Wikwemikong band, Wiky police force, former chief face lawsuit brought by ex-FirstTel boss

TORONTO-Following his exoneration on fraud charges in Gore Bay court last week, former FirstTel CEO Drew Reid has launched a lawsuit against the Wikwemikong band and tribal police, as well as three band councillors and a former business associate.

"My lawyers filed the suit today, for $2.6 million, with the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto," Mr. Reid told the Expositor on Monday.

The suit names the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, the Wikwemikong Tribal Police, band councillors Gladys Wakegijik, Margaret Manitowabi and Raymond Jackson, along with Josh Howard of Toronto, as defendants.

The action cites the Wiky police for negligent investigation and malicious prosecution, the band councillors for abuse of public office, and Mr. Howard-who served as president of FirstTel before being fired in 2004-for deceit. As well, all parties named in the action are being sued for 'conspiracy to injure' the plaintiff's reputation.

Mr. Reid had been charged in June with four counts of fraud under $5,000, pertaining to his role with the First Nations telecommunications company FirstTel in Wikwemikong, but all four were dropped when new evidence was brought forward by the businessman's defence team in Gore Bay court last Monday.

"The damages to my business, Avieya, and FirstTel Communications, of which I was formerly a shareholder, have been extensive as a result of these false allegations," Mr. Reid said. "My lawyers are shocked at the matter that transpired here over a two-year period, so we are aggressively pursuing actions against the defendants."

About a decade ago, the entrepreneur was convicted on over 20 charges pertaining to telemarketing, credit card and stock frauds. Mr. Reid doesn't deny that part of his past, noting, "I face it head on, and it's a scar I have to carry." But he also said he's "paid the price" for those actions, and "I don't intend to live my life with people abusing the knowledge of my background. I'm rebuilding my reputation, but something like this puts you right back."

Apart from the damage to his reputation, Mr. Reid has been put back financially through fighting the fraud charges. "It cost well over $100,000 to defend that case just in legal expenses alone," he said.

Former principal new Island rep on Heritage Fund bd.

Carolyn Lane-Rock

by Alicia McCutcheon

MANITOULIN-Part-time Barrie Island resident Carolyn Lane-Rock was recently appointed to the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC) Infrastructure and Community Development committee.

Ms. Lane-Rock says she could not be any happier with the appointment, one she has been waiting on for some time.

"I'm very excited about it-I'll learn a great deal," she said.

She explained that she and the committee with which she sits meet every five or six weeks by teleconference and goes through the proposals they receive from across the area (last meeting the committee read 62 proposals). The board then selects the proposals that will go on to further discussion by the board as a whole and are then either approved or rejected.

"I help vote on projects in Kenora, Mattawa, Huntsville-all over Northern Ontario," she said.

Ms. Lane-Rock said many of the projects they see are in regards to water treatment facilities-a funding issue some Island communities are only too familiar with. She also noticed a large number of small businesses applying for money for expansion, she added.

The retired educator is confident with her new position and said that knowing many people across Northern Ontario will help her with her time with the NOHFC.

She admitted to feeling some guilt, as she was elected as a representative from Manitoulin-although she represents all of Northern Ontario-but has recently sold her house in Little Current and moved with her husband to a condo in Sudbury "with a great view of Lake Nepewan."

Ms. Lane-Rock said, however, that she and her husband will still be spending most of their time at their beloved Barrie Island cottage, and figures it is only a matter of time before they begin to look for yet another permanent Island residence-this time, maybe in Mindemoya. She wants people to know, though, that she's got a "solid commitment" to Manitoulin.

"Whenever something about Manitoulin comes across the desk-I ask questions," she said.

She said she hopes that Islanders will search her out for some helpful advice when applying for funds from the NOHFC. She explained that she cannot fill out the forms for the applicant, but she would help to point them in the right direction.

"I think the Norisle should apply for some money," said Ms. Lane-Rock, as an example of an appropriate project.

She said she's glad of her new position, explaining how interesting it is to see, first-hand, how the "government process works."

"I know there's some announcements coming to the Island soon," she concluded.

Schools invite Aboriginal self-identification

by Alicia McCutcheon

SUDBURY-MANITOULIN-In an effort to reach out to the large Aboriginal population attending schools operated by the Rainbow District School Board, the board has recently launched the "I am Aboriginal" campaign.

Completely voluntary, students and families of students are asked to complete a "self-identification" survey this week, with forms to be found at any of the Rainbow schools until June 22 (Friday). The information is expected to help the board focus on four key areas regarding their Aboriginal students: literacy and numeracy, retention of students in school, graduation rates, and advancement into post-secondary studies.

