Once fully settled, these claims—unmet promises in treaties 5, 6 and 10 territories throughout the Prairie provinces—will represent almost $1.4 billion in combined compensation to these First Nations.

Through these treaties, Canada promised First Nations ploughs, seeds for important crops, livestock such as cows and bulls and other farming necessities.

“These agricultural benefits were meant to facilitate the economic transition, and as a result of Canada’s failure to fulfil treaty promises, these First Nations did not have the equipment needed to support their members,” read an Oct. 18 news release from Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

Wrote Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation: “This settlement recognizes the original promises made under Treaty No. 6 in 1877 and acknowledges the inadequate agricultural benefits that were provided to our people. It is a victory for our nation and a testament to the determination of those who first established these rights.

“Through close work with our people and effective negotiations with the ministry, this settlement marks a significant step forward, ensuring that these long-standing commitments are finally addressed for the benefit of future generations.”

Treaty 5, also known as the Winnipeg Treaty, was signed in 1875–76 by the federal government, Ojibwe peoples and the Swampy Cree of Lake Winnipeg. It covers much of present-day central and northern Manitoba as well as portions of Saskatchewan and Ontario.

Treaty 6 is an agreement between the crown and the Plains and Woods Cree, Assiniboine and other band governments at Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt. It encompasses most of the central area of present-day Saskatchewan and Alberta. Treaty 6 signings began on Aug. 18, 1876, and ran until September 9, 1876.

Treaty 10 was established Aug. 19, 1906, between King Edward VII and various First Nation governments in current northern Saskatchewan and a portion of current eastern Alberta, an area covering 220,000 sq. kilometres.

“The socio-economic gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada are the result of decades of colonial policies, which often led to the denial and dispossession of land and resources,” explained the release.

“Honouring Canada’s legal obligations and properly compensating Indigenous Peoples for what was unlawfully taken or withheld from them is fundamental to advancing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in order to rebuild trust with Indigenous communities.”

The post Canada, First Nations agree on unmet agricultural claims appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Indigenous people and settlers gathered July 6 at Brenda Bohmer’s grain farm near Bawlf, Alta., to celebrate the opening of the Treaty Land Sharing Network in Alberta.

It marked expansion of the network from Saskatchewan into the western part of Treaty 6, also known as central Alberta.

“Many people, especially those of us who are settlers or who come from settler backgrounds, have benefited a lot from treaties, and now it’s time to make sure that we move in a more equitable direction,” said Bob Montgomery, a Métis hunter and master of ceremonies for the event, which attracted about 80 people to Bohmer’s 640-acre farm.

The land sharing network is a grassroots collective of farmers, ranchers and other landholders who have come together to honour treaties. Members provide access to their land for Métis and First Nations people to gather medicinal plants, hold ceremonies or hunt.

Bohmer is the first Albertan to join the network.

The day began with a pipe ceremony led by elders Bert Bull from Louis Bull Tribe and Alsena White from Saddle Lake Cree Nation. Bull sang a flag song as the Treaty Six flag was raised.

Bohmer, a third-generation farmer, talked about the location of her farm on traditional lands of the Saulteaux, Nakota Sioux, Dene, Blackfoot and Métis people.

“It’s so special for me to host this launch event for the Alberta Treaty Land Sharing Network,” she said.

She left the farm for 20 years but returned to full-time farming in 1997.

“It wasn’t until I started to think about my own retirement that my perspective started to shift. I began to realize and acknowledge the strong connection I have with the land, and land is sacred to me.

“It was a gift, and the land has provided a wonderful life and supported my family for three generations. Now I see myself as a landholder and a caretaker of the land.”

She learned about the network by reading an article in The Western Producer.

Amy Seesaquasis, from Beardy’s and Okemasis’ Cree nation in Saskatchewan, provided some network history. She was joined by Shirley Wolfe-Keller, a knowledge keeper from Muskowekan and Fishing Lake First Nations in Saskatchewan.

Seesaquasis talked about Indigenous nations as matriarchal societies destroyed by colonization. The land sharing network was built by a matriarchy.

“It was started by a collective of women and that’s important. It was started by settler women, who started the vision for this and reached community including myself and Kokum (grandmother) Shirley,” she said.

The network began in 2018 when Valerie Zink, who has ties to Regina and a farm east of Calgary, spoke to an Indigenous hunter from Peepeekisis Cree Nation in Saskatchewan about access to land for Indigenous people, said Seesaquasis.

