By Angela Sterritt, Today, TheTyee.ca

Two leading Vancouver Downtown Eastside women’s groups have withdrawn from the B.C.’s Missing Women Commission, calling it a “sham inquiry.”

The Women’s Memorial March Committee (WMMC) and the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre (DEWC) — granted full standing as a single participant — released a media statement this morning saying they will not be endorsing nor participating in the Pickton Inquiry.

“We have been raising awareness on this issue for over 20 years and demanding an inquiry for decades, but this sham inquiry is flawed and unjust. We cannot endorse it,” states Carol Martin, victim services worker at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.

The groups are denouncing the inquiry and will call for a “new fair, just, and inclusive inquiry that centers the voices and experiences and leadership of women in the DTES,” the release says.

In the judicial inquiry, the commission will look at the police conduct surrounding the gruesome crimes committed by Robert “Willie” Pickton — the murders of 33 women in five years, all coming from the DTES. It will also probe into why in 1998, the attorney general’s office stayed attempted-murder charges against him.

According to the release, Diane Wood, a member of the Women’s Memorial March Committee says: “We have essentially been shut out from this sham inquiry that is actually supposed to be about us and our experiences. It is vital to this inquiry that the voices of women and the community be front and centre when determining its recommendations. Without a commitment to the participation of women from the Downtown Eastside, the inquiry is not legitimate and has no credibility.”

‘We will not be intervening’: Minister Bond

The news comes just days after 20 of the 21 groups provided standing at the commission released a letter to Premier Christy Clark, pleading for her intervention to “fix the broken process.” They gave her an October 5 deadline to respond, but solicitor general Shirley Bond jumped to the task the same day.

“Let me be clear, we will not be intervening in the work of the commission. Given the budget challenges the ministry is facing, we have made our priority funding legal counsel for the families of the murdered and missing women,” her statement read.

Bond said she expects the commission to complete its work by Dec. 31, 2011 and said the government will only carefully consider an extension on the request of the commissioner.

The WMMC and the DEWC coalition is the seventh to vacate the commission proceedings, with the most recent group — Pivot Legal Society — whose coalition members BCCLA and Amnesty International are still on the record as participating, departing last week.

Given the number of groups pulling out, some say it gleans evidence that the commission isn’t working.

‘Unfair and discriminatory’: NWAC’s Lavell

“So many people are feeling it’s futile, and it’s the integrity of the commission being questioned,” says NWAC president Jeannette Corbiere Lavell. The Native Women’s Association of Canada was the only Aboriginal organization granted full participation at the inquiry, but had to withdraw due to a lack of legal funding.

“It’s unfair and discriminatory to the most vulnerable people in Canada — Aboriginal women,” said Lavell in a telephone interview. “Strong questions need to be asked and we don’t feel that the counsel for the VPD, RCMP and the justice department are going to ask those questions due to the embarrassment it could cause them.” On September 27, NWAC called on three United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Violence Against Women, the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Independence of Judges and Lawyers to make an urgent joint appeal to Canada for last minute funds.

A letter sent to B.C.’s attorney general last month expressed synonymous concerns over the province’s refusal to fund all participants. It was signed by a group of prominent lawyers and academics who have been commission counsel or advisers at a number of public inquiries, including the inquiry into the bombing of Air India Flight 182, the Maher Arar inquiry, and the Ipperwash inquiry into the killing of Dudley George.

“We can identify no other case in Canada where a government, having appointed a commission of inquiry, then, in effect, overturned a commissioner’s decision on standing by refusing funding for participation,” it said.

In response, solicitor general Shirley Bond explained her government’s commitment to the commission and cited the $1.9 million investment into it.

Just one week until the Vancouver hearings begin, and anger in the Downtown Eastside is rising. Residents are concerned that the original intent of the Commission is losing ground.

“We are sick of this. This inquiry was supposed to be about a measure of justice for us and the hope that things would change down here, but it is just more of the same injustices,” says Beatrice Starr, who has resided in the Downtown Eastside for 30 years and whose sister and niece were both murdered.

The WMCC and DEWC press release lists several factors among the reasons for dropping out — specifically citing a lack of transparency, an inaccessible process, and a disregard for vulnerable witnesses as top reasons. The groups also say that the study commission portion cannot be a replacement for a full and meaningful inquiry.

The coalition announced a rally at the beginning of the hearings on Oct. 11, 2011 at 10 a.m. at 701 West Georgia.