In September, the survey will again be handed out to new students at the schools and returned to the board for the processing of the information.

The survey is simple. The top of the survey begins "I am..." with five boxes labeled First Nations (off-reserve), First Nations (on-reserve), MZtis, Inuit, and Non-Aboriginal. There is then a space to fill in the name of the First Nation to which the person filling out the survey belongs.

The survey then asks the more typical questions such as name, date of birth, school and address. All those taking the survey must have the signature of their parent or guardian if they are less than 18 years of age.

The survey, designed with the help of Urban Aboriginal Youth Leading the Way and the Eshkiniijig Advisory Circle, is part of the First Nations, MZtis and Inuit Education Policy Framework as set out in January by the provincial government. Ontario school boards were asked to develop a self-identification policy that would allow the Aboriginal students and their parents/guardians to tell the boards more about their ancestry.

Director of Education Jean Hanson pointed out during the June 13 launch that the information collected is confidential and to be used in aggregate form only.

"Like other school boards in Ontario, we do not have a clear picture of how many Aboriginal students attend Rainbow schools," she said. "While we do have statistics on tuition-paying students, there are many Aboriginal families living in the urban centres who have not had the opportunity to identify themselves as Aboriginal."

The First Nations populations is significant, she said, explaining that the 2001 census report put the Aboriginal population of Greater Sudbury at 7,325, with over 54 percent of that population under the age of 25.

"The information gathered in the survey, therefore, will enable us to implement programs to improve learning outcomes, helping all students maximize their potential and fulfill their aspirations," Ms. Hanson said.

M'Chigeeng's Grace Fox, the Rainbow Board's trustee representing First Nations communities, applauds the campaign, saying, "if this will help in any way, I think it's a positive move."

She hopes to see a greater sense of pride among students in their ancestry, as well as a way to embed Native culture in the curriculum, as outcomes of the initiative. She hopes, she says, to see a greater interest in the learning of First Nations languages for both Native and non-Native students alike.

"It's been a long time coming," said Ms. Fox. "It's unfortunate that this had to wait until 2007."

She said the campaign arose because the First Nations wanted to see more of their culture in the curriculum.

"Our history is not contained in the curriculum-not as it should be," she lamented. "Students spend so much time studying Europeans and the beginnings of Canada without recognizing what the First Nations contributed."

Ms. Fox is encouraging all Aboriginal students to fill out the survey when they receive it this week, but wants them to know that it is voluntary and credits the children who have led the way in helping to create the initiative.

"It's a great accomplishment to be leading such a campaign," she said.

Maimie Sim cashier,

Manitowaning Co-op

I'm your neighbour

In 1976, Maimie Sim got a job with the Manitowaning Co-op and she liked it there so much, she decided to remain indefinitely.

Well, almost indefinitely. Thirty-one years after she first took up the position of cashier at the front counter, Mrs. Sim remains one of the longest-employed workers at the Co-op. Working on the front line of customer service, she meets people from all walks of life-locals doing their regular shopping, visitors stopping by to explore all the Co-op has to offer-and it's just what she likes best. "I do like my job," Mrs. Sim grins. "I like meeting the people, and I just enjoy coming to work every morning."

Thirty-one years is a long time to work  in one place, and during her tenure at the bustling 'store that has almost everything,' Mrs. Sim has seen many changes, most notably the arrival of technology. "Technology changes so fast," she notes, but that hasn't stopped her from brushing up on her computer skills to use on the job.

There has also been a distinct shift in the Co-op's stock of product and its clientele. There is a prevailing notion that the Co-op caters specifically to the farming community, but that just isn't true anymore, Mrs. Sim clarifies.

"The farming part has declined, but the tourist industry has increased, so we're seeing all new faces," she says. "It's really nice to see the summer people back."

Today, the Co-op offers a wide variety of products and tools for the home, from hardware to pet food, and what isn't in the store, the Co-op is happy to order in for customers, Mrs. Sim says. The addition of the garden centre in particular has been a very positive move for the store, because "it's helped with the declining farming, and it keeps people coming back," she adds.

The garden centre is something that particularly appeals to Mrs. Sim as a member of the Assiginack Horticultural Society, and the gardener says in the future she hopes to enhance and develop her own garden at home. When she's not outside tending to her flowers, Mrs. Sim says she loves to sew and knit and refinish furniture-her real passion.

Her employment has been a long and enjoyable journey for Mrs. Sim, although she says it won't be "too many years" until retirement beckons. But in the meantime, she still enjoys helping customers at the Co-op and working with her fellow employees.

