First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada
The Struggle for Equal Rights for First Nations Children in Child Welfare
Briefing to the UN committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the occasion of the review of Canada's fourth and fifth periodic reports Read More ..
National Aboriginal Day - June 21st
Read all about it Read More ..
From the Address by the Hon. James K. Bartleman at his Installation as the 27th Lieutenant Governor of OntarioQueens Park, Toronto, Ontario, March 7, 2002 |
"As a Canadian with Aboriginal as well as white roots, I bring a particular regard for the positive role that the Crown has played in Aboriginal affairs over the centuries. The Royal Proclamation of 1763, enshrined in our Constitution of 1982, provided Native peoples with rights not enjoyed elsewhere in the Americas. It was one of my predecessors, in fact, who sought to banish the people from the Lake Simcoe Muskoka area to Northern Ontario in the way that the Americans banished the people from the easterly Appalachians into the Oklahoma area and it was the Crown that stepped in in the late 1830s and stopped that.
My background accounts also for my lifelong visceral hatred of racism. I've never forgotten how normal it was considered, when I was young, to wound the children of minority communities with vulgar epithets and engage in racist bullying. Today, thankfully, our society no longer condones that sort of behaviour, but we must never cease to combat all the forms of discrimination and abuse that do remain." Read More ..
The Lieutenant Governor's Literacy Initiatives
December, 2005
To open new opportunities for aboriginal youth, the Hon. James K. Bartleman has launched four innovative programs that promote literacy, drawing upon widespread support from individuals and organizations throughout the province of Ontario, Canada's most populous province.
When the Hon. James K. Bartleman began visiting First Nations in Northern
Ontario in 2002, he noticed that the schools had many bookshelves, but few
books. At the start of 2004 he launched a province-wide appeal for donations
of good used books to send to
these northern schools. Priority was given to 33 fly-in communities in the
Far North, served only by winter roads. Ontario Provincial Police
detachments across Ontario served as depots for collecting books, and
dedicated volunteers sorted and packed
many thousands of books at OPP Headquarters in Orillia and at an aircraft
hangar at Downsview in Toronto. By the end of February, 1.2 million books
had been donated by generous Ontarians. After sorting, 850,000 good quality
books were provided to First Nations and Native Friendship Centres across
Ontario. Shipments were made possible thanks to the OPP, Department of
National Defence, the Canadian Rangers, the
Nishnawbe Aski Nation, the South Asian professional association EIPROC,
Wasaya Airways, corporate donors, trucking companies and numerous
volunteers. A resounding success, the Book Program ended in 2004.