Vancouver—Just weeks before the BC Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is set to begin, concerns and questions continue to be raised by the groups representing Aboriginal, women’s and sex-trade worker’s groups. More are walking away from what appears to be a crumbling process.

“We are calling for a National Inquiry,” says Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). “This is a human rights violation: we are being denied the basic right to participate in a decision-making process that effects us,” she said. NWAC pulled out of the commission when it was announced that none of the organizations provided standing at the inquiry would be afforded legal representation.

“Canada is supposed to be leading the way for upholding rights—we should be able to access at least one of these rights, and be able to represent ourselves,” Lavell said in a telephone interview. “There are over 600 missing and murdered Aboriginal women and as Aboriginal women, we know the best way to address this—what works for us and what doesn’t.”

The commission was called on September 27, 2010, to investigate police handling of the murders committed by serial killer Robert Pickton. Just a month before the commission was set to begin, many observers watched in disbelief as the inquiry appeared to fall apart.

“On the tenth [of August], we pulled out because we felt like the commission had reached a point where it no longer represented a meaningful exercise,” West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) Executive Director Kasari Govender told The Dominion. West Coast LEAF is a non-profit group that was provided standing at the commission with coalition partner Ending Violence Association of BC. “With its denial to fund legal counsel to Aboriginal and community groups we feel it greatly compromises the inquiry and many groups are feeling pushed out,” she said.

More than two-thirds of the thirteen groups granted standing at the commission withdrew from the proceedings after the BC government announced this summer that it can’t afford to pay the legal fees for groups participating in the Pickton inquest. The relatives of the serial killer’s victims, however, will be provided funding for counsel, albeit for one lawyer for all ten families.

It’s just one of many issues that has led some to question whether the commission will get to the bottom of a serious question: Why and how was it that a serial killer managed to operate freely without fear of repercussions for over a decade?

The Missing Women Investigation Review, issued by the Vancouver Police Department in August, 2010, established that police inaction over the colossal number of reports of missing women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) warranted a rigorous investigation. It details eight key findings among the reasons for the failed investigation, including management, leadership, jurisdiction, and lack of resources, training and analysis.

The Review emphasizes that the VPD “did not cause the failure of the investigation into Pickton because the RCMP had responsibility for that investigation.” According to the review, the RCMP abandoned the investigation that they asserted authority over in 1999.

But the cracks that spurred the lapsed investigation appeared much earlier.

In 1990, residents of Vancouver’s DTES alerted Ernie Crey to the disappearances of women from the neighbourhood. At the time he was the acting-president of the United Native Nations, then located at 108 Blood Alley in the DTES. Crey was the first high-profile Aboriginal leader to speak out when women began vanishing and became a strong voice for victims’ families after his sister—Dawn Crey—disappeared in November 2000.

“Folks were coming up and saying that women who live in the neighbourhood—women in the sex trade, women who were dependent on drugs, and women who were mentally ill—were disappearing,” Crey told The Dominion.

According to Crey, the then-police liaison provided the logic behind the mystery: The women were simply part of a transient population—one day in Calgary, Victoria the next, on a bus to Vancouver the following. Regardless of the theory, inside the cop shop an officer was also raising suspicions about a serial killer.

One of the few PhD-educated police in the force, Kim Rossmo, also a criminologist, produced a sophisticated geographic profiling formula to predict where a serial criminal lives. However, in a paradoxical move, adding to the long list of setbacks, at the same time Rossmo brought forward his concerns about a potential serial killer at work, he was pushed from the force. While he wasn’t officially released because of the Pickton case, resentment over Rossmo’s quick rise through the ranks led to resentment among higher-ups, according to a former police colleague, and likely was a reason for his warnings being ignored.

The evidence was clear, but few seemed to take the disappearances of the women, many of whom were Aboriginal, seriously.

“It’s not just about the police, it’s a systemic issue, with racism and sex-discrimination at the forefront,” Lavell told The Dominion. “It’s about the refusal of the police, the justice department, the courts, the media and the public to acknowledge how the most vulnerable members of our society—impoverished Aboriginal women—are being abused and exposed to gruesome levels of violence,” she said.

When Pickton was finally arrested, the monster jigsaw puzzle finally came together and the picture seemed complete—except for one piece.

“We already had…demanded a full inquiry into how police undertook the investigation,” Ernie Crey remembers. “At that point it was our idea to ensure the inquiry’s scope was broad—not just focusing on the police inaction, but to look at other issues,” he said.

