Garwood-Jones reports from January’s Interior Design Show on the designers who are planning for our post-petroleum future; Paul McLaughlin interviews Globe and Mail former Afghanistan correspondent Graeme Smith; Max Fawcett warns that Canada’s looming pension crisis is a demographic time bomb; and Susan Peters profiles the authors of a new graphic novel telling the story of Helen Betty Osborne, a Cree girl abducted and killed 30 years ago, and whose story has largely gone untold until now.

PLUS: Tara-Michelle Ziniuk on The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book; Darryl Whetter on e-books; Allison Martell on the global shipping industry; Joshua Hergesheimer on an innovative Ethiopian aid project withering for lack of funds; Herb Mathisen on cellphone tower radiation; Kelly-Anne Reiss on Craik, Saskatchewan’s new eco-village concept; Alixandra Gould on progressive religions; Bruce M. Hicks on public inquiries; Raina Delisle on the aftermath of the Olympics; Ava Baccari on a literary atlas of Toronto; Navneet Alang on the internet’s high-culture pirates; Graham F. Scott on Canada’s broken aid promises.

With new poetry by Jason Camlot; and new fiction by Jessica Westhead.

Click to download the PDF from the Native Youth Sexual Health Network

With Valentine’s Day around the corner and ladies coast to coast anticipating some special show of affection, there are alternative efforts toward female appreciation also being made.

The Native Youth Sexual Health Network has just released a collection of writing by Aboriginal men about how they can help put a stop to violence against women in their communities and abroad. A brief introduction and some interesting excerpts from the collection, titled Protecting the Circle: Aboriginal Men Ending Violence Against Women, can be found in this blog post from Racialicious.

The following poem, by a man named Walter Woodman, is included in the collection and provides a moving case for why women need to be respected and protected:

Strength is something all men want
to shed tears or have fears
is something we taunt.
To show force against mothers, sisters, girlfriends
isn’t something you do
as REAL men.
To be humble yet strong role model to others
to not only see women as things
but all of them mothers.
For without them where would we be?
no mother earth, no mothers womb
no mother you, mother me.
A woman has given you life as a gift
so respect her, cherish her
so your soul can lift.
A woman is creator
A woman is love
A woman is mother
Mother earth, and the sky above.

The unique project provides a fresh outlook on a serious issue that has been largely ignored in Canada in past decades. According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), over 500 Indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered over the past 30 or 40 years in Canada. Furthermore, there has been very little media attention or action on behalf of the public and the authorities to try and address the issue.

The collection has also been released just prior to a No More Silence (NMS) rally and march to generate awareness about missing Indigenous women and combat violence against these sisters. The event, which takes place in Toronto on Sunday, February 14 at noon, will start at the Toronto Police Headquarters (located at Bay St. and College St.) and will end in a free feast at the Centre for Women and Trans People at the University of Toronto. More information can be found on rabble.ca by clicking here.

It seems as though, this year, Valentine’s Day is not merely about showering one woman with chocolates and flowers, but about demonstrating a love for all women through recognition and celebration.

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger climbs the flagpole in front of RBC on July 28, 2009. Photos courtesy Rainforest Action Network.

[This post has been updated yet again, see below]

Imagine being afraid of the air your daughter breathes, watching your family burying their friends from rare cancers connected to toxic leakage, being unable to eat the plants or animals around you because they are sick, and swimming in your local lake has become dangerous to your health. This is not the picture of a future world gone ecologically mad. This is reality right now for Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a 30-year-old Dene native living downstream from the tar sands of Alberta.

For Eriel and many other First Nations communities living in Fort Chipewyan, ground zero of the tar-sands fallout, this eco-nightmare is everyday life. But Eriel, coming from a long line of activists, is, as she says, “standing up to the madness.” Deranger is the Tar Sands Campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network.

Uncomfortable calling herself an eco-activist, much less an “eco-warrior,” Deranger considers her work with RAN more to be defending indigenous rights. She argues that what is happening with the tar sands is just a continuation in North America of the same old genocidal tactics: trampling on the basic needs of First Nations people in the name of economic prosperity. But whose prosperity is it? In the past, it was colonialists appropriating land and resources. Today, it is the air, water, food and livelihoods of Canada’s aboriginal communities that are being poisoned because of governments’ and corporations’ get-rich-quick scheme in dirty oil.

“Whether it be environmental activism, Indigenous rights activism or any kind of activism — it all comes down to fighting for our survival,” says Deranger.

