Acknowledging we are on Mi’kmaw territory is planting the seed of reconciliation in Nova Scotia. Last week the Halifax Regional School Board voted to include an acknowledgement during morning announcements that schools sit on Mi’kmaw land, and in October the department of Education and Early Childhood Development will introduce treaty history into Nova Scotia’s education […]
First Nations
Posted inNews + Opinion
Our people refuse to be broken
When I was a kid, I used to play “Indian.” I would put a feather in my hair, wear whatever fringed leather jacket my mother had kicking around from the ’80s and I would run around war-whooping outside. When I was a teenager, I dressed up as Pocahontas for Halloween. When I was in my […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Council promises new home for Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre
Plans for a brand new Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre are one step closer to becoming a reality thanks to a surprise motion from Halifax Regional Council. After an in-camera discussion that began Tuesday evening and spilled into Wednesday afternoon, council voted to once again look at selling the former Red Cross building in the north […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
De-celebrating Canada 150
I’m sitting in Cornwallis Park feeling useless. However, that’s not the best way to begin: focusing on my own feelings when I want to tell you about a powerful performance piece by Indigenous artist Raven Davis. Did I mention that I am a white person, a settler, a guest on these unceded Mi’kmaq lands? Davis […]
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Panel of experts to review use of Cornwallis name
Halifax will finally get some truth and reconciliation on its controversial founder, Edward Cornwallis. On Tuesday, Regional Council voted 15-1 to assemble a panel of experts to review and recommend changes on how HRM commemorates Cornwallis. The motion from Halifax West Armdale councillor Shawn Cleary also asks for recommendations on how the city can better […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
“Destroy the Indians”
On October 1, 1749, governor Edward Cornwallis gathered his council in Halifax to discuss the growing French and Mi’kmaq threat. Cornwallis’ bright successes at the Battle of Culloden and in the Scottish Pacification may have been illuminating his mind when the councillors met in his Parade Square home. The Halifax settlement was small, isolated from […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Cornwallis naming debate will return to council
Rebecca Thomas’ words have not fallen on deaf ears. The city’s poet laureate delivered a powerful message this week, and it’s inspired city council to reopen a heated debate about how Halifax commemorates its controversial founder. Thomas appeared at City Hall to perform her poem, “Not Perfect,” at the start of Tuesday’s council meeting. The […]
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Hidden Haligonians: Chris and Greg Mitchell
While attending post-secondary school in New York, Chris and Greg Mitchell were surprised to learn that many of their schoolmates didn’t realize Indigenous peoples still lived in North America. “A lot of them think Native Americans are extinct,” says Greg. “Most people think it’s, you know, the Hollywood idea—big feather headdresses and stuff,” adds Chris. […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Government must do more to address First Nations’ water woes
Neskantaga First Nation in Ontario has had to boil water since 1995. “We’re over 20 years already where our people haven’t been able to get the water they need to drink from their taps or to bathe themselves without getting any rashes,” Neskantaga Chief Wayne Moonias told CBC News in 2015. Their water issues have […]
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Editing the way journalists write about social justice
[Image-1] Media “significantly shapes public opinion,” says Naiomi Metallic, so the way reporters write about marginalized communities has an impact on them. “The media has not been neutral in its history of how it deals with Indigenous people,” says the Mi’kmaw lawyer and assistant professor at Dalhousie. Metallic was one of three panelists at a […]
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SCIENCE MATTERS: Indigenous people are fighting for us all
[Image-1] In the 1990s, the David Suzuki Foundation embarked on a program to develop community economic projects with coastal First Nations. Between 1998 and 2003, my wife and foundation co-founder, Tara Cullis, established relationships with 11 coastal communities from the tip of Vancouver Island to Haida Gwaii and Alaska, visiting each several times. She encountered […]
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Whose heritage is it anyway?
The last time PLANifax made a video on the Centre Plan, we discussed the new buildings that are coming up the city. This time, we’re talking about the old buildings—the Victorian, Georgian, pre-World War architecture that we’ve grown to love in Halifax as part of its heritage. Because when you just focus on the buildings, […]