The judicial inquiry will delve into Robert Pickton’s horrific crimes: the murders of 33 women in just five years, all coming just from the DTES. It will also press on why, in 1998, the attorney general’s office stayed attempted-murder charges against him. Pickton bragged to an undercover cell-mate of killing 49 women.

Dawn Crey was one of the 30 women whose DNA was found at the killer’s pig farm. Pickton was not convicted for her murder, just like 20 others whose DNA was also found at the slaughter warehouse. The decision to stay the 20 remaining murder charges after Pickton was convicted on six counts of murder in 2007 came from then-attorney general Wally Oppal. He claimed there was little to gain since Pickton was already serving the maximum sentence under Canadian jurisprudence. The former judge also stated publicly during his tenure as attorney general that he saw no need for an inquiry.

In a surprising—and criticized—turn of events, Oppal (who was unseated in the 2009 provincial election) was eventually appointed to spearhead the examination of how 66 women disappeared from a small area without police taking heed.

“Some people objected [to Oppal's appointment],” said Crey. “I didn’t initially, yet when I observed so much opposition from community and families, well I didn’t strenuously oppose, but if Oppal’s appointment carried so much suspicion and doubts then the only smart thing that could happen is if he decided to step down.”

Oppal has since changed his tune, jumping the proverbial fence and leaving some questioning his impartiality—this time on the side of the women.

“It would be the height of unfairness to require unrepresented individuals to cross-examine police who are represented by highly qualified counsel,” Oppal wrote in an eight page letter to then-attorney general Barry Penner, dated June 27. In it he urged Penner to fund the groups representing the issues and needs of the missing and murdered women.

Overall, the provincial and federal governments are providing funding for the one lawyer for the Attorney General of BC, three lawyers for the Department of Justice Canada (RCMP), nine lawyers for the commission counsel, two lawyers for the Vancouver Police Department, one lawyer for Rossmo (former VPD), two lawyers for the Criminal Justice Branch (prosecutors), and one lawyer for the Vancouver Police Union—19 legal representatives in total for the justice system representatives.

Just one lawyer is being covered for a fraction of the families of the missing and murdered women represented at the commission; no funding will be made available to the Aboriginal, sex-trade, and women’s groups, many of whom knew the women intimately and for several years.

“We were caught off guard and insulted when we were informed that there could be only one independent counsel to ask questions on behalf of all the families. To us it appears discriminatory and it boils down to the fact that racism and sexism continue to lead the investigation,” said Lavell.

David Eby of the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is troubled by the lack of parity that he sees at the commission.

“The government’s decision means some of the best lawyers in Vancouver will be working on a limitless retainer to destroy the credibility of Aboriginal women, sex trade workers and other vulnerable witnesses if they dare criticize the police, and these witnesses won’t have their own lawyers to defend them,” said Eby in a telephone conversation with The Dominion. “It’s outrageous.”

On August 18, Barry Penner announced his resignation as attorney general. Prior to his departure, he gave a statement to The Dominion in an email exchange.

“These continue to be challenging economic times, and there are limits to how many millions of taxpayer dollars we can provide to lawyers representing advocacy groups. Funding lawyers for all the participants would add an additional 12 legal teams, effectively tripling the number of taxpayer funded lawyers at the inquiry,” Penner wrote.

On September 20, Pivot Legal Society also pulled out of the inquiry, the ninth group to do so.

On his blog, Eby wrote, “In the big picture, setting aside the petty fault finding exercise, this Commission is supposed to be about restoring the faith of BC’s Indigenous populations who live on and off reserve, restoring the faith of BC’s marginalized populations including those with addictions and those who are homeless or otherwise on the fringes, and restoring the faith of the population at large that might be on the edge, that if you go missing the police will look for you as aggressively as they look for anybody else.”

According to NWAC, a national inquiry can effectively examine the violence against Aboriginal women and girls, with full participation of Aboriginal women, including those groups whose expertise and knowledge can assist its deliberations. “If a national inquiry is not feasible, then we will have to take it to the next level —an international human rights case,” said NWAC president Lavell.

“In cases that involve the ongoing genocide of our people, it’s so crucial. I can’t wait another one or two years to watch more women go—this summer alone, 30 women have been reported as missing or murdered,” she said.

“As Aboriginal women we have the role for leading the next generation, every women and every girl is our future as Native people and this is why the impact is so critical.”

