BC teachers set aside six professional days, and now one of those days will focus on Aboriginal education. The BC government has decided to introduce Aboriginal history and culture as part of the curriculum. Residential schools and the effect they had on Native culture would be part of the history courses.
Peter Fassbender, BC Education Minister, noted that this is the first time teachers have made Aboriginal education a priority and are implementing courses that will give non-Native students a deeper understanding of Aboriginal history. This in turn should also help students understand the complexity of Native society and what they have endured to survive.
BC Education Minister Peter Fassbender reacts to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by incorporating indigenous peoples history into BC curriculum.
Fassbender’s ”call for action” is a reaction to the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission really showed us the urgent need we have to move forward in a very positive way,” the Education Minister told the CBC. “We will be sharing the truth of what happened. You can’t have reconciliation unless you understand the truth behind it. You don’t know where you are going unless you know where you came from. To have all of our young people understand some of the tragedies that took place will begin to help enhance the healing process.”
The Aboriginal student population in BC is 66,000 and makes up 10% of the total student population. Unfortunately they also make up 50% of children in government care or foster homes, and 60% of these students do not graduate from school. “The education system for many Aboriginal children and youth in B.C. is a broken system,” youth representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond told the CBC. “We are seeing far too many Aboriginal children in B.C. not in school.” Fassbender is hoping the new curriculum and an understanding of Aboriginal history, along with collaboration with First Nations Educators giving input on the education process, may inspire more Native students to complete high school.
Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation John Rustad was enthusiastic. “There’ll be everything from having an opportunity to learn a little bit about indigenous plants an animals. There might be also opportunities around concepts of environmental stewardship, to go along with history of residential schools and other components of our interactions over the years.”
Since Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley swept the election this past spring, Thomas Mulcair’s Federal NDP’s polling numbers have consistently moved upwards. Currently, the NDP and the Conservatives are nearly running neck and neck for the support of Canadians in the upcoming election, according to a new Nanos Research poll that suggests the New Democrats have even more room for growth.
The new ballot-question results from the July 21, 2015 poll put the NDP at 31.4%, while the Conservatives have 30.8% support and Trudeau’s Liberals have 26.8%. The Liberals are leading in Atlantic Canada and are in a tight three-way race in BC, while the Conservatives had the most support in the Prairies and Ontario. The NDP is leading in Quebec and finished second in all other regions.
Justin Trudeau – Liberal Party Leader
Prior to becoming Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau was much better known to the public than Thomas Mulcair. While his notoriety certainly helped the Liberals, opinions on Trudeau have always been strong until recently. Trudeau’s approval and disapproval ratings are nearly even throughout most of Canada, and his ratings remain higher than his party. Due to his approval ratings dropping and his disapproval ratings increasing, Justin Trudeau is the most polarizing of the three leaders. Only in Alberta and Atlantic Canada, where Trudeau’s approval rating is 29% and 50% respectively, do voters have a consensus opinion on him. This gives Trudeau less margin of error. Yet, Trudeau remains significantly more popular than his party in every part of the country. If the Liberal Party matched Trudeau’s approval ratings at the ballot box, they’d likely win a majority government, and the same goes for Mulcair and the NDP.
“It speaks to the fact that Mulcair is still a work in progress,” Nick Nanos told the Globe and Mail. “He’s got momentum, and he’s doing much better than he was three months ago… But this speaks to the importance of any attack ads and his ability to stand up to any scrutiny as he becomes a contender.”
Thomas Mulcair – NDP Party Leader
Mulcair said the NDP would work with the Liberals if it meant ousting Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but the Liberals are not even entertaining the idea. Mulcair said on July 23, 2015 that his party has always seen the defeat of the Harper Conservatives as a priority. “We know that they’ve done a lot of harm, and we want to start repairing the damage that [Harper’s] done,” Mulcair said from Amherstburg, Ontario where he stopped as part of an eight-day tour. “We’ve always worked with others in the past, but every time I’ve raised this prospect with Justin Trudeau, he’s slammed the door on it.”
