Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty linked land rights and climate change during a speech to the United Nations advisory session on Indigenous rights. Gull-Masty asked the committee to study resource restitution, using an environmental context.
Changes may soon be coming to the Cree constitution, which was enacted alongside a governance agreement with Canada in 2017 to advance Cree self-determination in Eeyou Istchee.
On May 29, Moose Cree First Nation served its legal defence against claims made by the Grand Council of Crees of Quebec (“GCC”) in a lawsuit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2016. The GCC is seeking recognition of the Cree Nation’s Aboriginal title and rights over certain lands located in Ontario, as well as $495 million in damages for alleged past breaches of rights.
The Cree Nation played a prominent role at this year’s United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). The theme at the largest global gathering of Indigenous leaders, which began April 17, was a rights-based approach to human health, planetary and territorial health, and climate change.
In 2021, Federal Court approved a class-action settlement between Canada and several First Nations that were subject to long-term drinking water advisories from 1995 to 2021. Now, settlement negotiators have extended the deadline for First Nations to submit a claim until March 7.
A CBC investigation disproving Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s claims of Indigenous descent is stirring controversy about the extent of Indigenous identity fraud in the highest levels of Canadian legal, political and academic institutions.
In many ways, Donald Nicholls had been preparing to attend this human rights workshop in Geneva, Switzerland all his life. After getting law degrees from the University of Toronto and McGill University, Nicholls received a Master of Laws from the University of Arizona, where he would later become a professor. There he ended up working with Indigenous nations from across North America and the world, including work in Australia, Mexico and Nicaragua.
Since being elected in 2021 during the Covid pandemic, Grand Chief Mandy Gull-Masty has seen provincial and federal elections and dealt with a range of issues, from meeting with the Pope over the legacy of residential schools, to provincial language laws, to federal announcements on protected areas. The Nation reached out to the Grand Chief to discuss the state of the Cree Nation, and to ask about pressing issues and future plans.
Quebec Premier François Legault committed his government to protecting 30% of the land in Quebec by 2030 during the opening of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference in Montreal on December 6.