And survival is what is at stake, she says. Because what has been touted as the world’s largest energy project is also the world’s most destructive engineering project. Andrew Nikiforuk, the crusading journalist who has been exhaustively chronicling the destructive effects of this project writes in his book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent:

A business-as-usual case for the tar sands will change Canada forever. It will enrich a few powerful companies, hollow out the economy, destroy the world’s third-largest watershed, industrialize nearly one-quarter of Alberta’s landscape, consume the last of the nation’s natural gas supplies, and erode Canadian sovereignty.

Not to mention carve into the boreal forest (a larger carbon sink than the Amazon rainforest); inject toxins into the Athabasca River through tailing-pond leakage (the same chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, that are associated with the rare cancers found in First Nations communities); make Canada one of the only countries to use nuclear power to increase fossil fuel development; and blacken the sky with increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

“We need a moratorium on new tar sands development. We can’t continue to expand. It’s absurd and idiotic to push forward,” says Deranger.

Deranger is willing to achieve that moratorium with any and all kinds of non-violent means that she can. From demonstrations, rallies, days of action, and her most recent protest: scaling to the top of a Canadian flagpole at the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC) Toronto headquarters , dropping a banner reading “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com.” This appeal, by RAN and the Ruckus Society, was directed at Janet Nixon, wife of RBC CEO Gordon Nixon, asking her to lend her strong and influential voice with her husband to pull the bank’s massive investments in Alberta tar sands projects.

For Deranger, information is power and it is her hope that more Canadians, including influential Canadians like Nixon, will get the message through acts such as these.

“All of the little things slowly add up and it is my hope that more eyes will open and more people will stand up for what is right,” says Deranger.

All of us, as Canadians, have our hands in dirty oil development, whether we realize it or not. When we pump up for gas at Shell, we are funneling money to the largest stakeholder in the oil sands.By doing our banking at RBC, our money is being invested into the largest banker of the oil sands. Not to mention how much of our taxes are being diverted into our governments’ support for the tar sands.

UPDATE: A Government of Alberta spokesperson contacted This about EcoChamber #15, requesting corrections to this blog post. Specifically, the Alberta government denies any link between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, and cancer incidence in the Athabasca watershed; it also says there is no evidence of seepage from the Athabasca tailings ponds. With respect, we disagree with the government’s response and have not altered this post. However, in the interest of airing all perspectives, here is the text of the email we received:

Dear Emily Hunter and This Magazine:

We request a correction to incorrect information published by you today. In the story “EcoChamber #15: Meet the woman at Ground Zero of the tar-sands fight,” you make the statement that oil sands developments “inject toxins into the Athabasca River through tailing-pond leakage (the same chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, that are associated with the rare cancers found in First Nations communities).”

Regarding PAHs and your claimed linkage to cancer downstream of oil sands, I refer you to the report “Cancer Incidence in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, 1995-2006,” for the Alberta Cancer Board. Specifically relating to PAHs, please see page 35. In brief: PAHs are not linked to cancer cases downstream of oil sands and PAHs do occur naturally in the environment and yet cannot be found at levels higher downstream from oil sands than at areas undisturbed by oil sands development.

Regarding tailings ponds leakage into the Athabasca River, the river has been monitored since the 1970s and neither the Government nor any independent agency has detected increased contamination of the river. Furthermore, tailings ponds are constructed with groundwater monitoring and seepage capture facilities, and seepage is pumped back into the pond. If there is leakage, it would be into deep saline aquifers below the ponds, which would naturally contain the same contaminants as the tailings in the first place. Finally, given the characteristics of the soils, even at the very highest rate imaginable, it would take 50 years for tailings to move just two metres through the earth.

In short, no cancers attributable to PAHs have been found downstream of oil sands, and there is no evidence of tailings ponds seepage into the Athabasca River. Please correct your story.

Here is a link to the cancer report: http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/files/News/rls-2009-02-06-fort-chipewyan -study.pdf

David Sands, for the Government of Alberta.

We sought comment from environmental groups about the government’s request for changes to this blog post. A staff lawyer for Ecojustice provided this response:

I have read with interest the response from David Sands with the Government of Alberta to Emily’s blog.

In summary, Mr. Sands concludes his e-mail as follows:

“In short, no cancers attributable to PAHs have been found downstream of oil sands, and there is no evidence of tailings ponds seepage into the Athabasca River. Please correct your story.”

On the first point, Mr. Sands may be technically correct. I am not aware of any study that directly links a cancer case downstream from the oil sands to increased PAH’s. However, in making this statement, Mr. Sands relies on the 1995-2006 cancer incidence study recently completed by Alberta Health Services.

