Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Tucked into an overheated Toronto studio, Oji-Cree singer-songwriter Aysanabee sings the opening lyrics of "River" from his debut album "Watin": "Take what you need, leave what you can, oh she told me and took my hand."
"I've been dreaming about doing this for as long as I can remember," he told W5 in an interview as part of a documentary special on his meteoric rise in the music scene.
2023 was a whirlwind year for Aysanabee. "Watin" was shortlisted for a Polaris Prize, his song "Nomads" reached No. 1 on Canadian music charts and he played his music for masses of fans in countless music halls around the world.
Last year, Aysanabee received a Juno nomination for Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year. He was nominated again under the same category for the 2024 Junos, as well as for Songwriter of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year.
"It was like London, Ont., to Spain, to Sarnia, Ont., like in the same week," he said. "Last year, we did like 184 shows."
His music also scored Wab Kinew's historic victory last year as Manitoba's first First Nations premier. "This is a great victory for all of us in Manitoba," Kinew said in his remarks.
"I haven't really had the time to stop and reflect on it," Aysanabee said.
"It's been surreal and I've been trying to take off the tunnel vision to kind of be in the moment, and really take things in," he said. "There have been these really special moments."
Aysanabee calls Toronto home now. Still, even when he's off the road, he says he's consumed with writing and recording new material.
Lana Gay is a host at Toronto's Indie 88. She first heard Aysanabee when he dropped into the radio station for a live session.
"Hearing those vocals through the wall … not knowing it was him in our other studio, and thinking, 'Who is that'?" Gay recalled.
"He sounds as amazing on record as he does in a studio session, as he does on stage," she added, "and his voice really cuts through. It's very powerful."
She says she loves the songs both as stick-in-your-head indie rock tracks and as tools to share the history of "Canada's great shame."
"Watin" is named after Aysanabee's grandfather and the songs are largely based on conversations they had over the phone.
Watin, who at the time was in a Thunder Bay long-term care home, told Aysanabee about his time in residential school.
"His health was failing, and so he was losing all these memories," Aysanabee said.
He recorded stories about Watin growing up in Sandy Lake First Nation, a six-hour flight north of Thunder Bay, Ont. Aysanabee lived there too, until he was four.
"I think I, like a lot of other people, always kind of struggled to reconnect with their roots because I moved off rez when I was four," Aysanabee said, adding Watin was his "last direct connection to our story and our family and our history."
Watin was taken away at age eight to McIntosh Residential School near Kenora, Ont., and renamed Walter.
"I didn't know all the things he had been through," Aysanabee said.
He says the stories were also a source of inspiration as he learned of his grandfather's resilience. Watin would also meet the love of his life during his time at the school.
"I think that was one of the main things that got him and my grandmother through," he said. "They had each other, and they fell in love."
He says the conversations also helped him along the path of his own self-discovery, which included reclaiming his family name, "Aysanabee," after going by Evan Pang until recently.
Aysanabee also worked as a journalist and video editor. He was employed as a digital content editor at CTVNews.ca until March 2022. He is no longer with the company.
Watch W5's documentary 'Aysanabee' Saturday at 7 p.m. on CTV
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that it has reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, a key terminal for the entry of humanitarian aid that was closed over the weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers nearby.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.