Other women joined the conversations. When COVID-19 shut things down, the women including Zink, Martha Robbins, Emily Eaton, Mary Smillie, Naomi Beingessner and Hillary Aitken, reached out to Seesaquasis and they began meeting on Zoom.

All the settler women came from generations of farming and knew the land had once belonged to Indigenous people, said Seesaquasis. Their families had displaced Indigenous people, who lost access to traditional territories.

Seesaquasis said development of the network was fuelled by the shooting and killing of Colten Boushie, an Indigenous man from the Cree Red Pheasant Nation. In 2016, Boushie and several friends stopped on land owned by Gerard Stanley near Biggar, Sask. Boushie was shot and killed by Stanley, who went to trial in 2018 and was found not guilty by an all-white jury.

Seesaquasis said the decision in the Boushie case proved to Indigenous people that it was not safe for them to be on the land. The Saskatchewan government subsequently changed the rules about trespassing.

Zink said the settler women started meeting with individual farmers to talk about a treaty land sharing network.

“There was a lot of interest. We had more conversations among individual landowners to build an initial base to launch the network,” said Zink.

The women met with groups of Indigenous land users and connected with the Treaty 4 governance centre in Fort Qu’appelle, Sask.. They developed a relationship with the Anishinabe nation treaty authority and partnered with the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.

In summer 2020, the women hosted a land sharing event on Mary Smillie’s farm near Bladworth, Sask. It was magical, said Seesaquasis.

In summer 2021, the network held an official launch and opened Smillie’s land to Indigenous people. There are now 57 landowners in the network in Saskatchewan, covering about 37,000 acres.

In fall 2021, the women who started the network met with a group from Alberta and several people joined the coordinating committee.

“It’s a first step towards treaty implementation,” said Zink. “It is something concrete that people can do beyond learning and conversing. Being a part of the network is a commitment to ongoing learning, education and challenging yourself. But I think there’s also a real desire to do something that has a real impact.”

Josh Littlechild, a hunter from Ermineskin Cree Nation, embraced the recent Alberta event.

“This is the type of reconciliation and action that’s required and needed to make this change that we want to see this country Canada become in this age of reconciliation,” he said. “And a part of my core memory is going to be watching reconciliation happen way out here in Bawlf.”

Doyle Wiebe, a fourth-generation farmer from Langham, Sask., and member of the network, said he grew up with little connection to Indigenous people and issues. As he became aware of the injustices, he read about the network. He knew Mary Smillie and her husband, Ian McCreary, and learned more from them.

“As far as posting the sign on one of my pieces of land, I think that’s the best way of meeting some of the things that Indigenous people might want to come on the land for, whether it’s hunting or gathering different type of plants for different reasons,” he said.

Allowing Indigenous people on his land allows him to acknowledge the wrongs done to Indigenous people, he added.

“Life is too short to let opportunities like this go by where we can acknowledge the wrongs of the past, to accept that there were wrongs that we are responsible for, not in the sense of we did the wrong, but that we’re responsible for making it right if we can.”

Signage now denotes Bohmer’s farm as part of the Alberta Land Treaty Land Sharing Network.

“This is the beginning of something, and the possibilities that it could lead to are important,” said Bohmer. “It’s a step towards reconciliation.”

-Updated Sept. 24, 2024. Corrects name of Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations.

The post TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION: Bawlf area farm first to join Treaty Land Sharing Network appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Wabanaki Maple CEO and founder Jolene Johnson, Manitoulin Brewing Company co-owner Nishin Meawasige and Kitasoo Development Corporation general manager Isaiah Robinson spoke on a panel moderated by National Circle for Indigenous Agriculture and Food president and CEO Kallie Wood.

Meawasige expressed gratitude for his home of Manitoulin Island, for which his craft beer company is named.

“It’s a wonderful place, and growing up there and raising the family, we decided we want to start a craft brewery,” he said. “It’s been an amazing ride as an Indigenous business working and building that business from nothing.””

Robinson, who is also the deputy chief councillor of Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation in B.C., said his community was to thank for his position.

“I cannot take credit for the work I am currently doing. I have been raised and I’ve been groomed for these roles, and I sit in some of the most senior positions within my community.”

He also spoke on the importance of community engagement.

“We have a 99 per cent employment rate in my community. That is not normal within the central coast of British Columbia, especially in (the) Indigenous community itself.”

