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Some Indigenous leaders concerned about reconciliation with new monarch

Published

2 years ago

September 14, 2022

Some Indigenous leaders and community members say they’re concerned about making progress on reconciliation with King Charles III.

Treaty 8 Grand Chief Arthur Noskey says the Queen’s death last week wasn’t good timing, as First Nations were making progress in working with the Crown toward upholding treaty agreements.

“We were building up not only the momentum, but letting (the Queen) know that the Crown and the relationship understood by our people is not what’s being delivered by administrators,” Noskey said from his office in Edmonton.

Treaty-Crown relations have been a complex issue since the inception of the agreements. Some were signed under vulnerable circumstances, while others were implemented as peace treaties, and most weren’t negotiated accurately or in Indigenous languages.

“It hasn’t resonated to what our forefathers’ expectations were. Even today, there are a lot of discrepancies,” said Noskey.

He warned the Crown’s honour is at stake if conversations with the new monarch aren’t carried on.

“I hope we don’t have to start from ground zero with King Charles.”

Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ralph Goodale, has said the King may be “a little more outgoing and a little less reserved” than his mother.

He said he expects the new monarch will want to continue to take an interest in issues that are important to Canada, including reconciliation with Indigenous communities.

Crystal Fraser, an assistant professor in the faculty of native studies at the University of Alberta, said the Queen’s death marks the end of an era but is also a time for reflection.

“The Queen was the representative of a colonial empire that really did a lot of harm internationally to colonial countries and especially to Indigenous nations here in Canada.”

Oppressive colonial policies have tainted Canada’s history for centuries, more recently with the residential school system, the ’60s Scoop, forced sterilization of Indigenous women and forced relocation of Inuit in the North, all of which occurred during the Queen’s reign.

“These decisions were made in part through Christian churches, through the Canadian government, through policing bodies like the RCMP. But at the end of the day … all of this is done in the spirit of the British Empire,” said Fraser.

Like many other Indigenous community members, Fraser said her expectations are low when it comes to significant changes from the monarchy regarding reconciliation.

“At the end of the day, it is still a British monarchy that colonized a lot of the world and continues to profit from that,” she said.

In May, Charles and his wife, Camilla, visited Yellowknife and the Dettah Dene settlement on the final leg of their Canadian tour for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Their visit focused on reconciliation and climate change.

During the visit, the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council requested an apology from the monarchy. In a speech before departing Yellowknife, Charles said it had been moving to meet residential school survivors and acknowledged their pain and suffering, but did not apologize.

Inuit leader Piita Irniq was taken from his family as a child and forced to live at Turquetil Hall and attend Sir Joseph Bernier Day School in Chesterfield Inlet, Nvt.

He said the Royal Family should apologize for residential schools and the loss of language, traditional beliefs and parenting skills.

Irniq said he looks to the future and establishing a better relationship between Inuit and the royals to move toward Inuuqatigiittiarniq, an Inuktitut term that means “living in peace and harmony.”

Some First Nations leaders in British Columbia have urged the King to make his first official act a renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery, which are edicts or papal bulls used to justify the colonization of the Americas.

Some Indigenous academics have said the doctrine underlies all the policies that came after it.

“The Doctrine of Discovery dehumanized non-Europeans while empires waged war and stole lands, resources and wealth that rightfully belonged to Indigenous peoples all over the world,” members from the BC Assembly of First Nations, First Nations Summit and Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs said in a joint release.

“With a change in Canada’s head of state, it’s time for a change in the Crown’s approach to Indigenous sovereignty.”

Calls to rescind the doctrine reverberated across the country this past summer as Pope Francis visited Canada to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools. At the time, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said they would work with the Vatican to address the requests.

The King is in a position to acknowledge the “historic crimes committed by his predecessors and set the stage for a new relationship with Indigenous Peoples around the globe,” First Nations leaders in B.C. said.

National Chief RoseAnne Archibald of the Assembly of First Nations said her next step in Crown relations is to see a Royal Proclamation of Reconciliation issued by the Crown, part of a call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“As many mourn the passing of QE2, let’s remember that grief and accountability can exist in the same space, simultaneously,” Archibald wrote in a tweet Sunday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2022.

— With files from Emily Blake in Yellowknife and Brittany Hobson in Winnipeg.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Angela Amato, The Canadian Press

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Langford, Heim lead Rangers to wild 13-8 win over Blue Jays

Published

2 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Rookie Wyatt Langford homered, doubled twice and became the first Texas player this season to reach base five times, struggling Jonah Heim delivered a two-run single to break a sixth-inning tie and the Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 13-8 on Tuesday night.

Leody Taveras also had a homer among his three hits for the Rangers.

Langford, who also walked twice, has 12 homers and 25 doubles this season. He is hitting .345 in September.

