In December 2014, BASICS people’s journalists Shafiq Aziz and Steve da Silva travelled to Mishkeegogamang First Nation, a remote Ojibway reserve located 7 hours north of Thunder Bay as part of a serve-the-people project launched by the First Nations Solidarity Working Group of union local CUPE 3903. Through a look at the housing situation on the reserve, BASICS…
by PJ Lilley This article is reprinted with permission from the Red Sparks Union In early August a massive tailings pond at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley copper and gold mine burst. The Secwepemc, the Xatsull and Esketemc Nations in the Cariboo region of BC immediately mobilized as the toxic waste spilled through their territories. Further north,…
By Nicole Oliver If you roll along the curves of 6th line following the flow of the Grand River you will come across two of the three sites where the Six Nations Farmers Association (SNFA) has planted community white corn that is ready for harvest. Arthur Porter of the Oneida Nation and head of the…
by Nahnda Garlow SIX NATIONS – Late Friday, Two Row Times learned that the CAS and McMaster Children’s Hospital are seeking a push from the courts to forcibly return Jada Johnson into chemotherapy. The 11-year-old female from Six Nations was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in August. Initially the CAS did inform the child’s mother…
Connecting the Old Canada with the New Canada: a legacy of Racism By Tascha Shahriari-Parsa On May 23rd, 1914, the Komagata Maru steamship arrived in Vancouver with 376 passengers who were fleeing India. There were already over 2000 Indians living in Canada, primarily Punjabis, who faced blatant discrimination. Due to racist government policies to keep…
by Aiyanas Ormond Reproduced with permission from author and The Mainlander: Vancouver’s Place for Progressive Politics AUTHOR’S NOTE | This article emerges from 5 years of working as a community organizer for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). Thank you to the VANDU Board for allowing me to lean on their community organizing work and…
But consent from First Nations and B.C. residents wholly absent by Steve da Silva The writing on the wall couldn’t have been written in bigger, bolder, and clearer letters over the past year: The relentless exploitation of fossil fuel is rushing the planet beyond a series of irreversible environmental tipping points. Melting glaciers. Acidifying oceans.…
by M. Cooke “You don’t have to go to Kahnawake to combat crime. The government is trying to make us [indigenous people] look worse in the eyes of their public,” says John Kane, host of radio program “Let’s Talk Native” on WWKB 1520 out of New York. The Mohawk radio personality believes that the police…
This statement was signed by the Anti-Colonial Committee of the Law Union of Ontario, No One Is Illegal – Toronto, the BASICS Community News Service, the Two Row Society, and the First Nations Solidarity Working Group of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903. Organizations in agreement with this statement and interested in joining…
by Steve da Silva A recent study Walking in their shoes published by Anishnawbe Health Toronto finds that the average age of death for users of four “Aboriginal” health and social service centers in Toronto are shockingly below the average Torontonian at 37 years. The Indigenous male clients who died over the period of the…