Robinson said his leadership role serves both the community and the development of corporations. They’re integral “when it comes to pushing the overall issues for the aquaculture industry.

“Agriculture, aquaculture for Indigenous people … the overall management of that has been since time immemorial.

“We’ve always done agriculture; we’ve always done aquaculture. And when it comes to my community, and when it comes to aquaculture, we don’t have any farms so we don’t have any fields. We have the ocean, and it’s what has been able to sustain us for millennia.”

Aquaculture represents approximately $1.7 million of a $3 million economy in his community, he said, so “it’s important that I continue pushing aquaculture forward.”

Financial barriers

Johnson spoke about challenges she and other Indigenous entrepreneurs have faced.

“Number one (barrier) in the beginning and still today, it has been … financial,” she said, noting difficulties accessing funds for certain capital costs or expansion on equipment, or even working capital.

“When it comes to application processes and business planning and the whole shebang … it’s intimidating, and it’s not necessarily user-friendly when it comes to some Indigenous entrepreneurs.”

Johnson would like to see a streamlined system for Indigenous entrepreneurs to secure funding, especially since existing systems are often based on collateral.

“When you’re on a First Nation and a reserve and (your) business is located there, you don’t have any collateral. We don’t own the land.”

She said Indigenous peoples should be consulted when rules are drafted because they often result in economic barriers and red tape.

“I think the solution to that would be bring our communities, bring our people, bring our entrepreneurs to the table” before those processes are started, she said.

Meawasige agreed.

“There’s this kind of emerging tide of Indigenous communities and entrepreneurs that … is reaching a tipping point, and I think there may be a disconnect with industry understanding. And I don’t think that’s anybody’s fault.”

He thinks Indigenous practices are inherently aligned with many practices now discussed and encouraged in Canadian agriculture.

“With respect to regenerative agriculture, these are things that Indigenous communities and peoples have been doing since time immemorial. There’s no need to convince us. We are willing parties.”

The post Indigenous entrepreneurs speak to issues in Canadian agriculture appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Over the years the First Nation, just north of Meadow Lake, Sask., has been converting the alfalfa field into a potato field and expanding the vegetable garden. This year, it planted 18 tonnes of seed potatoes and harvested about 90. They expected to harvest about 120 tonnes, but they didn’t beat the frost, says Jason Cardinal.

Cardinal has a background in data science and mechanics, and he brings that high-tech lens to Flying Dusts’s agricultural ventures. Speaking at the 10th annual Indigenous Ag Summit, held during Canadian Western Agribition in Regina, Cardinal explained how they survey the land base with drones, using the images and maps for land use planning, elevation mapping, tree canopy counts, calculating flood risk and checking crops and bison.

That tech also attracts students and young people to the market garden.

“We do a lot of drones and that seems to really entice them because the technology is something they’re really interested in. It enables them to make videos, TikTok videos and things like that. Get cool footage. We’ve got a lot of bison running and things like that.”

Summer students are put to work doing everything from building a chicken coop to growing and selling produce. A community elder mentors the students, teaching them how to manage the greenhouse, as well as about traditional foods and medicines. This year, they also planted about 200 fruit trees, creating a “food forest.”

Students can also earn their green certification at the market garden over two years through the University of Saskatchewan.

The market garden produces a range of vegetables, including three types of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peas, lettuce, squash, peppers, tomatoes and more. Right now vegetables are grown on five acres, but there are 20-25 acres available for vegetables.

Along with chickens and bison, the First Nation also has over 150 beehives, which is a relatively new venture for its members. Workers have been taking courses on bees and learning from a beekeeper, who hails from the Philippines, hired by the reserve.

The market garden has a temperature-controlled potato storage facility and commercial kitchen, Flying Dust’s website notes. Supervisors run the market garden, which also has a board of directors.

Cardinal says the biggest challenge right now is distributing the produce, as they are a bit short on transportation-related infrastructure. However, Flying Dust plans to purchase a new truck to help distribute produce in the community, which should alleviate some distribution pain.

The Riverside Market Garden aims to provide fresh produce to the community, as well as other communities within a 100-mile radius, says Cardinal. They’re also building a community meat shop to process meat from bison and cattle.

The market garden sells into the Co-op and the Meadow Lake Farmers’ Market. It also has sales agreements with Sobeys and Thomas Fresh (which sells to Costco and Walmart). Cardinal says they’re looking for more customers, as currently, the market garden is producing more than the people in their community consume.

