ICYMI: The top Indigenous political stories of 2023
CBC
A number of story lines played out through 2023 in the Indigenous political landscape. Here are the top stories we followed at CBC Indigenous this year, in no particular order.
The Assembly of First Nations saw three different people carry the national chief title in some capacity.
RoseAnn Archibald led the organization at the start of 2023, but she was ousted in a June Zoom meeting that saw 71 per cent of chiefs in attendance vote to remove her.
Joanna Berdard was brought in as an interim replacement to carry out the remainder of Archibald's term, a decision reached as the assembly convened in Halifax in July.
At the Halifax gathering, findings from a report based on calls from a 2020 resolution showed "toxic behaviours exist at all levels of the AFN, including the secretariat, the executive, the regional offices and the national chief's office."
In December, when the assembly gathered in Ottawa for its annual winter meeting, Cindy Woodhouse was elected national chief after a marathon night of voting and a concession by runner-up David Pratt.
Canada's highest court ruled in favour of First Nations in a massive class-action settlement on child welfare in the fall.
Just over $23 billion will be distributed among participants in the suit, brought forward more than 15 years ago.
The deal resolves a human-rights complaint as well as the suit.
The AFN approved a resolution calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make a formal and meaningful apology to survivors of the child-welfare system, and to those who died in it.
Bill C-53 is a federal legislative proposal that would recognize the governance of Métis organizations in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The bill would ratify self-government agreements signed in February by the federal government and Métis Nations in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta, while laying out an approval process for treaties with those groups.
If the bill passes third reading in the House of Commons and a Senate vote, the treaties would come into force through an order-in-council, a legal decision made by the federal cabinet and signed by the Governor General that doesn't require legislation by Parliament.
First Nations and Métis leaders argued their cases for and against the bill in front of the House of Commons Indigenous affairs committee in Ottawa.
If it weren't for a stem cell transplant — less than half a cup of blood from a stranger's umbilical cord — four-year-old Tristan Ford would almost certainly have died as an infant, his parents say.
A Métis saddle from the early 1800s is at the centre of an exhibit that opened last month at a Swiss museum, along with contemporary beadwork created by other Red River Métis artists.
A dome-shaped device floating in Halifax's Northwest Arm could easily be confused with a buoy, but it is actually a contraption meant to turn ocean water into fresh water.
As of Tuesday, there are limits on the number of bottles of spirits a person can buy at the B.C. Liquor store in Tofino, a move that leaders of the Ahousaht First Nation were pushing for.
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Mohawk code talkers and their missions were so vital during the Second World War, that some believe without them, there was no way of winning of the war.
Two feisty ferret babies in Virginia are being hailed as a symbol of hope for the future of their species.
On day one of Donald Trump's presidency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he'll be advising Trump to take fluoride out of public water. The former independent presidential hopeful — and prominent proponent of debunked public health claims — has been told he'll be put in charge of health initiatives in the new Trump administration. He's described fluoride as "industrial waste."
An RCMP national security unit monitored First Nations-led anti-pipeline activism for "potential threats" to the energy, transportation and banking sectors between 2021 and 2022, internal police documents show.
WARNING: this story contains details of cultural items being forcibly removed
Rachelle and Kelly Swan live in a relatively cramped space now. But the upside to their rented low-income government house is that it's away from the haunting site their family occupied for two years, filled with screeches, high-pitched chirps and squeaks from constantly flapping bats.