The commission hearings will begin in Vancouver on October 11.

Published in The Dominion.

Angela Sterritt is a writer, visual artist and broadcast and television journalist based out of Vancouver BC. She is a proud member of the Gitxsan Nation.

“I don’t know what they find so scary about me,” she said, as she was ushered off the property by security guards. “I just want them to hear what I have to say”.

The Sliammon First Nation youth and North Vancouver resident put in a great effort learning about environmental issues and the pipeline in particular, and hoped to share her knowledge  and carefully crafted words about the pertinent topic.

Enbridge officials said they were unable to provide Ta’Kaiya space or time and failed to comment because the Vancouver office is staffed by a limited number of technical personnel. Their headquarters are located in Calgary.

So Ta’Kaiya stood outside, accompanied by three members of Greenpeace, her mother and a number of reporters and sang her song “Shallow Waters”. The song’s video has hit YouTube and been viewed almost 5000 times.

She co-wrote her song after learning of Enbridge’s bid to build twin 1,170 km pipelines to transport oil from the Alberta tar sands to B.C.’s north coast. The pipeline is widely opposed largely because it would bring hundreds of oil supertankers a year to the Great Bear Rainforest – an ecologically significant region along a particularly dangerous route for tankers.

“Oil pipelines and tankers will give people jobs, but if there is an oil spill like the [BP spill] in the Gulf of Mexico, that will take other people’s jobs and the wildlife will die,” said Ta’Kaiya.

She was quick to point out that it was not only the 22nd anniversary of the Valdez oil spill but also David Suzuki’s birthday.

According to a Greenpeace website, “Twenty-two years after the Exxon Valdez tragedy, crude still coats Alaska’s shores. Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council estimates that 21,000 gallons of the 11 million gallons of crude oil that bled from the stranded tanker Exxon Valdez on the night of March 23, 1989 remain in the subsurface.”

And Dustin Johnson, a Tsimshian youth who works at the Sierra Club in Edmonton, says, “The tankers that are proposed to transport tar sands crude from northern Alberta to the BC north coast are much larger than the Exxon Valdez”. “If the tar sands pipelines are successfully built on the coast, this would lead to at least 250 tankers per year navigating the intricate BC coastline. A risk the salmon and ocean-dependent northwest coast communities and economies cannot afford to make,” he said.

Greenpeace reports that eighty per cent of British Columbians support an oil tanker ban in B.C.’s coastal waters. More than 70 First Nations in British Columbia have banned the transport of tar sands oil through their territories, including First Nations’ territories along the proposed oil tanker routes.

While Ta’Kaiya was waiting outside for Enbridge officials, B.C. Premier Christy Clark sent the girl an email, saying she had “watched your YouTube video and commend you for your talent. Your message is very clear — we must be concerned about the environment.”

Clark said the B.C. government supports the ongoing environmental review, a process that has met much criticism from First Nations communities, environmental groups, and political leaders.

Ta’Kaiya’s video plea, comes days before the second reading and debate of federal private members bill C-606 to legally ban oil tankers on B.C.’s north coast. http://joycemurray.liberal.ca/uncategorized/support-bill-c606/

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed a complaint alleging that the Federal Government is racially discriminating against First Nations children by providing less child welfare benefit on reserve.

“I don’t understand why the Federal Government would fight to give First Nations children less opportunity for safety than other children -it is out of step with Canadian values”, said Cindy Blackstock.

Blackstock’s organization, The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada along with the Assembly of First Nations filed the case in 2007. According to evidence presented in the tribunal, while First Nations children in care are grossly overrepresented, they receive 22 per cent less child welfare funds than kids on the other side of the street.

Indian and Northern Affairs provides funding to on-reserve cases while off-reserve instances are dealt with by individual provinces or territories.

In her decision, Tribunal Chair Shirish Chotalia said because Ottawa does not fund child welfare off reserve, there is no comparator group and thus no discrimination. Essentially two different service providers cannot be compared to each other.

According to Blackstock, “This gives the Feds license to under fund any service on reserves with no human rights recourse for children. We absolutely reject the Chair’s decision to prioritize the comparator group issue over the effects of discriminatory government services and will appeal”, she says.

But Executive Director of CHRT Fredrick Gloade, who is also Aboriginal, says the 67-page decision speaks to itself. “I cannot speak to why the decision was handed down, but I can say a lot of thought went into it to make this process move along”, he said in a telephone interview. When asked about his views on the positive outcomes of this case, he was unable to comment.