This year, they did a lot of food preservation, such as freeze-drying and canning, and involved students. “We did pickles and peppers and beets and stuff like that. So it was a really nice experience, getting to see that firsthand.”

— Lisa Guenther is editor of Canadian Cattlemen.

The post At Agribition: Northern community integrates tech, education into market garden appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The plant-to-processing company recently set a record-best first cut when it harvested more than 40,000 tonnes of export-destined timothy hay grown under irrigation. In June, it celebrated a single-day harvest of 8,000 bales.

These are the latest in a series of wins for the nearly 30-year-old company and the Kainai-Blood Tribe, the First Nation in southwestern Alberta that co-owns it.

“That’s great news for us,” said Roy Fox (Blackfoot name Makiinima), chief of the 12,000-strong tribe.

“It assures us that this project was the right kind of project to get into. It ensures that there is a good return coming back to the tribe. It ensures that many of our people find employment, either directly at the forage plant or working for the farmers who have leases, including our own (Blood Tribe) farmers.”

Kainai Forage employs more than 50 people, primarily from the reserve, and leases several parcels of land to tribe farmers. Company employment landed close to 100 people at harvest, said Fox.

The Blood Reserve, at 1,400 square kilometres, is the largest First Nations reserve in Canada by area. The forage business is a good news story from a place that doesn’t always have the best news to tell.

A Google search for news from the Blood Reserve can be grim: many stories paint a picture of a community in the throes of drug addiction and overdose deaths.

The hay operation, which formed in 1997 as the Blood Tribe Forage Processing Plant, has had success over the years, including direct trade relationships with companies in Japan, Ireland, England, the United Arab Emirates and others.

However, its 2019 partnership with Indigena Capital, a venture capital firm focused on First Nations interests, has supercharged its capacity with a $45 million expansion plan that so far has included a new plant and hay press that can process more than 125,000 tonnes of hay per year.

For perspective on how much Kainai Forage’s fortunes have changed, consider that last year it harvested 52,000 tonnes on both cuts, compared to this year’s 40,000 on a single cut. Fox said the true secret of its success is ongoing dedication to sustainable soil practices.

“We have always had a good relationship with the Earth. We’ve always respected the Earth and we wanted to ensure that in this case, we did the same.

“The more that we can provide for ourselves, then the more sovereign we will become. We can get back to that point where our ancestors provided for themselves entirely through their own initiative and their own hard work.”

The story of Kainai Forage goes back to the 1950s and construction of the St. Mary’s Dam irrigation project. It’s a story that underscores the tribe’s changing relationship with government in terms of bargaining power.

“We provided some of the land on which the St. Mary’s Dam is on,” Fox said. “One of the agreements was that whenever the Blood Tribe wanted to go into irrigation farming, the federal government would help in that development.”

That time came in the 1980s and ‘90s with a large project in which the reserve become home to 25,000 acres of irrigation land. The next question was what to do with it.

Market and soil studies and a variety of experimental developments played a role in the decision, which ultimately favoured timothy hay as the best crop in terms of return on investment and soil regeneration. Fox said the soil was in rough shape after a number of dryland leasers were finished with it.

“A lot of them did not follow good farming practices so a lot of erosion was occurring,” he said.

“There was an expression that was used, while we were developing, that we would tell others: unfortunately, some of those farmers were mining the lands to death.”

A rotation out of timothy every seven or eight years, usually into cereal crops or oilseeds, seems to work for Kainai Forage, said Fox. Rotations have given the company chances to experiment.

“At one time we grew Kentucky bluegrass seed. We haven’t done that lately. We also grew hybrid canola seed. We’re always looking at how best to rotate the land but mostly it’s there to grow forage crops.”

The needs of an early client from Japan proved a major driver in the Tribe’s decision to grow timothy.

“At that time only about 11 per cent of Japan was arable. There wasn’t even enough land to grow crops to feed their people, let alone their dairy cows. They had to import the forage crops,” said Fox.

A Japanese company learned of land in Alberta that was looking for clientele and could be a fit for the kind of forage it sought for Japanese dairy cattle.

“So it just so happens that during those discussions, they found out that we had huge tracts of irrigated land which we could probably grow timothy on,” Fox said.

Timothy hay has a long, rich history in Japan, said Fox. The country grown and fed timothy for centuries, and at one time the island of Hokkaido had a lot of production.

“So the arrangements were made and we went to Japan and they came here several times. We went to Japan once and we finalized a deal,” Fox said.

