After 24 days, hunger striker Spence demands action from Ottawa
By Heather Scoffield - Friday, January 4, 2013 - 0 Comments
‘Her life is on the line,’ spokesman says of chief’s urgent request to meet PM
OTTAWA – Efforts to broker a solution to end a 24-day-old hunger strike by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence have foundered.
First Nations leaders had initially proposed a Jan. 24 meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnson, and took their proposal to Spence’s teepee on Thursday afternoon.
But Spence told the aboriginal leaders Thursday that her failing health means she can’t wait that long for assurances that her concerns about treaty rights will be addressed.
“She remains committed, she remains strong and she remains steadfast in what she is setting out to do,” said Stan Louttit, grand chief of the Mushkegowuk Council, which includes the Attawapiskat First Nation.
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First Nations leaders meet to clarify demands, want Jan. 24 meeting with Harper
By The Canadian Press - Thursday, January 3, 2013 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments
OTTAWA – First Nations leaders are meeting today to clarify the demands of hunger-striker…
OTTAWA – First Nations leaders are meeting today to clarify the demands of hunger-striker Chief Theresa Spence, in the hopes of getting closer to a resolution of recent unrest.
National Chief Shawn Atleo is meeting several key regional chiefs from the area surrounding Spence’s Attawapiskat reserve in northern Ontario.
At the same time, Atleo has issued what he calls an urgent invitation to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston to meet chiefs on Jan. 24 — the one-year anniversary of Harper’s summit with First Nations. Continue…
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Idle No More is a Christmas gift to us all
By Brigette DePape - Tuesday, December 25, 2012 at 12:52 PM - 0 Comments
Brigitte DePape on an unexpected offering at the end of 2012
The gift I will cherish most this holiday wasn’t a new pair of new slippers, another bar of soap, or an iPod. It was an unexpected offering, and one that many people have been asking for years.
In the face of a Harper majority government, which was elected with a mere 39 per cent of the vote in 2011, we’ve been asking for an end to unjust policies, and a transformation of a broken system.
In the face of climate change that threatens the survival of humanity, coming to the public consciousness in the 1960s with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and then by the UN Commission in the 1970s, we’ve been searching for a solution to a path towards a clean future.
Since the beginning of consumer culture, we have been searching for some kind of meaning amid all the stuff. Continue…
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Where #IdleNoMore began
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 11:23 AM - 0 Comments
Jeremy Warren talks to two of the women who started the burgeoning protest movement.
The four moved their conversations about their shared disappointment over federal legislation to a Face-book page created for a small rally at Station 20 West in Saskatoon. The four titled the page Idle No More as a motivational slogan, said Jessica Gordon, one of the local and national organizers.
“We thought it would just be a planning group and we titled the page Idle No More as a way to get our butts off the couch to work on this,” Gordon said in an interview. Gordon, along with Sheelah McLean, Sylvia McAdams and Nina Wilson, may have sparked the Idle No More campaign, but the grassroots movement has taken on a life of its own and spread across the country and beyond its borders with rallies involving thousands of people. Another event is scheduled for Friday in Saskatoon, the same day rallies will be held in Ottawa, L.A. and San Francisco.
“This movement is really important and it’s going to get stronger and better,” Sheelah McLean said. Facebook and Twitter have helped spread the Idle No More movement and allowed organizers to maintain its grassroots beginnings, Gordon said. ”Social media are pushing a lot of the issues,” she said. “People are more aware of the legislation being pushed through undemocratically.”
