There are few family names as Scottish as mine. There are five Scots tartan patterns for Stewart clans, and two more for those who spell it Stuart. That heritage doesn’t necessarily make me Scottish. I’m one of millions worldwide who […]
Category: Borderlines
The Mayan example
The historic battle for justice is winning against all odds The absence of despair. The refusal to lose hope. The determination to keep fighting in the face of implacable odds. These are the characteristics that struck me most about the […]
A date for the General
A landmark trial for genocide and crimes against humanity concluded last week in Guatemala City, though you could be forgiven for not having heard of it. The trial of former Guatemalan dictator and army General José Efraín Rios Montt and […]
When justice is injustice
Howard Sapers is ringing the alarm. If the rate of incarceration of a specific community’s people is an indication of the health of that community, First Nations in Canada are in an emergency. Sapers is the Correctional Investigator of Canada. […]
Enduring the cold
Cold weather, real cold, is an awe-inspiring thing. Obviously, I’m not talking about Toronto’s call-a-national-emergency-at-minus-10 cold. I grew up in Alberta and Northern BC, so I am familiar with a real winter. I had the privilege recently to renew my […]
Taking the long view
If you’re reading this, the world did not end December 21, as some doomsday crackpots and deluded hippies believe was predicted by the Mayan long-count calendar. That doesn’t mean 2012, as a year, didn’t deserve to die. In many ways, […]
First Nations will rise to the challenges
Things are not looking good for remote First Nation communities in northern Canada. In particular, there are serious problems developing for communities up the James Bay coast and much of this has to do with global warming and changes in […]
David beats Goliath
Even for the winners, it was a shock. Last month, an unlikely coalition of local farmers, celebrity chefs, weekend cottagers and First Nations in Ontario learned they had successfully blocked what would have been the biggest open-pit mine in Canada. […]
Pillars of propaganda
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… A people is herded off its ancestral lands onto tiny, overcrowded and often infertile wastelands by a newly arrived occupier. Their economy is squeezed and blockaded at every turn. Their culture and […]
The great giveaway
The Conservative bulldozers are roaring, trampling over our parliamentary democracy, our rights and, soon, through the rivers that are vital to many First Nations. The federal government recently tabled Bill C-45, a bloated, 457-page assault on the common good that […]