The Aboriginal Canada Portal working group is preparing the 5th Annual National Aboriginal Connectivity and e-services Forum. The forum will be held from March 13 to 14, 2006 at the Government Conference Center in Ottawa.

Policy makers form Federal, Provincial and Territorial governments, National Aboriginal Organizations and communities will be brought together with private sector stakeholders.

The theme this year is “Sustainable Connectivity as an engine for Social and Economic Growth”.

The first day of the forum will include plenary discussions on E-Health, followed by concurrent multi-stakeholder sessions, on economic development, E-government services, International, and Sustainable Community connectivity.

Lunchtime on the first day will be devoted to an Aboriginal Digital Culture Showcase.

The second day will consist of five concurrent Aboriginal specific roundtables, namely, First Nations roundtable, Inuit/Arctic roundtable, Métis roundtable, Urban/Off-reserve Aboriginal roundtable and a Womens’ roundtable. These are solely chaired and organized by the National Aboriginal Organizations’ champions. The purpose of the Aboriginal Roundtables is to develop agreements with Government partners on the best way to move forward with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy as it pertains to sustainability, application development and community implementation projects.

Lunchtime on the second day will be devoted to a panel discussion with Private Sectors.

In an effort to continue to move the agenda forward, inter-departmental and National Aboriginal Organization co-sponsors have set two key objectives for this year:

In terms of benefits, attendees will:

To assist and facilitate panel discussions, forum organizers will collaborate in compiling a number of related reports, previous forum findings and related Aboriginal community connectivity and e-services developments.

Your voice and those of others during this forum will guide all stakeholders towards charting a joint interdepartmental and NAO Aboriginal Connectivity and e-services vision and associated federal-Aboriginal collaboration process forward.

For more information on this and previous forums, including hundreds of hours of digital video, audio and related reports and presentations, please visit Aboriginal Canada Portal site, Connecting Aboriginal Peoples in Canada at http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/cac/2006forum/site.nsf/en/index.html

Should you wish further information, or are interested in attending please contact Raymond Héroux at connectivity2006@magma.ca. Beyond pre-identified national and regional community and stakeholder allocations, forum organizers anticipate approximately 50 additional spaces for the public.

We look forward to meeting you at the Forum.

Aboriginal Canada Portal and Connectivity Working Group