Rick Garrick — Wawatay News

Wasaya Airways CEO Tom Morris says the 25-year-old First Nations airline is not in financial straights as indicated in a December 2013 letter to the ownership chiefs.
“We are 100 per cent safe and we’ll be here for a long time,” Morris said. “There’s been a lot of speculation in the media as well as the social media. We just wanted to tell our side of the story and tell the truth, the true picture of where we are.”

Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services is looking to provide Gladue workers in Nishnawbe Aski Nation communities through recently announced Legal Aid Ontario funding.
“There’s a fund of about $3 million and we’re trying to get money for our Gladue workers,” said Celina Reitberger, executive director of NAN Legal. “We’re going to hire three workers — one for the central (area), one for the east and one for the west.”
Reitberger said NAN Legal’s community legal workers, who already have a reputation in the community, will provide information to the Gladue workers.

Moose Cree’s William Small is planning to introduce a new polystyrene foundation system to First Nation communities through his company — Eco Fab Structures Inc.
“We’re going to be the first distributors of this system for Ontario,” Small said during the 12th Annual First Nations Northern Housing Conference. “We’re quite excited about this new product. I think it answers a lot of the problems we have in First Nations housing, in general the mould issue that comes along with some of the techniques that are currently being used today.”

Former Ontario premier Bob Rae called for respectful partnership in resource development during the Grow Greenstone Expo, held March 17-18 in Thunder Bay.
“It used to be that a company would do what they thought was their homework and they would then get a coterie, an army of consultants and lawyers and environmental folks, to write reports for them and they would put all these reports in a box,” said the Matawa First Nations lead negotiator and former Liberal MP.

The issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women was recently shared with students in Thunder Bay through Lakehead University’s local faceless dolls project.
“I think it’s sad, mainly, that no one is paying attention to these people who have gone missing,” said Rachel Corston, a Grade 8 Algonquin Avenue Public School student. “It’s nice that they’re recognizing them now and that we’re doing all these dolls.”
Corston and her fellow students created unique faceless dolls during a March 26 faceless dolls project session at her school.