Ahkameyimok Podcast with Perry Bellegarde

On this special Earth Day episode of the Ahkameyimok Podcast, Catherine McKenna, the Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and a former Environment Minister, joins National Chief Bellegarde to discuss the $6 billion in funding for First Nations specific infrastructure projects in the latest Federal budget, why she instructed the Canadian Infrastructure Bank to set aside $1billion in l...

"It's very complex, our language, and it's filled with spirituality and land and psychology and it's directly related to where we come from. We are a composition of all these minerals because we are the Big Bang, we come from the stars. That's where we are from." In February, Louise Bernice Halfe - Sky Dancer, was appointed to a two year term as Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate. She is the fir...

Mark Podlasly says the trend towards investors using Environmental, Social and Governance investment standards, or ESG, is overall a positive trend except for one large problem, they almost completely ignore the input of First Nations. This, he says, makes it much more likely that there will continue to be conflicts over large projects developed on traditional First Nations lands. The Director of...

For the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic among First Nations, National Chief Perry Bellegarde talks with Dr. Evan Adams, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Indigenous Services Canada. The two discuss the reasons for Dr. Adams sense of optimism due to a successful ongoing vaccine roll-out among First Nations, why the rate of vaccination is four times higher among First Nations than the rest of Can...

"When I went to school and started hearing stories about Roman and Greek mythology and the stars of Orion and Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, I assumed that it was only the Romans and Greeks that looked up at the sky. But that didn't sit right in my head, because I looked at the sky." As a young man Wilfred Buck was curious about the stars, and began to ask elders in his First Nations community in Norther...

"The fact that DRIPA was passed unanimously needs to be underscored. This isn't an agenda of the NDP government, it's something that was embraced by all representatives of the people of British Columbia, and I can't overemphasize how important that is." As BC's Minister of Indigenous Relations, it's Murray Rankins job to implement and meet the commitments of Bill 40, the Declaration of the Rights...

"The part of becoming the first indigenous President of the Canadian Medical Association that resonates most with me is knowing that youth out there are going to see someone who is like them and know that they will have the same opportunities that I'm going to have in the coming years." Our guest today is Dr. Alika Lafontaine, who was recently elected the next President of the Canadian Medical Ass...

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal New Democratic Party, joins us on this episode of the Ahkameyimok Podcast. Singh and National Chief Bellegarde discuss the pandemic, what drew him into politics, overcoming systemic racism, the upcoming election, the importance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and why the related Bill, C-15, needs to get passed by Parliament, the enviro...

Former NDP Member of Parliament Romeo Saganash visits the Ahkameyimok Podcast to discuss how Bill C-15, which works to ensure Canadian laws live up to the requirements set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, builds on his own efforts with Bill C-262. He and National Chief Bellegarde also discus what improvements the bill could use as it works its way through Parliament,...

"If you see the message coming from someone who is from my age or younger, that's when you know you are doing something wrong and something has to be done. Because the youth shouldn't have to be using their voices, we shouldn't have to be speaking up on political issues." In 2019, fourteen year-old Autumn Peltier addressed the United Nations in New York on the growing water crisis on our planet an...

"It's not just to say that we're doing the right thing because we have a certain number of First Nations people involved. It's to learn and have the knowledge of the First Nations people, because we'll be better for it. It will enrich our sport." Former National Hockey League player Andrew Ference is now the NHL Director of Social Impact, Growth and Legislative affairs. He joins the Akhameyimok Po...

Chief Willie Littlechild knows a thing or two about the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He helped write the first draft of the UN Declaration back in 1977. Chief Littlechild then spent 30 years working to get the UN to adopt the Declaration, in face of opposition from the Canadian government at the time, and is now lobbying for its passage into Canadian law as Bill...

