Day of action to improve lives of First Nations people in Canada
The Assembly of First Nations is holding a day of action on June 29 to “respond to the crisis” in Aboriginal communities across Canada. The AFN is calling on the federal government to adopt the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, to recognize and increase core funding for First Nations governments in Canada, and to speed up the resolution of land claims and treaty disputes.

“First Nations poverty is creating crisis and conflict,” says the statement issued by the AFN in late May. “First Nations are denied basic rights like access to safe drinking water. First Nations suffer from chronic housing shortages and overcrowding, see their children apprehended and placed in child welfare at alarming rates, and grieve as their youth kill themselves in epidemic proportions. These statistics are well-known, yet the Government fails to respond decisively with a real plan for action.

“Instead, the Government of Canada fuels frustration by taking a unilateral, piecemeal and scattered approach which lacks vision and ignores fundamental issues.”

To find out more about the campaign, visit http://www.afn.ca/nda/wcid.htm .

Guildsters save life of co-worker
This spring, TFO’s Nathalie Ouellet and Diane Fallon saved the life of a co-worker who had collapsed while suffering a massive heart attack in the station’s control room.

Nathalie Ouellet (photo: Andr