Atikamekw in the context of "Indigenous people in Canada"

The Cree are a North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations macro-communities. There are numerous Cree peoples and several nations closely related to the Cree, these being the Plains Cree, Woodland Cree, Rocky Cree, Swampy Cree, Moose Cree, and East Cree with the Atikamekw, Innu, and Naskapi being closely related. Also closely related to the Cree are the Oji-Cree and Métis, both nations of mixed heritage, the former with Ojibweg (Chippewa) and the latter with European fur traders. Cree homelands account for a majority of eastern and central Canada, from Eeyou Istchee in the east in what is now Quebec to northern Ontario, much of the Canadian Prairies, and up into British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. Although a majority of Cree live in Canada, there are small communities in the United States, living mostly in Montana where they share Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation with the Ojibwe people.

The Cree are in a variety of treaty relations with the Canadian state. Most notable are the Numbered Treaties which cover a majority of Cree homelands. In Quebec, the East Cree (along with the Inuit of Nunavik) entered into one of the first modern treaties: the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement which formalized relations between the province and both Eeyou Istchee and the Nunavik region of Inuit Nunangat. A documented westward migration, over time, has been strongly associated with their roles as traders and hunters in the North American fur trade.

Certification is part of testing, inspection and certification and the provision by an independent body of written assurance (a certificate) that the product, service or system in question meets specific requirements. It is the formal attestation or confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person, or organization. This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment, or audit. Accreditation is a specific organization's process of certification. According to the U.S. National Council on Measurement in Education, a certification test is a credentialing test used to determine whether individuals are knowledgeable enough in a given occupational area to be labeled "competent to practice" in that area.

As a rule, certificates must be renewed and periodically reviewed by a certifying regulatory body responsible for the validity of the certificate's assessment methods. The certifying body can be either a state authority or an independent private company. Certificates may even be issued by the companies themselves that use them, primarily as a marketing gimmick, which can be characterized as "cheap talk," meaning a trick that does not guarantee trust.