Mi’kmaw officially recognized as Nova Scotia’s original language at Sunday ceremony
“We know right now that there are approximately 5,000 individuals that speak Mi’kmaw. If we don’t try to revitalize this and promote it, by 2030 anyone that’s under the age of three will lose the language and the opportunity to learn it.”
– Minister of L’nu Affairs Karla MacFarlane
Some surgeries postponed in N.W.T. as 1 of 2 operating rooms set to close until October
(By CBC News · Yellowknife, NT - July 14, 2022 - Used with Permission) - Some surgeries in the N.W.T. will be postponed as one of the...
Inuit family furious to learn brother died 4 years ago in Montreal, was buried and no one told them
Three of Daniel Saunders’s 14 siblings are pictured at his grave site at the Laval Cemetery. From left to right: Joan Saunders, Tim Saunders and Elizabeth Adams. They’re demanding to know why authorities failed to notify them that their brother had died and was buried in 2018. (Chloë Ranaldi/CBC News)
Senate report calls for law criminalizing forced or coerced sterilization
The Senate human rights committee began studying the issue back in 2019 and found that — far from being a problem of the distant past — forced and coerced sterilization was still taking place in Canada and Indigenous women were not the only people affected.
Indian day school settlement claim deadline passes, despite calls for extension
The federal Indian day school and federal day school system was an attempt to assimilate Indigenous children, by removing them from their languages and culture. The institutions were often run by religious institutions and some students faced physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Nearly 700 Indian day schools operated across Canada between 1863 and 2000.
Crippling health care staff shortage now top priority for N.W.T. health board
Julie Green, the N.W.T. health minister, in the CBC News studio in Yellowknife. Green said Thursday that her department is “robbing Peter to pay Paul” by pulling health staff from other areas to ensure emergency care is still available amidst a worker shortage. (Emma Grunwald/ CBC)
Crack cocaine problem in Behchokǫ̀ has ‘grown exponentially,’ residents say
According to data from the 2018 N.W.T. Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Survey, the most recent available data on lifetime cocaine use,16.2 per cent of people, aged 15 and up, in the N.W.T. said that they had used crack/cocaine at least once in their lifetime. That’s more than a five per cent increase from 2012 data.
Additionally, in 2018, Indigenous people in the N.W.T. had used crack/cocaine at a percentage more than two times greater than non-Indigenous people — 22 per cent versus 10.5 per cent, respectively.
‘Reinforces the legitimacy of our language’: Inuktitut officially available on Facebook desktop
“Inuit expect to see and hear Inuktut in all aspects of our lives. Recognizing Inuktitut as an official language on Facebook, equal to English and French, reinforces the legitimacy of our language,”
-Aluki Kotierk, president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI)
Immersion key to preserving traditional Wolastoqey language
“No language will survive unless there are schools in the language,
And I’m not talking about teaching the language. I’m talking about learning in the language.”
– Andrea Bear Nichols
Indigenous academics ‘validated’ by report urging Queen’s to verify identity claims
The seven recommendations in the report include the development of a department of Indigenous studies. They also call on the university to establish a validation policy for Indigenous faculty that — at minimum — should include citizenship or membership cards, plus a professional reference and references from a family member and an elected First Nation, Inuit or Métis leader. The report’s authors said the university needs to address staff who don’t meet the new requirements, from finding them alternate assignments to firing them.