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National Indigenous News August 13 · National Indigenous Newscasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is a look at your National Indigenous News.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Daryl Stranger.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: A nonpartisan committee of Yukon MLAs says it's not convinced the Department of Health and Social Services has sufficiently considered recommendations from a scathing auditor general's report on its child and family services branch and is calling for quick action to address ongoing concerns.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: The statement stems from a new report released by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, made up of MLAs from the territory's three parties, which includes 20 recommendations to bolster follow-up and accountability following a March 2026 audit.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: The report outlines seven critical areas that it says require further attention, including group home policies, staff training, staffing shortages, critical incident reporting, challenges in smaller communities, data collection, and monitoring outcomes.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Its recommendations include departmental updates on the targeted hiring of First Nation social workers, staffing levels, and critical incidents, as well as a timeline for updating group home policies.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: The committee also wants the department to update its case management system to clearly reflect and make accessible whether caregivers of children currently in care were themselves in government care, attended residential schools, or have a history of abuse.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It further calls on the department to make efforts to involve children, families, and caregivers so their perspectives and experiences are meaningfully incorporated.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: A press release states the report will be tabled in the legislature when it sits this fall.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: An indigenous-owned company in the Northwest Territories is proposing to build a new fiber optic line and a small-scale data center on Catlow Deche First Nation land near Ha River.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Yellowknife-based Catlow Tech Communications says the project will increase telecommunications competition in the territory and increase northern digital sovereignty.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The company wants to offer residents more choices for cellular, television, and other services with another fiber optic line, which would run 329 kilometers underground from high-level Alberta to Ha River.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The line would also connect to the company's proposed Ice Fox data center, which would also allow local businesses, indigenous governments, and customers to store their data on Catlowtech's local servers.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The data center will also run some artificial intelligence services.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: The proposal has already seen some opposition with residents expressing concerns about the data center's potential impact on the environment and wildlife.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Catlowtech Communications says their proposed facility differs significantly from supersized AI data centers, which face criticism over high energy demand, rising electricity costs, heavy water consumption, and increased noise pollution.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Ice Fox facility would consist of modular units the size of shipping containers and would be hydropowered and air-cooled.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The project still has some significant hurdles to overcome, including installing the fiber line and powering the data center, which relies on two major factors, securing$12 million from the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, or CANNOR, and connecting the data center to the proposed Tolson Hydroexpansion Project for power.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: It would also need to go through an environmental assessment.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: A collection of books designed to recognize children's literature that promotes and revitalizes Indigenous languages has been released for readers to enjoy.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: The International Board on Books for Young People, or IBI, and UNESCO curated the collection of remarkable books for young readers in Indigenous and Endangered Languages, which highlights endangered languages across the globe.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The IBI UNESCO collection features nearly 170 books in more than 150 languages, and there are 25 books from Canada.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are 20 books in First Nations languages, Inishinabe Moan, Ayajutham, Blackfoot, Cree, Dene Kede, Mi'kmaq, and Inuanaktun, plus three in Inuktitut and two in Michif.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Indigenous languages make up half of the world's languages.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: UNESCO World Atlas of Languages considers languages with less than 7.5 million speakers generally endangered.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: The books in the collection were chosen by an international selection committee from about 500 submissions from IBI national centers, communities, publishers, book promoters, and authors across the globe.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The collection is just one initiative supporting the international decade of indigenous languages from 2022 to 2032, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2019.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a look at your national Indigenous News.