The Liberal leader did that again that same day in Winnipeg when asked about the possibility of a formal coalition with the Mulcair’s NDP. “Although of course we are open to working with all parties in the House to pass good legislation and to ensure that Canadians’ interests are served, there will be no formal coalition with the NDP,” Trudeau said. “There are fundamental differences of opinion on very important elements of policy, whether it be Canadian unity or the Canadian economy and the need for growth, that we disagree with the NDP on.”
Mulcair reminded reporters of the possibility of a coalition government to oust the Conservatives in 2008. “The NDP said we were willing to make Stephane Dion the prime minister,” said Mulcair. “We thought it was important to replace Mr. Harper’s Conservatives. The Liberals signed a deal. They walked away from it. And, seven years later, we’ve still got Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.” The efforts were actually thwarted by the Governor General at the prime minister’s request when Parliament was prorogued, putting the coalition efforts on pause until the new year, by which time there had been a change in Liberal leadership. The deal between the Liberals and the NDP only would have been possible by including the separatist Bloc Quebecois. That was unacceptable to many Liberals.
Stephen Harper – Conservative Prime Minister
NDP MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley, Nathan Cullen, raised the issue again in an interview on July 22, 2015. He said winning a majority in a federal election expected this fall remains his party’s goal, but ultimately the party’s number one priority is toppling Harper. “The Liberal voters that I know are as fed up with Stephen Harper as anybody,” Cullen said. “Justin Trudeau will do himself a great deal of damage with progressive voters if he wants to contemplate more years of this Harper government.”
There are several possible results on election day. Canada could see another wave of an Orange Crush that could result in an NDP government led by Mulcair. That same wave could also be concerning for many voters who feel that the NDP are anti-business, and that could push Liberal votes towards Harper’s Conservatives if the Liberal Party’s polling numbers do not match Trudeau’s popularity. On the other hand, if Harper and his Conservatives start sliding in the polls, we could end up seeing a Trudeau led Liberal government instead.
Voters are expected to go to the polls on Oct. 19, as per Canada’s fixed-election-date law.
The investigation of the missing and murdered women along the Highway of Tears has brought only one solved case. Years of investigation by RCMP and the special E-Pana force have resulted in a slashed budget because of unsolved cases gone cold. The Missing Women’s inquiry of 2010 recommended bus service on Highway 16, but that was nixed by the provincial government.
Pictures of the missing and murdered women along the Highway of Tears (the over 700 km section of highway 16 that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert, BC).
It didn’t seem to make a difference that young Native women are forced to hitchhike along Highway 16 because of no bus service and that several missing women were last seen hitchhiking. “It still happening,” the Lake Babine Band Chief told the Vancouver Sun. “I picked up a couple myself. I asked them why they are doing this, and it all comes down to economics. They don’t have the money for transportation.”
Gladys Radek lost her niece Tamara Chipman, who was last seen hitchhiking in 2005. Radek is angry at the lack of transparency on the Highway of Tears investigation. “To me it is obvious that they have a huge coverup going on with no answers for a decade for my family and no actions or implementing any of the recommendations.”
In 2008, a large warning sign was erected along the highway.
The Highway of Tears doesn’t seem to be a priority for Christy Clark, yet when the NDP requested a freedom of information file on the investigation some files were destroyed by government officials. Tim Duncan, executive assistant to the Minister of Transportation, was told to delete certain files, but when he questioned the order, his computer keyboard was taken away from him and another government official deleted the files.
Elizabeth Denham, Information and Privacy Commissioner, has initiated an investigation into the matter. Unfortunately, Tim Duncan has been fired, and the official who took his keyboard has been suspended. NDP chief John Horgan stated, “It’s standard operating procedure for the BC Liberals to remove documents rather than share them with the public.” The question is: what was so incriminating that it had to be deleted to avoid public scrutiny?
