DATE: September, 2009 | ISSUE: 88

Our Featured Celebration

This month we're celebrating a birthday. On the evening of September 1st 1999, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network kicked off with a three-hour live broadcast from Winnipeg, culminating twenty years of planning, training and advocacy by Aboriginal film-makers, broadcasters and leaders from Nain to Victoria. Greg, Terry, Fred, Ron, and Jennifer are proud to have been part of the growth of the movement; we offer our sincere congratulations to the talented, committed folks at APTN, and to the Aboriginal broadcasters who kicked it all off in the seventies, created TVNC in the eighties, and brought it all together ten years ago today. Look for the full story later this year in Jennifer David’s upcoming book on the creation of APTN.

ONGOING PROJECTS

Jennifer David and Wanda Brascoupe-Peters have met with the Chiefs of Ontario and are beginning to develop a database and questions for the Chiefs of Ontario health promotion report.

Terry Rudden, ably assisted by Christian “the Clootch” Cloutier, has completed the draft NITC Evaluation study and will be reviewing findings and conclusions with the Board and management of NITC this week. The bottom line: they're doing a great job, and they need a lot more support.

Type II diabetes in Aboriginal communities has risen dramatically in the last two decades. In an effort to care for the diabetics in their communities and to halt the progress of this disease, Cree communities in northern Quebec are collaborating with scientists from the universities of McGill, Montreal and Ottawa to use traditional medicines in the treatment for diabetes. On August 19 and 21st the collaborative team of healers and scientists held their Annual retreat to discuss the protection of Cree medicines and related intellectual property. Dr. Valerie Assinewe (pictured left), President of Stonecircle, facilitated this workshop with the able assistance of Stonecircle’s summer student, Alyssa Whiteduck (pictured right).

Registration for the NAHO “Our People, Our Health” conference will be open as of September 2. Christian Cloutier, Patti Black and Jennifer David are getting the word out about the conference and helping organize the agenda. Some of the distinguished speakers who have confirmed include: Dr. Alika Lafontaine, youngest recipient of the National Aboriginal Achievement Award and the 2008 winner of CBC's "Canada's Next Prime Minister", and Dr. David Butler Jones, Canada's chief public health officer. Dozens of researchers will be providing poster displays and unveiling new research on Aboriginal health. This event promises to be the largest and most important gathering of Aboriginal health care professionals in 2009. Check it out at www.naho.ca/conference.

In June 2008, the Government of Nunavut signed a collective agreement with the Nunavut Employees Union. The agreement included Memorandum of Understanding No. 9, whereby the GN and the NEU agreed to the formation of a joint Employer – Union Committee to review the Nunavut Northern Allowance (NNA). Our Aarluk team, headed by Project Manager Chuck Gilhuly and including Victor Tootoo and the Hay Group, have been working with the Joint Committee since January 2009 on the review of the NNA. A survey was conducted with employers across Canada who provide similar allowances and/or have employees working in the northern Territories, Northern Quebec and Labrador. Preliminary findings were presented to the Joint Committee and a draft of the Final Report will be presented to the Joint Committee in September.

Greg Smith and Alex Ker are continuing their work on the evaluation of the Nunavut Community Wellness Project (NCWP), which is piloting wellness projects in six Nunavut communities. The Aarluk team will be meeting with the project steering committee in Iqaluit later this month to review evaluation plans and research tools, and will provide an interim evaluation report to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) this fall.

Aarluk has provided its report on a Contractor Satisfaction Survey to the Government of Nunavut Department of Community and Government Services (CGS). The survey of contractors who have completed projects with CGS in the past three years examined their experience with the Department, and identified areas for improvement. Aarluk team members include Greg Smith (Project Manager), the Clootch, Geoff Rigby and Cindy Rennie.

Aarluk's work for the Nunavut Community Infrastructure Advisory Committee in preparing integrated community infrastructure plans for twenty-four communities in the territory is proceeding on schedule, with some initial community travel scheduled for later this fall. The plans follow the principles of sustainable development, and integrate infrastructure that supports each community’s economic, social, cultural and environmental priorities. The Aarluk team includes Chris Grosset, Terry Rudden, Fred Weihs and Alex Ker, each of whom is leading a structured team to manage research, communications, administration and consultations.

