ARTICLES BY
Alex Roslin
The Anglican Church should never have sent William Presnail to Waswanipi to be the community’s priest, say residents of two Lower North Shore villages where Presnail was rector for nine years.
Presnail, 45, was charged April 28 with sexually assaulting a minor – a 16-year-old boy – in Chapais. Presnail has ...
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The Grand Council of the Crees has blasted Hydro-Quebec for its secrecy on dam-safety issues and emergency plans.
“I don’t have any information on dam safety. What are the measures to protect people living downstream from the dams?” asked Bill Namagoose, executive director of the Grand Council.
“How would they get people ...
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SQ ARRESTS FORMER WASWANIPI REVEREND IN CHAPAIS
William Presnail, the former Anglican reverend of Waswanipi, was arrested in Chapais April 28 on a charge of sexually assaulting a minor.
A 16-year-old Chapais boy filed a sexual-assault complaint against Presnail on April 27 with the Sûreté du Québec. The alleged incident took place ...
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Sam Bosum is the new chief of Ouje-Bougoumou. He was elected on April 30 with 58 per cent of the vote, or 140 of 241 valid ballots.
Louise Wapachee, the incumbent chief, gathered 71 votes, or 29 per cent. In third place was Joseph Shecapio-Blacksmith, who was one of Wapachee’s most ...
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Calling the diabetes epidemic a ticking “timebomb,” Cree officials slammed the Quebec government for ignoring warnings about the health crisis for years. They were responding to a new study that found Crees have one of the world’s highest diabetes rates.
“It’s quite shocking to me,” said Bill Namagoose, executive director of ...
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The Cree women of Northern Quebec have the second-highest rate of gestational diabetes reported in an Aboriginal group worldwide.
That’s the finding of a two-year study published May 4 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Nearly 13 per cent of Cree women giving birth were found to have gestational diabetes, which occurs ...
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We’ll never know why Hydro-Quebec’s system failed prematurely in the 1998 ice storm. That’s the conclusion of the Nicolet commission, which has released its report into Canada’s worst recorded disaster.
Hydro-Quebec failed to compile data on why its lines collapsed, the commission found. Clean-up crews also didn’t safeguard damaged components of ...
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Was the Nicolet commission destined to fail? The commission was created last year to tell us what went wrong with Hydro-Quebec’s system in the 1998 ice storm.
The commission released its report last month. The conclusion: it couldn’t find out why Hydro’s lines failed prematurely.
To some observers, the Nicolet commission’s lack ...
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What would happen if one of the dams busted? It’s a mind-boggling thought. Hydro-Quebec says there’s almost no chance it could happen. But that’s why we have emergency plans. Just in case.
In the summer of 1996, the world watched as dams in the Saguenay region gave way in a wild ...
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[CAPTION] Eastmain residents will be safe and dry on the hill just south of town if the Opinaca reservoir bursts, according to this 1988 Hydro-Quebec map which has never been shown to the community. But Eastmain itself would be flooded by 8 metres (25 feet) of water. Residents would have ...
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The Waswanipi band council has decided to go ahead with a blockade to protest forestry policies sometime this summer, according to a council member.
The decision was not made in a formal resolution, but the chief, John Kitchen, reportedly supported the idea.
The idea was then brought before a community general assembly ...
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Almost all the nurses in the nine Cree communities were on the verge of quitting their jobs because they say the Quebec government has ignored their poor work conditions for years.
Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come asked the federal government to step in with military medical units if nurses carried out ...
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Waskaganish residents know the band is deeply in debt. But what caused it?
One problem is the same faced by many First Nations: not enough money to cover all the needs of a growing population.
But two building experts who worked in Waskaganish for years say a lot of the band’s estimated ...
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The Waskaganish band’s finances are a in a desperate state, plagued by large cost overruns on major construction projects, numbers that don’t add up and serious flaws in record-keeping, say auditors.
“Budget control and follow-up seem to be deficient at all levels,” said auditors in a scathing report issued last July ...
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The Grand Council of the Crees has filed a lawsuit asking that the Cree off-shore islands in James and Hudson bays not be transferred to Nunavut.
The lawsuit, filed Feb. 19, asks the Federal Court of Canada to protect Cree rights in the off-shore areas, including hunting, fishing and trapping rights. ...
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The first-ever Cree special assembly on health and social services heard an outpouring of concerns about everything from diabetes to suicide and the housing crisis. And delegates didn’t spare the Cree Health and Social Services Board from their criticisms.
Delegates came up with a list of 46 “major problems” that need ...
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The Cree Nation has to take ownership of its health and social needs, and not just leave them to the Cree Health Board.
That’s the consensus that emerged out of the Special General Assembly on Health and Social Services (see News, page 9).
“It’s a Cree Nation issue,” said Abel Bosum, coordinator ...
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It may take more than extra money to fix the Cree Health Board, according to some of its employees. They say the Health Board’s largely non-Native middle management has a “backwards” mentality, wastes a lot of money and is very resistant to change.
When James Bobbish took over as the board’s ...
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Robert Weistche, chairman of the Cree School Board, has levelled a number of serious criticisms at the Health Board.
He said the Health Board has dumped much of its responsibility for people in need onto the School Board. Some examples:
The School Board is now handling many social services cases due to ...
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Canada has to do a better job of consulting First Nations on the coming ban on leghold traps, says the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.
The country’s 1,200 Inuit trappers use mostly leghold traps to catch Arctic fox and other animals, said Eric Loring, environmental coordinator for the Inuit Tapirisat.
But information about ...
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History will be made on April 1 when Canada gets its first Native-majority territory, Nunavut.
Voters flocked to the polls in record numbers last week to elect MLAs to the new territory’s legislature. The 88-per-cent turnout is nearly double the numbers who voted in NWT elections of the past.
“The strong message ...
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Meet Jack, the man who’s got your money on his mind. Jack Blacksmith has become well-known to Crees as the Grand Council’s point-man on forestry issues. Last summer, his and others’ efforts paid off with the filing of the $700-million-plus Cree lawsuit against Quebec, Ottawa and the forestry industry.
On December ...
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How much do you love your leghold traps? Are you willing to be arrested for them?
If you’re one of the many trappers who’s still using a leghold trap, don’t worry. The game wardens aren’t coming for you. At least not yet.
Trappers have eight years to switch over to a quick-kill ...
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Across the land, most Native trappers have heard the news. Canada has agreed to ban the leghold trap and is trying to get trappers to switch over to quick-kill traps because of pressure from Europe.
But can the new traps do the job? Will they have a big impact on the ...
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Bob Stevenson is one angry trapper. He thinks the Crees “sold out” Aboriginal rights, and especially points a finger at the Cree Trappers’ Association.
The CTA played a big role in Canada’s fight against the European fur ban. Many believe Cree and Inuit lobbying was actually the main reason Europe backed ...
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Waswanipi Chief John Kitchen could be facing a 14-day prison term over a drinking-and-driving charge laid against him just before New Year’s Day, according to a Crown prosecutor in Val d’Or.
Kitchen was charged after a long provincial police investigation into an alleged August 3 incident in which his vehicle, a ...
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