“It was a good mix. It was an arrangement where we needed each other. The president and I shared some of our business practices. Some of them are quite similar. In the end, all it took was a handshake and the deal was done.”

Fox signals cautious optimism on when Kainai Forage will reach its 100,000 tonne goal.

“We’re hoping we’ll reach that in about three or four years. I’m being overly optimistic,” he said.

However, Justin Ferguson, vice-president of Indigena Capital, thinks the milestone could be reached sooner.

“We actually could get it even sooner than that, depending on how everything comes together. Next year will potentially be even better. So let’s see how the second cut goes.”

The post Alberta First Nations tribe spins hay into gold appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Western Canadian society has a wall running straight down its middle, dividing the world into Indigenous and non-Indigenous spheres.

Breaking that wall down is in everyone’s interest, according to Kendal Netmaker. The Saskatoon-based Indigenous entrepreneur, author and consultant told the Canadian Crops Convention his priority is removing that wall.

“We need to knock it down so that we can begin talking again,” he said. “That invisible wall is hurting us all. I grew up near Cutknife (Saskatchewan) where there were many farms, many rural communities and didn’t know people from them. We’re better than that. All of us are better than that.”

And among the benefits for rural Western Canada will be better relations, closer economic ties and possibly a nearby willing workforce, he said.

Following his presentation he spoke to Gord Gilmour of Glacier FarmMedia, and Karen Briere of the Western Producer.

The post Building bridges to Indigenous communities appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Back in the day, sakâw mostos (the Cree term for Wood bison), this would have been their natural habitat,” said Lawrence Lamouche, traditional lands manager for the Woodland Cree First Nation, located about 85 kilometres northwest of Peace River.

The Nation, which consists of four reserves, signed the Buffalo Treaty in 2019, making a pledge to repopulate bison into areas of Alberta. The treaty is the work of an alliance of First Nations on both sides of the border aimed at conserving bison and returning them to the land.

Food security is one reason for restoring them, especially after food shortages and price increases caused by COVID-19. Moose populations in the area are also declining, said Lamouche.

“It just makes sense, but all of this takes a lot of time and trial and effort.”

Twelve Wood bison from Elk Island National Park were brought to one of the reserves in March 2020.

“We are not ranchers. We usually scout and harvest from the land,” he said. “It’s a learning experience doing this ranching and building the fences and helping the sakâw mostos to thrive in our area.”

Lamouche is the main bison tender, although other community members helped with the fence building and with caring for the animals.

“I know that in 20 to 30 years, when our herd gets to be too many for our area, that’s when we can see letting a few out, or letting our nation come and harvest the sakâw mostos in our area,” he said.

For now, the Wood bison live in a pen where they have access to water, hay, minerals and grazing.

“We want to, in a sense, do some trade in the future, and only if that’s beneficial and that’s the road we want to take. But we want to be open,” said Lamouche.

The immediate goal is to get the herd established.

“We want to get the formula right, in a sense,” he said. “We want to have them here, healthy and thriving, and have them home before we can think of repopulating, or harvesting or anything like that.”

The Woodland Cree First Nation has a long history of hunting moose and using all parts of the animal.

“That’s something that we will have to relearn how to do with sakâw mostos,” said Lamouche. “We want to be able to practice our culture as we did long before. It’s just learning all the things about how to take care of them right now in the western sense and through our traditional knowledge of how to harvest.

“We’ve done it before, we can do it again, and it’s a bit of transferring everything we know about harvesting moose, just applying sakâw mostos to the equation.”

Having bison again has not been without its challenges. The animals have escaped their enclosure twice, including once when trees fell on the fence line.

“We were scrambling to get guys on horses or quads to get them back in,” said Lamouche. “Then we thought, let’s leave them alone and see what they do. Within a couple of days, they walked back in the gate.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my god, they do want to stay with us.’”

The First Nation started with 12 bison —one older female along with several young bulls and females — and now have 16. Four bulls have been born, but some were stillborn or died at a young age. The eldest cow died this summer.

“One of the neighbouring nations was in need. They had all females, and we had a young bull who was about two years old, so we gave that to them,” he said. “They helped us with a bunch of other things. They had helped us a lot, so we gave them this bull. He’s not of breeding age yet, but I hope he thrives over there.”

It’s sometimes a process of trial and error, said Lamouche, citing one year in which no calves were born at all. The issue was later deemed to stem from minerals in the feeding program.

