Indigenous rights

District politicians in B.C. support First Nations seeking to wrest control of water governance from mining company Rio Tinto as the Nechako River's water levels drop too low to support fish.

Indigenous Services Canada won't set a deadline for lifting all remaining long-term drinking-water advisories in First Nations communities, but it will create a website to provide estimated completion dates for each one that remains.

The Magpie River is the first in Canada to be granted legal personhood rights, part of a growing global movement rooted in Indigenous beliefs.

Passing a new law to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will get First Nations closer to self-determination, National Chief Perry Bellegarde of the Assembly of First Nations said on Wednesday, February 10, 2021.

The Alberta government says it has completed a plan to manage oilsands development in an area near the Fort McKay First Nation that supports traditional land uses and maintains its ecological integrity.

Retired Conservative senator Lynn Beyak made residential school denialism a cause célèbre in Canada, writes Sean Carleton.

In 1885, a week after the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed and the iconic “Last Spike” photo was snapped, Métis leader Louis Riel, who had once successfully negotiated with Ottawa for Métis land rights, was hanged for treason. The railway transported Canada’s first army to crush Métis uprisings.

"There have been far too many unexplained deaths, cases of unreported violence and incidents of racism in Indigenous lives, and it is time we begin paying attention, seek deserved justice and acknowledge that systemic racism exists and flourishes in this country," writes Jamie Monastyrski. 

In a video posted to the Ryerson Conservatives Facebook group last month, the Conservative leader said residential schools aimed initially to educate Indigenous children but later devolved into harmful practices.

Canada must invest in closing the gap for Indigenous people as it emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the outgoing head of the Assembly of First Nations said Tuesday.

"UNDRIP has become — depending on your politics — a key to transforming Canadian laws in an extraordinary act of reconciliation or a 'bogeyman,'" writes Karyn Pugliese, a.k.a. Pabàmàdiz.

The call to action, known as Joyce’s Principle, aims to ensure that Indigenous people have equal access to "the highest standard" of government-run health services. First Nations have for years complained about discrimination in hospitals and other institutions.

The federal environment minister is backtracking on a previous decision to keep Ottawa out of the approval process for a major coal mine expansion in Alberta.

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson is reconsidering a decision in December to keep the federal government out of the approvals process for a major coal-mine expansion in Alberta.

With few schools open from which to walk out in protest of the climate crisis, young activists are seeking to keep the momentum going in the digital realm. Meanwhile, Canadian civil society is angling to shape the recovery from COVID-19.