Rick Garrick

Thunder Bay’s No Pride in Genocide march began at 2:15 on July 1 to honour the 215 children found at the former Kamloops Indian residential school.

“It’s a grieving time for us (with) what they found and what they’re going to continue finding,” says Elder Ma-Nee Chacaby, whose memoir, A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder, was published in 2016. “There’s going to be more.”

Chacaby says the turnout was “pretty good” for the walk from Waverley Park to the Thunder Bay waterfront.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Grand Council Treaty #3 and the Chiefs of Ontario welcomed investments in infrastructure, policing, Indigenous women entrepreneurs, health, education and justice but called for more economic development investments after the federal budget was delivered.

Deputy Grand Chief Walter Naveau stressed the importance of working with Wawatay Communications Society to get messages out about COVID-19 during his WRN (Wawatay Radio Network) update.

“That is why having Wawatay is important to air what’s going on pertaining to COVID-19 … because not all people have cellphones but they still talk amongst one another about the measures being taken,” Naveau says. “So that is why I find that Wawatay is very instrumental and very important in terms of getting the word out.”

Niisaachewan’s Tania Cameron is looking to bring a different perspective to the Senate of Canada after former senator Lynn Beyak retired.

“I am community minded and continually serve my region in any capacity that I am able to,” says Cameron, chief of staff for the Ontario Regional Chief. “Today, I am on my way into town in Kenora to take care of the sixth and final potato delivery into northwestern Ontario.”

Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler recently stressed the importance of an agreement between the provincial and federal governments to support air carriers serving remote First Nation communities.