It will be interesting to see what an investigation comes up with. Todd Stone, Minister of Transportation, was unaware of the deletions. Stone told the media, “As minister, I expect the staff who work in my office to adhere 100 percent to the requirements of the applicable legislation.” Where there smoke, there is fire. How could the minister’s assistant take it upon himself to remove the keyboard of the executive assistant and delete the files without the approval of the minister himself?
Nishnawabe Aski Grand Chief Harvey Yesno says the revelation that Indian And Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) has withheld more than $1 billion in social services funding from First Nations over the last five years sends the wrong message to First Nations as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa concludes in June. “It is very discouraging that just days after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for more resources to help survivors, families, and communities recover from the abuse inflicted through the Indian residential school system, it now appears the government is withholding massive amounts of funding that should be spent on much-needed services,” said the NAN grand chief, a residential school survivor who attended the ceremonial events in Ottawa. “With the conclusion of the TRC, First Nations are looking for the federal government to move from apology to action by addressing the multi-generational impacts of the Indian residential school system. It is difficult to accept that this government is committed to reconciliation when it is withholding so much funding.”
Nishnawabe Aski Grand Chief Harvey Yesno
That significant level of “lapse spending” (money promised, but never spent) places INAC among the largest “serial offenders,” meaning key departments regularly spend less than the amount budgeted in big dollar amounts year after year. CBC news obtained a heavily censored analysis of lapsing behavior from the Privy Council Office, the prime minister’s department, under the Access to Information Act. Other serial lapsers, including National Defense, made the Privy Council Office’s “top seven” list by failing to spend all their budgeted money for infrastructure and procurement, while INAC stands out as the only social service department regularly falling significantly short of budget. Other social-service departments have made the headlines recently for significant dollar shortfalls in promised spending, including Veteran Affairs, which has underspent by $1 billion over a decade, and Employment and Social Development Canada, which lapsed almost $100 million in 2013-14 alone.
A spokesperson for INAC says most of the lapsed funds are “carried forward” to be used in coming years. “From 2009-10 until 2013-14, 97.2% of what was marked as lapsed funding in the public accounts has actually been carried forward to future years and spent on a wide range of programs,” said Valerie Hache in an email that didn’t include any accounting of rollovers. “The reprofiling is simply due to timing issues that are common in complex negotiations where a number of parties are involved.” The Privy Council analysis concludes that in future years “the existence of a lapse in the 5% range is likely to persist” across all of government. “Such a result should not be seen as problematic.”
Aboriginal Affairs critic, New Democrat MP Niki Ashton, said the repeated underspending of millions of dollars is “unconscionable” given the appalling living conditions on reserves today. “This government chose, in silence, to repocket [unspent funds] instead of spending it on people who do not just need it but people for whom they have a fiduciary obligation,” said Ashton in an interview.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission wants additional resources to help survivors of residential schools recover from the decades of horrific abuse at the hands of church and government workers, and heal the hurt that has continued to damage families for generations. The Harper Tory government has made no concrete commitments. INAC’s planned budget is expected to decrease by a billion dollars (to $7 billion) for 2017-18, according to the department’s spring fiscal blueprint.
NAN’s 49 First Nations, especially remote communities, continue to suffer from insufficient infrastructure, housing, health care, and education. In February this year, Health Canada reported that 139 Drinking Water Advisories are in effect in 92 First Nations communities. Thirty-five of these are in NAN First Nations. In a 2015 spring report, the Auditor General of Canada found that Ottawa is not providing adequate access to health care services for First Nations people in remote communities.
NAN also wants to see changes in the federal Nutrition North food subsidy program. Currently only eight of NAN’s 32 remote communities receive the full subsidy, while seven receive a partial subsidy. “The government of Canada has a historic opportunity for nation-wide reconciliation with First Nations, but a sincere commitment backed by action will be needed if we are ever going to repair this relationship,” said Grand Chief Yesno.