However, we should be clear about what that study did and did not find, and what it does say about PAH’s. The cancer incidence study did not directly link any cancer case in Fort Chipewyan to PAH’s. However, the study did find a higher than average overall cancer rate, higher than expected rates of cancers of the blood and lymphatic system, bilary cancers as a group and soft tissue cancers. The study specifically states that, “The study was not designed to determine the cause of the cancers experienced in Fort Chipewyan.” Mr. Sands cannot rely on this study to state that no cancers in Fort Chipewyan are attributable to elevated PAH’s. The study did not determine that.

Further, the study states, in Appendix 5:

“In November 2007, a report, funded by the Nunee Health Board Society and written by Kevin P. Timoney, evaluated environmental contaminants in the area surrounding Fort Chipewyan. From 2001 to 2005, concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) rose within the sediment around Lake Athabasca. The report indicated that the treated drinking water in Fort Chipewyan was safe, but described high levels of arsenic, mercury and PAHs in fish, which is the main diet of many people in Fort Chipewyan, especially members of its Aboriginal communities.”

It is clear that PAH’s in Lake Athabasca sediments and fish are elevated and increasing. The only thing that is not clear is the source of the elevated PAH’s.

Further, the study states in Appendix 5:

“The long-term impacts of oil sands in its early stages of the development since 1968 are not clear. A previous publication in 1980s indicated that Suncor permitted effluent discharge of oil and grease to the Athabasca River at 420 kg per day. Sometimes, operation problems resulted in excessive effluent discharge into the river. In addition to water-born effluents, the two oil sands extraction plants (Suncor and Syncrude) emitted massive amounts of particulates in the atmosphere.”

Therefore, it is possible that elevated PAH levels in sediments and fish downstream of the oil sands are attributable to oil sands operations, both current and historical.

Mr. Sands’ second statement that “there is no evidence of tailings pond seepage into the Athabasca River” is simply incorrect. The long-term seepage from the Suncor Tar Island Pond directly into the Athabasca River is well documented. In fact, in response, Suncor has undertaken over the past two years to drain and relocate that pond. In addition, Syncrude’s 2007 Groundwater Monitoring Report, submitted to the Alberta Government, documents tailings pond seepage into Beaver Creek and Bridge Creek, both tributaries of the Athabasca River.

I hope that this information is of some help to you.

Barry Robinson
Staff Lawyer
Ecojustice, Alberta Office

We’ll post here about any further developments related to this matter.

UPDATE 2: Friday, August 7 — We’ve had another letter in reponse to this blog post and the updates to it. Dr. John O’Connor, formerly of Fort Chipewyan, has spoken out about the tar sands before; we suggest reading this in-depth CBC Edmonton feature about Dr. O’Connor and his experience as a critic of tar sands development to find out more about him. He writes:

The response from the Alberta Government is no surprise.

Of course the Tailings Ponds leak–they have been for years, and the documentation comes from FOIP-ed material. The largest pond is estimated to leak at the rate of 5.7 million litres a day. Toxins such as PAHs, Arsenic, and Mercury, with an industrial origin, have been detected in appaling levels in the environment in and around Chip [Fort Chepewyan]. Fish are so affected that Health Canada issued  advisories in Nov 2007 that pregnant women and children stop eating fish from Lake Athabasca, and that kids should no longer play in the Lake, which had served for years as their playground. The advisories still stand. At exactly the same time, the AB govt was criticising Dr Kevin Timoney’s report that had found the toxins, claiming it was faulty science–when they were admitting they had not even read the report!! Try to reconcile that!

Neither the water nor the air are credibly monitored at all, and industry polices itself.

We also know that the above-named toxins can be directly linked with the health problems in Fort Chip. The Cancer Board does not state anywhere in its report that there is no link with cancer in Chip and the PAHs–the lead on the report, Dr Tony Fields, was careful to point out that the mandate of the Cancer Board was not to elucidate the origin of the cancers. PAHs, along with the other toxins, may well be the origin of cancer, and other health issues in Fort Chip. In other jurisdictions, the Precautionary Principle at least would have this industry being closely analysed, if not halted, on grounds of it being a possible or probable health hazard.

In Alberta, the sacred cow that is the Tarsands cannot be touched.

Alberta has been advised more than once to do a Baseline Health Study of peoples in the Chip area, and have ignored this advice. It is as if they are scared to do so. Maybe there is no connection between the Tarsands and health problems downstream! All I know is I was slammed in my quest to advocate for my patients in Chip, asking if the health issues there could be due to genetics, lifestyle, bad luck, or to the environmental changes seen in the community for years.