HAPPY ENDINGS

The final report on the Process and Impact Evaluation of the National Health Organization (NAHO) has been delivered to Health Canada by NAHO. The Stonecircle evaluation team included Greg Smith, Jennifer David, David Boult and Patty Saulis. The report, eighteen months in the making, reviewed NAHO’s performance during its second five-year mandate.

BIRTHDAYS

Our September Birthdays: Lei Han on the 16th (a birthday he shares with his personal idol Mickey Rourke), and Helen Klengenberg on the 19th (the anniversary of Betty and Barney Hill's famous UFO abduction.) And of course - APTN!

GOSSIP

Consilium, Aarluk and Stonecircle shareholders met last week to review results for the past year, to plan for the upcoming year, and to do some work on new products and services the companies intend to introduce in the future. As is always the case when such pleasant and like-minded folk congregate, a delightful time was had by all, with two days of intensive planning broken up by discussions on the foibles of Quentin Tarantino, the decline of science fiction, and True Tales of Trainer Terror. (Pictured seated, L-R: Chuck Gilhuly, Terry Forth, Greg Smith; Standing, L-R: David Boult, Patti Black, Chris Grosset, Jennifer David, Valerie Assinewe, Ron Ryan, Terry Rudden. Missing: Fred Weihs, who was elsewhere "being briefed on the contents of the retreat's leaked final communique", and Helen Klengenberg, at home in Iqaluit with the flu.)

Meanwhile, holding the fort back home, the hardworking staff, noses firmly to the grindstone and shoulders to the wheel, bent but not broken under the terrifying corporate responsibility bequeathed to them by the shareholders, labour valiantly on. (Pictured L-R Leslie Sutherland, Lei Han, Geoff Rigby, Galin Kora, the Clootch, and Jennifer Bradshaw.)

Our summer student, Alyssa Whiteduck, says goodbye this month after three months of almost unbearable excitement on the Third Floor. But before leaving she gave us all a treat – a demonstration of Hoop Dancing one Friday afternoon on the modest Consilium patch of lawn. By the time her fifteen-minute, nineteen hoop dance had finished she had attracted a crowd of appreciative onlookers from the neighbourhood, including the lawyers next door and our favourite pistachio vendor from down the street. We wish Alyssa all the best as she heads back to her civil engineering program at the University of Ottawa.

The recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy reminds us of a link to Consilium Founding Partner Greg Smith. In 1968, Greg and his friend Ian Brooks were taking a break from university and travelling through the USA. In South Dakota they were hired to work on the local Robert Kennedy Presidential Primary campaign. Robert’s brother Edward flew in to rally support, and Greg was asked to be his driver for the day. He met Kennedy’s flight in the small town of Spearfish, and they drove to the nearby Black Hills town of Lead, where the Senator made a campaign speech. After Lead, the Senator visited Deadwood, a historic gold mining town founded in the 19th century famous for colourful characters such as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok. They toured Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10, where, according to Wikipedia, Hickok was shot on August 2, 1876, while playing poker.

Ethel Kennedy and her friend and Robert Kennedy supporter, singer Andy Williams, then arrived, and Greg and Ian were sent out to meet their Learjet, tasked with bringing Andy’s trademark sweaters to town in time for his performance later that day. Unfortunately they were a little bit late, and Andy ended up singing in the clothes he was wearing when he arrived. He hasn’t called Greg since.

And finally, congratulations to newly appointed Senator Dennis Patterson, an old friend of several Consilium partners.

SPECIAL FEATURE

It probably says something about Consilium that half of us are dog people. We’re just not sure what exactly that means. But let's put an old theory to the test. It's said that you can tell a lot about a person from their dog. We invite you this month to pair the Consiliumite with their canine, for the usual exciting prize: an authentic Stonecircle bag to the first correct answer. Please email your answers to ourtimes@consilium.ca!