Dr. Carrie Bourassa is a Professor of Indigenous Health Studies and has been faculty at First Nations University since August 2001. She is an Indigenous community-based researcher that works with, by, and for Indigenous communities. She is working on a new project, culturally-safe health care for Indigenous women infected with HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.
“The goal of this research is to create a model of culturally-safe care for Indigenous women infected with HIV, AIDS and/or Hepatitis C from their perspective. Only they know what will work for them and what it should look like. Our goal is to listen to their voices, their experiences, their perspectives and build that model together and then implement it so that research becomes action and improves the quality of care they experience.”
Carrie Bourassa
HIV/AIDS have spread through native communities over the last 20 years, there are many factors to blame including poverty, convicts returning from jail, dirty needles used to ingest heroin and cocaine. “According to the 2006 census data 36% of Aboriginal women were living in poverty compared to non-Aboriginal women in Canada (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, 2012).
Indigenous women also experience barriers to personal empowerment, including the impact of racism that is linked to higher rates of alcohol and substance abuse, and disruption of family systems due to residential school abuse. We must illuminate the impacts of colonization on Indigenous women and how that continues to affect this population living with HIV or AIDS and/or Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). In essence, we truly must “dig deep” to understand why HIV/AIDS has become so prevalent in Indigenous communities and focus on the assets in our communities in order to move forward in a good way.
Hepatitis C which is also the result of dirty needles and liver problems is also on the rise in native communities “While HCV (Hepatitis C) infections are not evenly distributed among sub-populations in Canada, a recent study conducted by the Public Health Agency of Canada (2010) suggests that HCV rates are higher among Indigenous people in Canada. Reported rates of HCV between 2002 and 2008 found that HCV among Indigenous people in Canada was 4.7 times higher than other ethnicities. In addition, 48.7% of HCV cases among Indigenous persons were female compared to 33.9% being female among other ethnicities. This is also in contrast to the general Canadian population where the male HCV infection rate is nearly twice the female infection rate. The report also found that risk factors such as use of contaminated needles or equipment to inject drugs continue to be frequently associated with HCV transmission.
The Project will take 3 years to complete, and there are specific goals that are to be dealt with. “Our goal is to focus on Indigenous women with the premise of helping them to develop evidence-based, community and asset-based solutions that are culturally safe. Our specific objectives include:
1) Understanding the complex Indigenous social determinants of health that interact to produce higher rates of IDU, HIV/AIDS, and HCV among Indigenous women, particularly those who are identified as hard to engage and those who have not been tested.
2) Developing a model of culturally safe care.
3) Increasing the research capacity of All Nations Hope Network (ANHN) – formerly All Nations Hope AIDS Network (ANHAN) and the broader Indigenous community in Regina (pilot site).
4) Developing educational videos to accompany the culturally safe care model and enhancing the understanding of cultural safety for Indigenous women living with HIV, AIDS and HCV.
“Our team feels it is important to focus this first phase of our research on the most marginalized population and engage men and family in later phases or another program of research.” The goals are to illuminate:
How the has the history of Indigenous women influenced/continued to influence their life decisions?
What supports and programs do they currently have access to?
What supports and programs would they like to have access to?
What has helped them to cope with the challenges in their lives?
In what way is historic and inter-generational trauma linked to the high rates of addiction, HIV, AIDS and HCV among Indigenous women?
How do we use an evidence-informed, community-based, asset-based, culturally safe approach to address such complex issues?
Re: Aboriginal Voter Registration – October 2015 Federal Election & Climate Change
My name is Darryl Angus and I am from Onion Lake Cree Nation. I currently reside in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. I would like to formally thank you for publicly announcing as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations during the July, 2015, AFN’s annual gathering in Montreal, requesting that all First Nations vote in the upcoming federal election slated for October, 2015. I highly commend you for addressing this very important issue. I am also writing to you concerning climate change.
First of all, as you are aware, the current and past political relationship between Canada’s First Nations and the federal Conservative Party of Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not been favorable for all First Nations. Ever since the conservatives came into power in January, 2006, relations between First Nations and the Harper government has been severely strained, due to the development of draconian policy and legislation imposed upon Canada’s Aboriginal people.
