ARTICLES BY Lyle Stewart

Christmas lights

It gets dark out there in the bush. Every Cree knows this simple fact, but dealing with it can still be a struggle in a place where you can’t just run over to the dépanneur for extra batteries. Especially after Christmas, when daylight is at its most meagre, lighting one’s ... read more ››

Let them eat diamonds

Never have a people been so rich, and yet so poor. The people of Attawapiskat, on the western shore of James Bay, live in a territory so loaded in diamonds that the famous South African diamond giant De Beers has set up shop in the community. But, as Amy German reports ... read more ››

Love is all you need

We were scrambling over the rocky shoreline at Pemaquid Point, Maine; five buddies from Canada and their American host, also an old friend. The water glittered like thousands of diamonds as the shorebirds wheeled and dived and called out above our heads. We could see the heads of seals bobbing ... read more ››

The high price of volunteerism

My wife didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she accepted a request a few years ago to join the board of directors at the public daycare centre our children attend. By law, the board must have a majority of parents as members, and Heidi, my babies’ mama, ... read more ››

Flu pandemic highlights federal failures

The sight, during the Cree Fitness Challenge in Nemaska last month, was a jarring reminder of the flu pandemic that has swept Native communities across Canada’s north. A medical facemask worn by a young girl in order to ward off the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, was a ... read more ››

Election 2009: missed opportunities, new hopes

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. That hackneyed refrain could be the slogan for the recently concluded election for Grand Chief of the Crees that returned Matthew Coon Come to power after a 10-year absence from active Cree politics. There has been a lot of water flow under ... read more ››

River of life

I grew up living aside rivers, big and small. At the moment, I live a city block away from the St. Lawrence River, which less resembles the rivers I’ve known as it does an escape hatch for the continent that it drains. I was born in a hospital on the banks ... read more ››

Climate-change criminals

It’s remarkable how fast a country’s status can change in a few short years. From a nation that was seen as a leader on the environmental file a few short years ago, Canada is now perceived around the world as an environmental outlaw. On climate change, Canada’s negligence since we signed ... read more ››

Winners and losers

If you thought the debate over creationism versus natural selection was simply about the origin of the species, you’d be wrong. According to the plans being talked up by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, the federal government is once again playing God in order to pick the winners ... read more ››

Patriot Games

The recent “Fête des Patriotes” in Quebec, known as Victoria Day in the rest of Canada, was a reminder that history is an evolving story, one that is continually invoked – and rewritten – to meet the needs of today. The Montreal neighbourhood I live and work in makes it hard ... read more ››

Cleaning up at the QCNA awards

The only thing left to say is that there’s room for improvement – but not much. For the first time in its 16-year history, the Nation was nominated as a finalist for the Best Overall Newspaper at this year’s Quebec Community Newspaper Association awards… and came second. The second-place honours in ... read more ››

Mining Mount Royal

Imagine a huge open-pit mine in the heart of Montreal. It’s not that far-fetched – Mount Royal, the ancient volcanic mountain that rises above the city’s downtown and the St. Lawrence River, is a storehouse of valuable minerals. Judging by the laws and regulations that govern Quebec’s mining industry, a company ... read more ››

SLERA highlights

The environmental risk assessment presented to the community of Oujé-Bougoumou March 31 is a wide-ranging overview of data collected from the region’s soils, water and sediments, as well as fish, birds and mammals. The “Screening Level Environmental Risk Assessment,” or SLERA, is not meant to assess risk to human health, ... read more ››

Autoworkers are being set up as road kill

Since the Second World War, to be a unionized autoworker in Canada was to belong to the labouring elite. High wages, job security, great benefits and a generous pension were guaranteed those, mostly in Ontario, who were lucky enough to get a permanent job with one of the big three ... read more ››

Quebec’s 12-step solution

It’s been nearly a decade since Ouje-Bougoumou has been faced with evidence that mining residue in its territory poses a toxic risk to food animals and human health. As the Nation details this issue, the community’s frustration with inaction by the Quebec government is growing. It’s almost as if Quebec ... read more ››

The Afghanistan dilemma

Now that Canada is starting to focus on the end game in Afghanistan – i.e., how we get out in 2011 with our military and our dignity more or less intact – it’s useful to remember exactly how our soldiers were thrown into the hottest corner of the hottest civil ... read more ››

Public service and private benefits

For 40 days last spring, Quebec’s health minister was a double agent. From May 17, 2008, until he resigned his cabinet position last June 25, Philippe Couillard was under contract not only to the people of Quebec, but also to Persistence Capital Partners (PCP), a health-services investment corporation that hired him ... read more ››

Searching for Michael Ignatieff

As the recently installed leader of Canada’s Liberal Party and a likely future prime minister of the country, Michael Ignatieff continues to provoke questions about who he is, where he stands or even how he defines his own nationality. They are not easily answered. The self-described cosmopolitan seems to change ... read more ››

Smart is the new cool

It was an iconic image. When The Economist published a cover image of a moose sporting hip sunglasses to illustrate “Canada’s new spirit” five years ago, the prestigious British magazine intended to highlight the country’s tolerant, progressive governance that complemented our surging economy. The unspoken subtext was that the image ... read more ››

Are newspapers old news?

I still have a flimsy, yellowed, eight-page newspaper that I wrote out in pencil – with crooked columns, headlines and hand-drawn pictures – when I was eight years old. Later, in high school, a friend and I worked on homemade versions of Hit Parader magazine, replete with fawning profiles of ... read more ››

President Black Eagle

Last May, while campaigning in the hotly contested Democratic primaries for the presidential nomination, Barack Obama was granted honorary membership in the Crow Nation, a tribe that numbers about 12,000 people in southern Montana. Because tribe members Hartford and Mary Black Eagle symbolically adopted him, he was accordingly bestowed a ... read more ››

Aftermath of a diversion

The impacts of the Rupert River diversion may have been predictable – for the most part – but that hasn’t lessened the disruption and pain that have followed in the wake of the emotional dam closing ceremony on November 7. And while many Cree were in mourning for the river in ... read more ››