“I think it’s really important to finish on a strong note,” Langford said. “I’m just going to keep trying to do that.”

Heim was 1-for-34 in September before he lined a single to right field off Tommy Nance (0-2) to score Adolis García and Nathaniel Lowe, giving Texas a 9-7 lead. Heim went to the plate hitting .212 with 53 RBIs after being voted an All-Star starter last season with a career-best 95 RBIs. He added a double in the eighth ahead of Taveras’ homer during a three-run inning.

Texas had 13 hits and left 13 men on. It was the Rangers’ highest-scoring game since a 15-8 win at Oakland on May 7.

Matt Festa (5-1) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the win, giving him a 5-0 record in 13 appearances with the Rangers after being granted free agency by the New York Mets on July 7.

Nathan Eovaldi, a star of Texas’ 2023 run to the franchise’s first World Series championship, had his worst start of the year in what could have been his final home start with the Rangers. Eovaldi, who will be a free agent next season, allowed 11 hits (the most of his two seasons with Texas) and seven runs (tied for the most).

“I felt like early in the game they just had a few hits that found the holes, a few first-pitch base hits,” said Eovaldi, who is vested for a $20 million player option with Texas for 2025. “I think at the end of the day I just need to do a better job of executing my pitches.”

Eovaldi took a 7-3 lead into the fifth inning after the Rangers scored five unearned runs in the fourth. The Jays then scored four runs to knock out Eovaldi after 4 2/3 innings.

Six of the seven runs scored against Toronto starter Chris Bassitt in 3 2/3 innings were unearned. Bassitt had a throwing error during Texas’ two-run third inning.

“We didn’t help ourselves defensively, taking care of the ball to secure some outs,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.

The Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a double and two singles, his most hits in a game since having four on Sept. 3. Guerrero is hitting .384 since the All-Star break.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Blue Jays: SS Bo Bichette (calf) was activated and played for the first time since July 19, going 2 for 5 with an RBI. … OF Daulton Varsho (shoulder) was placed on the 10-day injured list and will have rotator cuff surgery … INF Will Wagner (knee inflammation) was placed on the 60-day list.

UP NEXT

Rangers: LHP Chad Bradford (5-3, 3.97 ERA) will pitch Wednesday night’s game on extended five days’ rest after allowing career highs in hits (nine), runs (eight) and home runs (three) in 3 2/3 innings losing at Arizona on Sept. 14.

Blue Jays: RHP Bowden Francis (8-4, 3.50) has had two no-hitters get away in the ninth inning this season, including in his previous start against the New York Mets on Sept. 11. Francis is the first major-leaguer to have that happen since Rangers Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan in 1989.

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Billie Jean King set to earn another honor with the Congressional Gold Medal

Published

3 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billie Jean King will become the first individual female athlete to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey announced Tuesday that their bipartisan legislation had passed the House of Representatives and would be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The bill to honor King, the tennis Hall of Famer and activist, had already passed unanimously in the Senate.

Sherrill, a Democrat, said in a statement that King’s “lifetime of advocacy and hard work changed the landscape for women and girls on the court, in the classroom, and the workplace.”

The bill was introduced last September on the 50th anniversary of King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match of all-time. The medal, awarded by Congress for distinguished achievements and contributions to society, has previously been given to athletes including baseball players Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and golfers Jack Nicklaus, Byron Nelson and Arnold Palmer.

King had already been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Fitzpatrick, a Republican, says she has “broken barriers, led uncharted paths, and inspired countless people to stand proudly with courage and conviction in the fight for what is right.”

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Account tweaks for young Instagram users ‘minimum’ expected by B.C., David Eby says

Published

3 hours ago

September 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

SURREY, B.C. – Premier David Eby says new account control measures for young Instagram users introduced Tuesday by social media giant Meta are the “minimum” expected of tech companies to keep kids safe online.

The parent company of Instagram says users in Canada and elsewhere under 18 will have their accounts set to private by default starting Tuesday, restricting who can send messages, among other parental controls and settings.

Speaking at an unrelated event Tuesday, Eby says the province began talks with social media companies after threatening legislation that would put big tech companies on the hook for “significant potential damages” if they were found negligent in failing to keep kids safe from online predators.

Eby says the case of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old from Prince George, B.C., who took his own life last year after being targeted by a predator on Snapchat, was “horrific and totally preventable.”

He says social media apps are “nothing special,” and should be held to the same child safety standards as anyone who operates a place that invites young people, whether it’s an amusement park, a playground or an online platform.

In a progress report released Tuesday about the province’s engagement with big tech companies including Google, Meta, TikTok, Spapchat and X, formerly known as Twitter, the provincial government says the companies are implementing changes, including a “trusted flagger” option to quickly remove intimate images.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024

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