Numerous reports confirming evidence of inequity and harm experienced by First Nations children on reserves were provided in the tribunal via the Auditor General of Canada (2008), the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (2009) and internal documents from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.

The two complainants are seeking the tribunal to order INAC to level the playing field by increasing annual funding by $109 million to “address existing funding shortfalls.” The appeal will be filed in Federal Court in the next 30 days.

by Angela Sterritt
Briarpatch Magazine

Nearly three years after Stephen Harper’s historic apology to residential school survivors, Canada’s iniquitous treatment of Indigenous children lives on. With over 27,000 First Nations children currently in foster care, there are more than three times as many Indigenous youth in state care than at the height of the residential school era in the 1940s.

“Reconciliation means not saying sorry twice,” said Cindy Blackstock, executive director of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, in a telephone interview with Briarpatch. “We are just asking that these kids be treated equitably, and Canada won’t.”

In 2007, Blackstock’s organization, along with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), filed a Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) complaint against the Canadian government for its discriminatory provision of child welfare services to First Nations children and families living on reserve.

According to evidence presented in the tribunal, while First Nations children in care are grossly overrepresented, they receive 22 per cent less child welfare funds than kids on the other side of the street.

First Nations children account for 30 to 40 per cent of all children in care, despite the fact that Aboriginal people make up only 4 per cent of the population in Canada. Yet Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) continues to provide no national funding to First Nations organizations for child and family services.

A grim situation on reserve

The dismal level of services on reserves in Canada is no secret. More than 3000 households on reserves are without running water, and nearly half of all homes require renovations due to mold or poor construction. Over a hundred boil-water alerts are currently in effect across First Nations communities, some dating back as far as 13 years. In this context, a lack of child welfare services in First Nations communities comes as no surprise.

“While we were looking after my nephew on reserve, we received no funds, no support and no attention from the government whatsoever,” said Warner Naziel of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. “Yet when the boy was moved to a home off reserve, the money poured in,” he said.

Naziel, a research consultant on the Moricetown reserve, had no previous first-hand experience with the child welfare system on reserve, and was stunned by the reality check he received after assuming care of his nephew.

“When we sought support, the ministry worker told me that since [my nephew] was kith and kin and now on reserve, I had to go to the social assistance worker at my local band office. I went there and all she said I would receive was about $200 for the month for him. Because of Antonio’s behavioral issues he needed professional psychological attention. The Ministry [of Child and Family Development] told me that I had to see our band office for assistance. We don’t have professional or trained trauma help on our reserve. We went without. Eventually, my sister took him in and had to fight tooth and nail with the ministry for any kind of help at all.”

The current federal funding regime on reserve focuses on “protection” – child apprehension, foster homes and institutional care, rather than prevention or family supports and in-home services for Aboriginal parents. This system encourages agencies to remove Aboriginal children from their parental homes instead of strengthening the support necessary to enable children to stay with their families in their cultural community.

“The absence of these services is a major reason why so many First Nation children are in care,” states the official Assembly of First Nations website.

According to Preston Guno, a Nisga’a man and manager at Walk Tall, an Aboriginal youth organization in Prince George, B.C., “It appears that there is very little in the area of ‘child and family development’ and much more response in the area of bringing children in care when preventive supports could have averted this.”

Certainly, the facts clearly indicate that prevention services on reserve have not been prioritized by Canada. Approximately 5.8 per cent of First Nations children living on reserve are in care out of their parental homes, in comparison to the Canadian average of 0.8 per cent.

The legacy lives on

A clear pattern of racism surfaces with a quick look at Aboriginal child welfare on reserve in Canada. The situation reflects a paternalistic and colonial prototype of dealing with First Nations children as wards of the state, and bears striking similarities with Canada’s treatment of Aboriginal children in the Residential School System.

As residential schools were phased out (the last one closing down in 1996), the child welfare system became the new agent of assimilation and colonization. Beginning in the 1950s, swaths of Aboriginal children were taken from their families and handed over to white middle-class parents. This practice accelerated in what came to be known as the “Sixties Scoop,” and was informed by a belief in the inherent superiority of the European way of life.