Legislation such as Bill c-45 “Omnibus Bill”, Bill c-51 “Anti-terrorism Act”, along with Bill c-23 “Fair Elections Act”, are nothing more than the Harper conservatives discreetly and expeditiously eroding Aboriginal Treaty rights and undermining democracy in Canada. Thus, this raises suspicion that these federal policies have been systematically developed and targeted specifically toward Canada’s First Nations people. It seems like we are reliving the 1969 White Paper policy era when former Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau attempted to unilaterally extinguish Aboriginal Treaty rights along with the privatization of First Nations’ reserved lands.
The more cognizant, vocal, and resistant our people become (Idle No More), in protesting and challenging giant oil and gas corporations (Major pipeline development) to protect Mother Earth, along with the increase in the Indigenous population, the more we become a threat to the federal government. Bill c-45, Bill c-51, and Bill c-23 are intended in my opinion to significantly suppress and erode Aboriginal rights.
The more First Nations continue to be ignorant, apathetic, and resistant toward becoming active participants in federal elections – the more we collectively provide consent for the Harper conservatives to do as they please in developing policies that will negatively impact First Nations in the areas of health, education, child welfare, and justice. I have been expressing my concern with regard to this serious issue of voter apathy amongst the Aboriginal population since 1999. I firmly believe that all First Nations have had enough of what the Harper government has been doing since 2006, and this is certainly indicative as in response to development of the Idle No More movement in December, 2012.
Which now leaves us to question: “What can I do as an individual to create hope for positive change for me and the future of my children and the future of Mother Earth – protest and temporarily delay policy development and the development of major pipe lines in their eventual destruction of our planet promulgated by the conservatives, or vote in the next federal election and oust the conservatives and vote for a political party that will hopefully use common sense and start thinking about future generations and the implications of climate Change?”, if there is to be no form of intervention coming from First Nations collectively – the repercussions will negatively affect all of us in the end.
What will need to happen is all First Nations across Canada will need to wake up now and head to polling stations this October, in massive numbers similar to what happened during the Idle No More movement, and strategically vote for a political party that will address their concerns, and hopefully oust the conservatives out of power. First Nations Chiefs across Canada will need to be on board and support their membership, as well as one another, despite of their differences with respect to their opposing views of First Nations becoming involved in federal elections. They will need to be informed and reminded that at the end of the day – it is the federal government who allocates a majority of the funding in keeping all First Nations programs afloat in the rapids of Canadian federal politics, despite cuts which further exacerbates and negatively impacts every First Nations citizen in this country.
When I heard reports of you requesting for all First Nations to vote in the upcoming federal election, I thought: “Finally! Someone is taking true leadership and courage in addressing voter apathy amongst the Aboriginal population in Canada. Finally, we’re getting somewhere, especially when this issue is being addressed from the highest order of First Nations government – the Assembly of First Nations”. I commend you for your courage in addressing this contentious issue concerning First Nations voting in federal elections. Keep up the good work! What you’ve done is most certainly a start to igniting much needed political discourse amongst many First Nations individuals and leaders across Canada.
Most importantly, I am also a firm believer in ecological justice. This is another serious issue that will need to be addressed continuously and prioritized by all levels of government. We are now at a crucial juncture where we will all need to collectively exercise our free will and decide where our priorities are heading – promoting and sustaining balance of Mother Earth or economic greed?
My late grandmother who had raised me and my siblings had informed us during the 1970s that our First Nations spiritual leaders had predicted that Mother Earth will be cleansing itself, due to the devastation, imbalance, disruption, and violation of natural law inflicted upon it caused by human greed. According to my grandmother, these spiritual leaders had prophesied via spiritual ceremony in the early 1900s, prior to the discovery of fossil fuels, that there would be an increase in natural disasters caused by tornadoes, massive flooding – and forest fires, just to name a few, occurring in the future mainly in highly developed densely populated areas.
