13 June 2007

Where there's smoke...

Pikangikum First Nation must be the unluckiest folks around. In addition to living like people just out of the stone age... somehow... their school just burned to the ground.
Dean Peters, a spokesman with the Pikangikum Education Authority, said he was devastated. He said he returned from chaperoning a Grade 8 class in Edmonton to “nothing but rubble.”

“Everything was lost,” he said, listing files, exams and mountains of staff and student paperwork. Even student files in fire-proof containers were damaged, Peters said.
But hey, who really cares? They were gonna get a shiny new taxpayer funded school anyway.
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice announced in April that his department would spend $18.2 million to build a new school.

The project falls under a $40-million allocation to address infrastructure problems in the remote community of 2,000 people.
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RELATED: Why not just move the community here?

I'm sure their aboriginal brothers-in-arms won't mind... and it's not like we're using it for anything important anyway.
Algonquin First Nations communities say they must be consulted before the Commons tries to assume jurisdiction of Parliament Hill's manicured lawns because the area is considered traditional Native territory.
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LAST WORD: The never-ending story
-- VANCOUVER -- One of the most prime pieces of real estate in the country, home to one of the oldest public golf courses in the city, is expected to be handed over to the Musqueam Indian band as part of a controversial land-claims agreement.

The Musqueam claim has been the great elephant in the room on the land-claims front. Reaching agreements with bands in remote areas of the province is one thing, coming to terms with one laying claim to large chunks of one of the most expensive cities in the world is quite another.
(via Natnews)

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