Gatherings, Budgets & Elections: When Do First Nations Children Become a Priority?
I have been watching and listening with interest over the last few weeks about what issues the media outlets have been featuring, as well as what federal, provincial and First Nation politicians have been speaking about. Despite the fact that some very important court rulings have come out which were in favour of First Nations peoples, they seem to have gone largely unnoticed. Similarly, there have been some pretty significant funding cuts to First Nations communities as well as various First Nations organizations, yet the political world has been all but silent on the issue. This makes me wonder how far gone our current political system must be if we can't celebrate minor victories or use those victories to start pushing back against the Harper Conservatives' (Cons) assimilatory agenda. The so-called Crown-First Nation Gathering (CFNG) was supposed to result in what the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Shawn Atleo called "re-setting the relationship