Shawn Bell - Wawatay News

Following the announcement that former Aboriginal Affairs minister Kathlene Wynne is running for leader of the Ontario Liberal party, Energy Minister Chris Bentley has taken over the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio.
Although Bentley has already announced that he will not seek re-election in the next provincial election, he told Wawatay that he is excited to reassume the portfolio for the time being.
“It’s an enormously important part of our government,” Bentley said. “I’m very pleased and looking forward to it, looking forward to meeting with people as soon as I can.”

Figuring out how to link the proposed Ring of Fire mines to market has been a long standing debate. Whether ore should travel east-west or north-south has been the primary discussion, with stakeholders across the spectrum weighing in on which way is best.
Through it all, the idea of using a railway instead of a road has been kept quietly on the backburner.
Now a new coalition of unlikely partners is trying to bring the rail option to the forefront.

A junior mining company that called First Nations “hostile third-party governments” has raised the ire of indigenous leaders across Ontario.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Wahgoshig First Nation called on the Ontario government to withdraw its support of “racist and radical” industry representatives during a press conference in Sudbury Nov. 7.
The chiefs targeted Mining United, a group of junior exploration companies, and the Ontario Prospectors Association (OPA).

For audiences across southern Ontario, the 3rd World Canada tour that brought the story of suicide and living conditions in Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) was heart-wrenching.
For the youth from the northern community who participated in the tour, the events in six Ontario cities were emotionally draining.
Yet both the audiences and the youth were uplifted by the tour, which brought filmmaker Andree Cazabon and the delegation from KI to six Ontario communities including Toronto, Kingston, Peterborough and Thunder Bay.

There is a study coming out in the December 2012 edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry on the abuse of prescription drugs by adolescents across the country. The study examines the prevalence of drugs such as oxycontin and percoset among young people from the ages of 12 to 17.
As one part of its results, the study found that First Nations youth were twice as likely to abuse prescription drugs than non-Aboriginal youth.
But First Nations youth were not the highest risk group. Inuit youth were way more likely than any other group to abuse prescription drugs.