“If they don’t have certain types of feed, enough grazing area, and if they aren’t fat enough, they won’t breed,” he said. “August was rutting season. I’m hoping that next year around July, I’ll be seeing a lot of newborns everywhere.”

The band is a member of the Bison Producers of Alberta and is connecting with bison producers in the northern part of the province.

“We want to be able to do the best for our bison here, and find out what other people are doing as well, and learn those best practices and apply them,” he said.

They’ve also recently signed a partnership with ALUS, a non-profit that helps producers provide eco-system services, to develop enhanced grazing for bison on their lands.

ALUS will receive up to $700,000 to implement a sustainable bison grazing program with the Woodland Cree First Nation and the ALUS program in Alberta’s Northern Sunrise County.

This will allow the bison to be fenced out of wetlands and riparian areas, and multi-paddock grazing will be introduced at the site, said Bryan Gilvesy, chief executive officer of ALUS.

The post For the first time in generations, bison have returned to traditional lands appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Many people haven’t learned the history of residential schools because it wasn’t part of school curricula until recently and was seldom talked about.

I’ve met many people who were angry when they first started learning about this history. I firmly believe knowledge is power, and by reading or listening to stories by Indigenous people, everyone can learn these histories and start to work toward reconciliation.

I’ve long had an interest in this area, so I would like to recommend some books I’ve read by Indigenous writers.

David A. Robertson is a member of the Swampy Cree Nation who now lives in Winnipeg.

In his memoir, Black Water, Robertson travels with his father, Don, back to the family trapline.

Don grew up on the trapline before he was taken to a residential school. In a personal, emotional memoir, Robertson learns about his father’s history and how it affected his own family life.

Robertson has also written several books for children, and his picture book When we were alone can be used to teach children about some of the impact of residential schools, in a tone appropriate for younger people. This book is beautifully illustrated by writer/illustrator Julie Flett, a Cree/Métis author.

For those who prefer to read fiction, I recommend Michelle Good’s debut novel Five Little Indians.

Good, who is of Cree ancestry, is a poet and lawyer and has spent part of her career advocating for residential school survivors. Five Little Indians follows five teenagers as they leave residential school and try to make their way in the world.

Some of the characters end up living in the bush, while others struggle on the streets of Vancouver. It is a powerful novel with fully realized characters who display how residential school has affected them. This book is a national bestseller, and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, one of Canada’s biggest literary accolades.

They Called Me Number One is a memoir written by Chief Bev Sellars of the Xatsull First Nation.

Sellars recalls her years at St. Joseph’s Mission School in Williams Lake, B.C., and how she, her mother and her grandmother were all affected by attending residential schools.

The title describes a practice used at St. Joseph’s Mission School. Instead of being called by their names, the children were given numbers and Sellars was referred to as “number one.” In this book, she details the suffering she experienced and its impact on her mental health and family. She also outlines her own path to healing.

I have met people who feel overwhelmed when it comes to Indigenous issues, so if you want to learn some basics about Indigenous issues in Canada, I have two suggestions.

First, I recommend Chelsea Vowel’s first book Indigenous Writes.

Vowel is a Métis woman from the Lac Ste. Anne area in Alberta. Indigenous Writes is an excellent primer for understanding Indigenous issues in Canada. It’s written in plain language with a healthy dose of snark.

This book will change and challenge your assumptions about First Nations, Métis and Inuit issues, dispel myths and explain things in a way that is relatively easy to follow. Vowel explains things like “the Sixties Scoop,” “blood quantum” and how Indigenous people are taxed.

Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian is another book that examines what it means to be Indigenous in Canada.

King is a celebrated novelist, children’s writer and mystery writer of Cherokee and Greek descent. This book looks at the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and delves into how Indigenous people are portrayed in pop culture.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is just one day, but it is a call to action for everyone.

And for some, that action can start by picking up a book or two, reading, and learning more.

The post Opinion: The path to reconciliation can start by reading some good books appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The province on Thursday announced amendments to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) Act — having received royal assent last spring — now come into force.

The ALR, which today includes 46,159 square km of B.C. land preserved for agricultural use, was set up in 1973 to stem the loss of “thousands of hectares” annually to development.

The new rules are expected to tighten the process by which any farmland can be permanently removed from the ALR, by allowing only local governments, First Nations and “other prescribed bodies” to make applications directly to the ALC to have land excluded.