On #BellLetsTalk Day, as part of the AFN effort to help support mental health all across Canada, National Chief Perry Bellegarde is joined by Dr Carol Hopkins to talk mental health and First Nations. They discuss why traditional First Nations healing and knowledge are a key component to helping people and communities overcome mental health challenges, the impact the pandemic has had on mental heal...

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond discusses the findings from her independent investigation in Indigenous racism in British Columbia's health care system.

What is the state of First Nations languages in Canada? One of the leading experts on the promotion and restoration of Indigenous culture and language, Dr Lorna Wanosts’a7 Williams of the University of Victoria, joins the Ahkameyimok Podcast to discuss that ahead of the Symposium on Indigenous Languages hosted by Canadian Heritage on January 25th.  Indigenous languages represent who we are, expres...

Sheldon Kennedy is one of Canada's leading campaigners in the fight against child abuse. The retired NHL veteran and founder of the Calgary Child Advocacy Centre joins National Chief Bellegarde to discuss ways in which the pandemic has made child abuse worse, what can be done to improve that, his own history of abuse by his hockey coach as a teenager, and how telling that story gave him the streng...

With First Nations COVID cases spiking, Dr Evan Adams, Deputy-Chief Medical Officer at Indigenous Services Canada, joins National Chief Perry Bellegarde to discuss the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines to First Nations. They talk about why the vaccine is safe and necessary, the different brands of vaccine, when they will become widely available, and why COVID numbers have shot so high among First Natio...

Tom Jackson took a break from his annual Huron Carole concert series, fundraising for homeless shelters, to join National Chief Perry Bellegarde in a special holiday edition of Ahkameyimok. The award winning actor, musician and social activist talks about how he turned his life around by helping others, why compassion and kindness are so important, and the importance of making love an action word,...

"If you have a child that is loved and has opportunities and is in their family, you're not going to have child abuse. In fact we have very little real child abuse in the indigenous sector to begin with, what we have is the debilitating impacts of poverty." Indigenous Child Welfare advocate Kenn Richard joins National Chief Perry Bellegarde to discuss the potential impact and challenges from the f...

"That divide is there between cultural and Christian First Nations people. I love that there's still respect between the two and that they can co-exist. It's not that I'm unaware of the two realms, (Gospel First Nation) is my attempt at amalgamation." William Prince. Peguis First Nation. Treaty 1 Territory, Manitoba. Country music star William Prince reached near the top of the Billboard charts ba...

"The fastest growing prison population is not just indigenous people, but particularly indigenous women and even more so, those who experienced the greatest disadvantages." Senator Kim Pate points out that almost half of the women in Canada's prisons are indigenous, despite indigenous people making up less than five percent of the total population. The cost of keeping them in the corrections syste...

“It’s very dehumanizing what we are going through. Water is a basic human right.” Neskantaga First Nation has the longest standing boil water advisory in Canada, twenty-five years and counting. And now the northern Ontario Ojibwe Nation has been evacuated to Thunder Bay for the second time in two years because of serious problems with the water supply, an unexplained oily sheen on the community re...

To mark Remembrance Day, Major General Joe Paul, the highest ranking First Nations officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, joins National Chief Perry Bellegarde on the podcast. They discuss; the significance of the unveiling of the portrait of First Nations D-Day hero Philip Favel at the Canadian War Museum, the historic role of First Nations in the Canadian military and conflicts, and how that has...

First Nations people are 4 percent of the Canadian population but make up about one quarter of the prison population. This is just one more example of systemic racism. Now a new groundbreaking investigation by the Globe and Mail crime and justice reporter Tom Cardoso takes a hard look at years worth of government data to reveal the impact of that systemic racism in the prison system and the real d...

"The vast percentage of the world's intact biodiversity is on lands that belong to First Nations. These are not just the metaphorical guardians of nature. These are the literal guardians." Wade Davis joins National Chief Perry Bellegarde to discuss the important role First Nations have to play in reversing the dramatic loss of biodiversity on our planet. The United Nations estimates that a million...