For Mr Sands to state that “no cancers attributable to PAHs have been found downstream of oil sands”, is at best a misrepresentation of the situation–there has never been any study to find the causes of cancer in Chip, and top of the list now must surely be industrial toxin exposure. For him to state that “there is no evidence of tailing ponds seepage into the Athabasca River”, flies in the face of evidence to the contrary. Even industry admits that the ponds were not built to last as long as they have–and they by their nature leak!

Alberta, do the right thing, and treat your downstream inhabitants fairly.

Dr. John O’Connor

UPDATE 3: Thursday, August 27 — We received another response to this blog entry, this one from Kevin Timoney. Dr. Timoney is the scientist who did the study in 2007 that found PAHs and other toxins in the Lake Athabasca sediments, water and fish. He requested that we preserve the colour formatting of the letter in order to clearly differentiate the sources of information. He writes:

Dear Ms. Hunter:

I have read your blog and the Alberta Government response to the blog. I offer some comments. The government’s statements are in red font and my response is in green font.

Dr. Kevin Timoney

Regarding PAHs and your claimed linkage to cancer downstream of oil sands, I refer you to the report “Cancer Incidence in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, 1995-2006,” for the Alberta Cancer Board. Specifically relating to PAHs, please see page 35. In brief: PAHs are not linked to cancer cases downstream of oil sands and PAHs do occur naturally in the environment and yet cannot be found at levels higher downstream from oil sands than at areas undisturbed by oil sands development.

The Alberta Government’s objection to the link between PAHs and cancer is unscientific. The science is clear. Exposure to PAHs is linked to increased rates of cancer in humans and to a number of detrimental effects on fishes, including hatching alterations, cardiac dysfunction, edema, spinal curvature, and reduction in the size of the jaw and other craniofacial structures. Detrimental effects on birds have also been documented. Secondly, the government misrepresents the information on page 35 in the cancer incidence report (by Chen 2009). That report does not state that “PAHs are not linked to cancer cases downstream of oil sands”. Rather, that section of the report reviews various routes of PAH exposure from the literature. Thirdly, the statement “PAHs do occur naturally in the environment and yet cannot be found at levels higher downstream from oil sands than at areas undisturbed by oil sands development” is a half-truth at best. PAHs do occur naturally in the environment, that much is true. But it is false to state that PAHs do not increase in concentration downstream of development. They do and an upcoming scientific paper (in press) documents this fact. Fourthly, PAHs do not occur alone in the food supply of people downstream but rather as a suite of contaminants. Co-exposure to arsenic and PAHs, e.g., has been shown to increase rates of genotoxicity by 8 to 18 times. Fifthly, arsenic exposure is associated with human bile duct, liver, urinary tract, and skin cancers, vascular diseases, and Type II diabetes. Sixthly, the government neglected to note that the Chen report concluded that the number of cancer cases overall was 30% higher than expected in Fort Chipewyan. That same report found elevated rates of bile duct cancers, cancers of the blood and lymphatic system, leukemia, and soft tissue sarcomas. An earlier government report found elevated rates of type II diabetes, lupus, renal failure, and hypertension in Fort Chipewyan. Why the people of Fort Chipewyan appear to suffer increased rates of diseases may involve a variety of risk factors, but it is premature to state that contaminant exposure is not one of those factors.

Regarding tailings ponds leakage into the Athabasca River, the river has been monitored since the 1970s and neither the Government nor any independent agency has detected increased contamination of the river. Furthermore, tailings ponds are constructed with groundwater monitoring and seepage capture facilities, and seepage is pumped back into the pond. If there is leakage, it would be into deep saline aquifers below the ponds, which would naturally contain the same contaminants as the tailings in the first place. Finally, given the characteristics of the soils, even at the very highest rate imaginable, it would take 50 years for tailings to move just two metres through the earth.

The previous paragraph contains so many false statements that it is difficult to know where to begin. Contamination of river water, sediment, and wildlife have been documented numerous times by many authors from a variety of disciplines. Tailings ponds do leak. It is fairly well known how much they leak, what they leak, and where they leak. The government is aware that the ponds leak, has stated this fact in written correspondence, and has been aware for years. Escaped seepage is not into “deep aquifers” but rather into groundwater hydraulically connected with the Athabasca River. Seepage migration rates through the sands and silts are not slow. Tailings seepage has been detected in increased concentrations of salts and naphthenic acids in groundwater monitoring wells, in the Muskeg River as increased PAHs, and as increased concentrations of a number of metals in porewater of the Athabasca River.
In short, no cancers attributable to PAHs have been found downstream of oil sands, and there is no evidence of tailings ponds seepage into the Athabasca River. Please correct your story.

In short, the Alberta Government’s response to the blog is a denial of facts.

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and This Magazine’s resident eco-blogger. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors, and is the eco-correspondent to MTV News Canada.