"The staff is really nice-we're all a big family, and that is nice," Mrs. Sim says. "I think that's what makes it nice coming to work every day."

Shopping at local stores like the Manitowaning Co-op helps the Island economy and creates lasting employment for people like Maimie Sim.

EDITORIAL

Highway 6 upgrades should be election pledge

A few years ago, work began on the improvement of Highway 6 between  Little Current and Espanola.

This was the logical continuation of the road straightening across Goat Island, where the old series of hairpin turns was eliminated in favour of a much more direct route to the swing bridge.

Following this initial work, passing lanes were added to the highway both north and south-bound on LaCloche Island, while the highway through Birch Island's main intersection was widened and important lighting was added to that corner.

While the roadway has been resurfaced between Little Current and north of Whitefish Falls to approximately Lang Lake, the fact is that there is far more that could and should be done.

The Willisville Hill, for example, desperately needs a truck lane on the northbound side. This would serve the double-duty of adding another passing lane at the highway link's mid point, and would also allow ordinary cars, vans and trucks the luxury of not following heavily laden log, cement concentrate and salt trucks as these vehicles labour up the long hill. (And these heavy commercial vehicles are clearly on the increase on this stretch of highway.)

The stretch of highway between the top of the Willisville hill and north to Espanola also needs an additional passing lane on each of the north- and southbound sides of the roadway.

Passing slow-moving vehicles on this particular stretch is dangerous at best, and there are not many opportunities to plan such an undertaking.

The work that has been done is wonderful.

But it's only a start, and issues of safety and frustration with large commercial traffic sharing just two lanes with passenger traffic, over almost the entire 58-kilometre stretch of road between Espanola and Manitoulin, are bound to increase.

As an election issue, an announcement by MPP Mike Brown sometime during the next three months leading up to the fall provincial election would be politically useful in at least this part of the Algoma-Manitoulin provincial riding.

An extra lane, for trucks and other slow-moving traffic that crawls up the Willisville Hill, is long overdue. It's not practical to consider flattening the grade of this long climb. That, too, would not be impossible, but it would clearly be easier to build out the northbound lane and create a situation where truck traffic can proceed at its own pace and the other users of the highway can proceed at a normal speed.

While it would be naive to expect that this improvement, together with the addition of another set of passing lanes in the northerly stretch of the road link, could be completed in the next couple of years, it would be reassuring to the users of this highway if Mr. Brown could announce that the work would be done, for example, within the next seven years. Politically, that could allow an announcement prior to this fall's election, with some of the work to be done during the next four-year term and the balance of the construction completed during the succeeding four-year term.

That's a lot of political bang, stretching over three terms in office and the corresponding three pre-election opportunities for the sitting member. 

Letters to the Editor

MPP Brown has been silent on forestry crisis

The speaker should return to active duty

To the Expositor:

Provincial Legislative Assembly Speaker Mike Brown has been absent without leave (AWOL) from his job as MPP for too many years now.

There has been an almost deafening silence from Mr. Brown on the serious issues facing forestry communities across Algoma-Manitoulin. Mr. Brown seems to have turned a blind eye as Premier Dalton McGuinty and his disastrous Minister of Natural Resources David Ramsay have presided over the unprecedented collapse of forestry industries in the North.

Mr. McGuinty's ill-advised policy of significantly raising electricity prices across the province has largely been responsible for the increasingly uncompetitive position of our forestry companies in the North American and world marketplaces.

As mills closed or downsized and jobs were lost in communities like Nairn Centre, Espanola, Dubreuilville, Wawa and White River, where was representative Mike Brown? Which provincial politicians were fighting for the people of towns like them, other than New Democrats Howard Hampton and Gilles Bisson? What has Mr. Brown had to say on behalf of these devastated communities?

It seems that the only times we hear anything from Mr. Brown are when he is "welcoming" miscellaneous minor community grants from Queen's Park-funds that do absolutely nothing to stem the tide of plant closures and job losses in forestry, which once was the backbone of our Northern economy.

Mr. Brown hasn't protested against  Mr. Ramsay's decision to re-allocate timber limits away from some Northern communities where mills have closed down, dooming those towns to permanent mill closures and very bleak economic futures.

The Algoma-Manitoulin MPP hasn't even spoken out against the scandalous stupidity of the MNR and the Canadian Forestry Service that intentionally set fire to a tinder-dry forest in the Aubrey Falls area north of Thessalon, during a period so dry that MNR had issued a fire ban a few weeks earlier! Not surprisingly, that fire quickly burned out of control, jumped its boundaries and now has destroyed more timber in Algoma District in just a few weeks than was lost in all of Northern Ontario during the whole fire season of 2006.