We are now entering this time period. This had been confirmed as to what had happened back in 2011 when the town of Slave Lake in Northern Alberta sustained close to one billion dollars worth of damage caused by forest fires to public and private infrastructure. As well as the major flood that took place in the city of Calgary in spring, 2013, where billions of dollars’ worth of damage was sustained as a result of Mother Earth’s natural reaction to its current state of imbalance. We have also witnessed in summer, 2015, the devastation and financial costs of what forest fires can create in disrupting human lives in the northern boreal areas of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
Spiritual leaders had also predicted that future generations would be buying water due to environmental pollution. We are now seeing this as well where we as consumers buy bottled drinking water at convenience stores, supermarkets, or water distribution outlets due to our distrust of tap water. Every other week we see or hear in the media reports of many First Nations as well as non-First Nations communities going on boil water advisory situations. It’s time for everyone to come to their senses and collectively advocate for the protection of future generations and Mother Earth – if economic greed pervades, the consequences will be overwhelming.
Lastly, this letter ends in the following Cree First Nation prophesy: “Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”
Two Nelson House residents are being hailed as heroes after saving four children from a fiery death. The community of Nelson House is about 80 kilometres west of Thompson in Manitoba.
Chastity Spence and 19-year-old Arnold Culley rushed to the aid of four children trapped inside a burning storage shed behind a neighbour’s home.
On Saturday, June 6, 2015, Chastity Spence (a pregnant mom) and 19-year-old Arnold Culley rushed to the aid of four children trapped inside a burning storage shed behind a neighbour’s home. Hearing the children’s cries for help, Spence and Culley tore into the shed to rescue them.
“I grabbed the wall, and I ripped it right off. I couldn’t believe that. I’m a tiny person and that wall was boarded on there pretty good with three other two by fours right over it,” said Spence in a CBC interview. “The flame came out and I backed away. I was going to run in there, and one of the little girls came running through the fire.”
The door to the abandoned shed had been nailed shut, but the kids found a small hole in the wall. “[Culley] went around the back and started prying the corner,” Spence said. “He got that open, that little boy fell out, and then two other little girls came running out, and then like two seconds after we got them out, that shack fell.”
The Office of the Fire Commissioner is investigating the fire. Two six-year-old girls, a five-year-old girl, and a three-year-old boy were injured in the blaze. The three girls were transported to a Winnipeg hospital for treatment of their burns, and one of the six-year-olds remains in serious condition. The boy was treated at the local nursing station and was released.
Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation Chief Marcel Moody said that one of the children may have started the fire with a lighter. “We’re real lucky that there were people who came to their rescue and saved them,” Chief Moody said. “They are the real heroes.”
He’s been described by many as calm, patient, a well grounded guy, and one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. This past June at the NHL Awards, Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens won the Ted Lindsay (most outstanding player), Jennings (fewest goals allowed), Vezina (league/General Managers award), and Hart Trophies (MVP), and became the first goaltender in NHL history to win all four individual awards in the same season.
Price was extremely grateful when accepting his awards and told First Nations Drum, “Obviously I was thrilled on receiving the awards, and [it was] a lot of fun to go to the awards with my friends and family,”
Carey Price. Photo courtesy of Club de Hockey Canadien, Inc.
In Price’s NHL acceptance speeches to some of the most decorated hockey players in the world, he also addressed and shared his words with the youth about his hard work ethic and desire to be the best. “I would like to share a moment to encourage First Nations youth,” said Price, who was raised in the Aboriginal community of Anahim Lake, BC. “People would say it’s very improbable that I’d make it to this point in my life. I made it here because I wasn’t discouraged. I worked hard to get here, took advantage of every opportunity that I had, and I would really like to encourage First Nation youth to be leaders in their communities. Be proud of your heritage, and don’t be discouraged from the improbable.”
