“We had no diabetes before, because the people were very active and very slim,” elder Minnie Awashish explains through an interpreter. After a controversial 1975 settlement with Hydro Quebec, the Cree redeveloped Mistissini and stopped relying on the bush for their livelihood. She gestures to her generously round body: “That’s why you see us like this.” Awashish herself is among the 20 percent of Cree adults living with type 2 diabetes, which can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart disease — even death. She’s also a traditional Cree healer. She learned to prepare and administer medicinal plant and animal extracts from her father, who learned from his parents, but those skills had fallen out of favour — until recently. Today the Cree, as well as some interested neighbours to the south, think traditional medicine may be the key to treating this modern affliction.

MONTREAL - Relatives of Tunisia's ousted president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, have arrived in Canada, a government official in Ottawa said Saturday.

However, the federal government quickly made it clear that "deposed members of the former Tunisian regime and their immediate families are not welcome in Canada."

One of Ben Ali's many brothers-in-law arrived in Montreal on Friday morning aboard a private jet accompanied by his wife, their children and a governess, the official said.