Mr. Brown should be calling for needed government policy changes. The forestry sector needs assistance. For the short term, Mr. Brown should demand that Mr. Ramsay stop wood re-allocations. He should be calling for the establishment of a separate electricity grid for Northern Ontario-for regional energy pricing based on the lower hydro-electricity generation costs here in the North-to assist in improving the competitiveness of the forestry sector in our region in the longer term.

But that would require Mr. Brown to return to active duty.

Mike Brown's excuse for not being heard or seen in Algoma-Manitoulin seems to be that, as the speaker of the legislature, he is somehow 'above the fray'. If he truly believes that, as speaker, he cannot oppose the destructive forestry policies of the McGuinty government, he should have the integrity to follow the example of NDP MPP Tony Martin. Mr. Brown should resign that exalted position, so he can speak out on the important issues affecting his constituents.

If Mr. Brown refuses to represent Algoma-Manitoulin properly as he should, if he remains missing from his post as MPP, then it's time that he is removed from political service.

Dan Lacasse

president of the Algoma-Manitoulin NDP riding association

Espanola

Goal of escarpment conservancy is to preserve natural heritage

We want to partner with stewards on Manitoulin

To the Expositor:

Mike Bauer from Rockville asks why the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy conserves land and encourages trail building ("Resident skeptical of conservancy's role on Island," June 6).

Twenty-three years ago my family and I started hiking from Niagara to Tobermory. It took us 2 1/2 years and 57 hikes and by the end my life had changed. We had forged a special bond with our children, they saw the world in a different way, and I had found my vocation. We saw the changing seasons, plants, trees, animals. We also saw how fragile this place was. Each year as we walked, we noticed forest corridors becoming narrower, pastures and farmland being paved over, shorelines disappearing. I decided my work would be to preserve as much as possible of this precious heritage along the escarpment.

This is why the EBC exists. Our mission, and that of our 17 directors who live along the entire length of the escarpment, is to educate and preserve. So many people don't understand. To them land is something to exploit, to suck dry and then discard-at best to pave over and build on. We want to show people the beauty and wonders of the land, of the complicated relationship of the various species that depend on it. We try to do this by allowing people to walk along the paths on some of the areas we own. Some places are too fragile and we prefer to leave them undisturbed. In order to accomplish this, the only tool we have at our disposal is purchase of the land, donations, or agreements granted to us by landowners. We have absolutely no relationship with any government agency. We operate by getting grants or donations from generous foundations and individuals for all our purchases and all our activities.

At the Manitoulin Trade Fair I spoke to so many people who view their Island as a special gift. Our hope is to be a partner with the Island's stewards to maintain this unique place. If we can share the Island's unique features with visitors we feel that the Island will benefit economically, based on experience in southern Ontario where one trail alone brings $100 million per year into the economies of communities along the way. The people who operate the restaurants and bed and breakfasts appreciate the business. Public appreciation of nature is such a good idea that 1,500 landowners have offered the trail access across their land.

We have a responsibility as stewards to future generations. When I was born 63 years ago in Toronto at Bayview and Eglinton, this was the edge of the city. I played in the wetland on the corner. Now, this intersection is surrounded by 30 kilometres of concrete, shopping malls, houses and front lawns. Altogether, the land developed was bigger than Manitoulin. Some of those landowners rushed to improve their land by developing it. Others died, trusting their heirs would never develop. Now it's all gone, but for narrow strips of valley land too dangerous for buildings. The land is NOT something permanent and we can't assume it will always be here because we are. Things change. Once species disappear they are gone forever. Once nature disappears-and it does-it is gone forever.

We agree with those who want to keep some of Manitoulin the way it is.

Bob Barnett

executive director

Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy

Despite CBC snub, Island still a wonderful place to live

John Savage's wildlife photography

captures natural beauty

To the Expositor:

It was disappointing but perhaps not entirely surprising that Manitoulin failed to make the final list of CBC's 'Seven Wonders,' given the stiff competition in a country so blessed with beauty and human inventiveness. I had to smile, though, at the serendipitous juxtaposition in this week's paper of the Seven Wonders article with yet another set of spectacular photographs from Mr. Savage. How fortunate we are to live surrounded by such natural beauty and how generous of Mr. Savage to share his images with us through your fine paper.

Roy Jeffery

McLean's Mountain

PS: Speaking of wonders, as the final days of high school on Manitoulin for our family come and go, I am reminded of all the great teachers who have contributed so willingly of their time to make the experience special.