In the interview with First Nations Drum, Price added, “Just play hockey if you want to be a hockey player, but you don’t have to play hockey to be successful. You can be a teacher, a lawyer, doctor, even a chief of your First Nation, as long as you’re successful in what you do.” His final advice to youth was to accomplish those goals you set out for yourself. “If you want to make a name for yourself, you have to go out and earn it.”
Price also puts his words into action, as he’s involved in Breakfast Club of Canada and Air Canada Foundation, which feeds children in communities throughout Canada, including10,000 meals a year in his home community of Anahim Lake alone. “I got involved because this is an important initiative for the children, especially in rural communities who can’t afford to have a proper breakfast; they bring the food to these communities to help with the kids’ nutrition. Children can’t learn if they are hungry, and it affects their learning ability to even focus in school.”
Price who turns 28 years old on August 16th began his meteoric rise in hockey by playing his junior career with the Tri-City Americans in the Western Hockey League (WHL) in 2002 at the age of 15. Price was drafted fifth overall by the Montreal Canadiens in 2005 while still with the Tri-City Americans, where he won the Del Wilson Trophy as top goaltender in the WHL. In 2007, he joined the Montreal Canadiens farm team, the Hamilton Bulldogs of the American Hockey League (AHL), and proceeded to lead the Bulldogs to win the Calder Cup Championship and the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the tournament MVP. In the same year, Price was was called up by the Montreal Canadiens and played back-up goalie. Later in his first season (2007-08) with Montreal, Price became the starting goaltender.
Price has represented Canada at various international tournaments, including winning gold medals at the 2007 World Junior Hockey Championships and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, where he received the Sochi Olympic top goaltending award from the International Ice Hockey Federation directorate. He said winning the Olympic gold medal has been one of the highlights of his flourishing career so far. “The Olympics and winning the Gold Medal was a huge highlight. Not only that, but the whole Olympic experience and taking in other events and the Olympic Village.” Price said. “Winning the Cup is a top priority, and reaching that goal is my main priority in hockey.”
Price was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to Lynda and Jerry Price. “I grew up both on and off the reserve of Ulkatcho First Nation. I remember we lived in this real old house, a log cabin with a tin roof, and later moved into a nicer place. But I always go home when I get chance; it’s always like a huge happy family reunion to head back to the rez.”
As a young boy, his father would drive the 10-hour round trip two or three days a week for hockey practice or house league games. Carey’s father would eventually buy a little piper cherokee bush plane to fly him to practice. The plane didn’t go very fast, but it got him to the rink a lot faster. Carey’s mother is the former Chief of the Ulkatcho First Nation. His father was also a goaltender; he was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers in 1978 and played four seasons in various professional hockey leagues. He has a sister Kayla, and his second cousin is Shane Doan who plays with the Arizona Coyotes.
The hockey players he idolized growing up included Patrick Roy of the Montreal Canadiens. “I pretty much liked every goalie in the NHL. I also admired players like Pavel Bure, Steve Yzermen, Wayne Gretzky, players of that calibre.” When asked if his father pushed him to play goaltender, Price said, “Nope. He never pushed me to play hockey. I just got interested on my own, and I just stuck to playing goalie since I was a kid.”
Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens finished first place in the Eastern Conference regular season with 110 points but lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round. Following the NHL Awards ceremony and the hockey season, the general impression from president Geoff Molson, general manager Marc Bergevin, and head coach Michel Therrien, as well as the whole Canadiens organization: they’re extremely happy and proud of Carey and everything he accomplished last season. Well deserved.
“We feel it’s part of the long-term actions that we need to make towards reconciliation with members of the community that have been taken away from their families and lost their language and their culture.” The Premier told the Winnipeg Sun. “We want to continue to honour them, and this reconciliation gesture in the form of an apology is another step towards building stronger, better, more respectful relationships with all the peoples of Manitoba, particularly Indigenous peoples.”
On the left, Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and on the right, the Premier of Manitoba Greg Selinger.