The change “empower(s) local governments to ensure ALC decisions align with the land-use plans in their own communities,” the province said in a release.

Under the amended act, private landowners can still put in requests to have land removed from the ALR — but only if their local government agrees and makes the application to the ALC.

However, the province said Thursday, local governments indicated during recent public consultations that “they need sufficient transition time to implement these changes.”

Thus, that specific rule will go into effect Sept. 30, the province said.

Other amendments now in effect give the ALC the “flexibility” to create decision-making panels which can “better consider local and regional circumstances for land” within the ALR.

With that capability in hand, the province said, the ALC can cut the wait times for landowners seeking decisions — and can “make better use of the commissioners, drawing on their expertise in a related technical field or land-use issue.”

The new amendments are also expected to bring “more rigour” to the reconsideration process, by “clarifying the circumstances under which reconsiderations will proceed.”

They also add new criteria prioritizing “the protection of the size, integrity and continuity of the land base” that the ALC must consider in decision-making.

‘Land use pressure’

The amendments follow review and consultations by a ministerial committee starting in 2018, with the stated goals of preserving the ALR’s “productive capacity,” encouraging farming in the ALR for “uses related to agriculture and food production,” and strengthening the governance of both the ALR and ALC.

“During the past 45 years, the ALR boundary has been refined through early boundary reviews, local government land use planning exercises and over 48,000 individual applications,” the advisory committee said in a discussion document at the time.

The ALR boundary, the committee said, “is often viewed as temporary and adjustable” and. the idea that the ALR is available for urban uses “perpetuates land use pressure on farmland.”

That sort of speculation, the committee said, “results in a focus on applications made by individual landowners to modify the ALR and detracts from proactive work” such as regional-level land use planning, analyzing permitted uses and preserving and encouraging the ALR’s farm use. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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“The port has got all of the grain handling equipment and simply said, the first thing we want to do is resume that commercial activity,” said Louis Dufresne, president of iChurchill Inc., in a phone interview Friday.

In a release dated Thursday it was announced a consortium of Manitoba First Nations, led by Peguis First Nation Chief Glenn Hudson, in partnership with iChurchill Inc., a private Canadian company, had entered into an acquisition agreement with Denver-based Omnitrax, to take over control of the Hudson Bay Railway, the Port of Churchill and associated assets.

Sections of the rail line between Gillam and Churchill were washed out in May 2017, making it inoperable. Omnitrax had previously closed the port to grain shipments in 2016. The rail line had been used less since the Canadian Wheat Board’s single-desk marketing power was dissolved in 2012.

The Port of Churchill is North America’s only Arctic deep-water port and is covered in ice for most of the year, accessible only between late July and early November.

There had been reports other groups were interested in taking control of the rail line but it wasn’t until May this year that anything concrete was announced.

The First Nations and iChurchill have been working on the deal for months. iChurchill is a new company formed for the project and Dufresne said it plans to be based in Winnipeg.

The group includes more than a dozen Manitoba First Nations and a group of entrepreneurs including Dufresne, a former engineer. The other directors include Robyn Lore, a farmer and land rights specialist, and Doug McNeil, a director with the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.

iChurchill also includes numerous advisors, such as Gary Rennick, who was involved with the original sale of the rail line from Canadian National Railway to Omnitrax.

“We see a lot of value and potential in these assets and we’re committed to making the business viable… (it is) very important for us in advancing our businesses, for the entity to be financially viable it’s a requirement the rail line cannot be only for passenger service and delivery of consumer goods, it’s got to be supported by significant commercial activity,” Dufresne said.

The Hudson Bay Route Association (HBRA), which has advocated for the use of the rail line and port, was pleased to hear the news. According to Wayne Bacon, second vice-president with HBRA and chair of Northern Lights Rail, the rail line and port are critical pieces of infrastructure for shortline railway companies.

“(The Port of Churchill has) basically been shut down for three years and it really has caused a lot of grief for a lot of producers and for the shortlines… over the last three years, (the shortlines) haven’t been able to move any wheat at all. The big companies don’t want us to use their ports,” he said.

The new ownership group said it plans to post requests for proposals for the repairs within the following days. It said wants to have the deal completed by mid-June in order to ensure the repairs are well underway by fall/winter.

iChurchill Inc. plans to release more information about its plans for the rail line and port at a press conference in Winnipeg on Tuesday (May 8).

— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity markets reporting. Follow her at @AshleyMR1993 on Twitter.

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