The Scoop of the Sixties has never received the media attention the Residential Schools have because they didn’t last a century as the schools did, but they inflicted similar damage even though the methods were different. The actual term “Sixties Scoop” came from a long-time employee of the BC Ministry of Human Resources who spoke to Patrick Johnson, author of Native Children and the Child Welfare System. “This person admitted that Provincial Social Workers would, quite literally, scoop up children from reserves on the slightest pretext. She also made it clear, however, that she and her colleagues sincerely believed that what they were doing was in the best interest of the children.”
Judge Edwin C. Kimelman wrote a report on the negative repercussions of the “Sixties Scoop” comparing it to the residential schools. “When the Indian Residential Schools were operating, children were forcibly removed from their homes for the duration of the academic year. But at least under that system, the children knew who their parents were, and they returned home for the summer months.”
The Scoop of the Sixties separated children from their parents, home, and culture. Children were taken from their communities and put in homes across Canada and in the United States. The “Sixties Scoop” became an extension of the residential school program. The goal of both systems was to separate the children from their Native identity, and sadly, both systems were successful from that standpoint. Unfortunately, Aboriginal children paid the price in both circumstances.
Assimilation was the premise, but for many children the experience was painful. The children could not speak English and were seldom if ever made to feel part of a white family. They were never told who their real parents were, and when most were old enough they left the homes they had been sent to by the government. There were multiple mental, physical, and sexual abuse cases. The children felt abandoned, and as adults they rarely ever found their real home, and if they did they weren’t always welcome. Many would deal with the trauma in different ways. Some found their way
and were able to live normal lives, but many founds drugs and alcohol as the only solace for a ruined childhood and an unsure future. “The miracle is that there were not more children lost in this system, run by so many well intentioned people.” Judge Kimelman said in his report, “The road to hell was paved with good intentions, and the child welfare system was the contractor.”
Tony Merchant of the Saskatchewan Merchant Law Group that represents a thousand Indigenous clients from the prairie provinces who are suing the federal government approves of Premier Selinger’s action. “I commend the government of Manitoba, and this should be compared very favourably to the apology of Prime Minister Harper. The Manitoba government, other than to do what’s right, is taking the right bold step. First Nations, Metis people are appreciative. The issues of closure and recognition are very significant for people wronged in an extensive way like this. So they really are grateful when there is an acknowledgement of wrongdoing in this kind of way.”
Premier Selinger cannot undo the scars and damage the “Sixties Scoop” is responsible for, but in setting up an apology on behalf of the Manitoba government he is hoping this is the first in several steps to help the victims of the Scoop. ” I hope they will feel it’s a sign of respect and recognition of the suffering that they went through and their family members went through,” The Premier told the Winnipeg Sun, “and will help them heal and continue to be strong members of our community.”
In our June issue, which was a graduation-themed issue, the First Nations Drum ran an ad for Joyce Murray, the Liberal candidate for Vancouver Quadra. The First Nations Drum does several theme-related issues during the year, such as Aboriginal Day, graduation time, drug awareness month, or Remembrance Day, and we use ad slogans that fit the theme of the issue. The ads in our graduation issue typically run with wording like “Congratulations to all 2015 graduates and success in your future.”
Joyce Murray has always supported Aboriginal issues, and we respect her stance. She has advertised with First Nations Drum for several years, but we made a serious mistake in a recent ad by using an improper slogan. The June 2015 ad in question was meant to have a slogan offering congratulations to all Aboriginal students graduating this year. Our salesperson came up with the slogan printed in Joyce Murray’s June ad, which read “Congratulations to all 2015 high school graduates. Sobriety, education, and hard work lead to success.” Sobriety is a loaded word. Sometimes the word sobriety is used in a slogan for the November Drug Awareness issue, but this was not an appropriate slogan for Joyce Murray’s ad in our graduation issue. We sincerely regret the offensive wording.
Joyce Murray did not have an opportunity to review the ad content, and we did not catch it in the proofreading process. The salesperson no longer works for us, and we shall be more watchful during the approval and editing process. We apologize again for our mistake and for the damage it might have caused.