By the late 1970s, as many as one in three status Indian or Métis children (not including non-status Indians) were removed from their homes. In some provinces, one in two spent their childhood as a permanent ward of the government, many of whom were adopted into white homes. While the practice of mass apprehensions was discontinued in the mid-1980s, the transfer of Indigenous children from their homes and communities to state care continues in other forms.

Like residential school survivors, children growing up in foster care suffer cultural dislocation in addition to high rates of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The multigenerational affects of this trauma, including poor parenting skills, have exacted a high toll on Aboriginal families.

Despite this, the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect shows that First Nations children are put in care largely due to neglect driven by poverty, poor housing, substance misuse, and inequitable services – all of which could be addressed with improved services, but are not.

According to Preston Guno, the ethnocentric logic that traditionally guided the apprehension of Indigenous children continues to inform the foster care system in other ways as well.

“The primary role of extended family such as grandparents, aunts and uncles as primary caregivers has historically been how Aboriginal families lived, but this Eurocentric-driven system often views this approach as parents neglecting their roles and responsibilities as parents – therefore they will attract the attention of the child welfare system,” Guno told Briarpatch.

Who is to blame?

In British Columbia, debate surrounding Aboriginal child protection has swelled following a number of recent controversies, including the death of a toddler in state care. Even the province has recognized the desperate state of child welfare services in First Nations communities, and requested a meeting last year with then-INAC minister Chuck Strahl to address the inequitable treatment of Aboriginal children in care on reserve.

In a letter to the B.C. ministers of Children and Family Development and of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, Strahl declined their invitation, stating that he would “not be available to meet with you in the near future.”

The letter continued, “I appreciate and share your concerns for the equitable treatment of children on reserve to those living off reserve. While the British Columbia Enhanced Prevention Services Model and Accountability Framework will not be funded at this time, it is still under consideration for the next fiscal year.”

The letter also outlined a commitment to Jordan’s Principle, a model that aims to ensure that children receive the services they need, promptly and without jurisdictional disputes between federal and provincial or territorial governments.

The principle is based on the experience of Jordan River Anderson, a two-year-old boy of Norway House Cree Nation. Jordan spent over two years in hospital unnecessarily, as the Province of Manitoba and the Government of Canada could not agree on who should pay for his care when he was well enough to go home.

Tragically, at the age of 5, Jordan River Anderson passed away, never having spent a day in a family home, while governments continued to argue.

Jordan’s Principle calls on the government of first contact to pay for services for a child, with the option of referring the matter to jurisdictional dispute mechanisms thereafter.

While the federal government provides lip service to Jordan’s Principle, it has narrowed the interpretation of this code to apply only to children with complex medical needs who require multiple service providers.

“We find it out of step with Jordan’s Principle, and quite frankly a bit distasteful, [to] take the important memory of a child and reframe it is a narrow principle of equality,” Cindy Blackstock commented at the 40th session of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

In January, an INAC representative told Briarpatch, “We are working towards an enhanced framework and implementing Jordan’s principle in all jurisdictions, and we are aiming for this to be complete by 2013.”

But according to Blackstock, the Auditor General of Canada has already found INAC’s “enhanced” approach to be flawed and inequitable. “They continue to shop it around as the exclusive option without having addressed its flaws,” she said.

In response to the human rights complaint filed by Blackstock and the Assembly of First Nations, INAC has argued that if there is indeed disparity in the delivery of services, accountability rests with local child welfare agencies and not INAC.

“INAC’s argument has broad implications for First Nations service delivery as a whole as it chronically under-funds many services on reserves, such as policing and housing,” said Blackstock. “If it is successful in saying it cannot be held accountable, as it is not a front-line service organization, then that basically offloads federal responsibility for discrimination to First Nations,” Blackstock told Briarpatch.

Moving Forward

Unquestionably, a lot needs to happen in order for Aboriginal children to access fair treatment in Canada. Today, First Nations youth are the fastest-growing demographic in the country. And some of those youth see that changes to child welfare are still slow-moving.

Stuart Panko, an Anishinabe youth, spent most of his childhood in care. By age seven he had lived in 22 different foster homes before finding a First Nations foster family that accepted him as one of their own.

“No question, in my personal experience of growing up in the system, I would have been better off if I wasn’t put in foster homes where I was getting abused by my caregivers physically and emotionally,” says Panko. “ If my mother had been given the supports she needed, my life may have been different,” he said.

But Panko also sees that there is room for change. “The need for more positive male role models and keeping the connection to biological family, territory and culture is key,” he says.

February 2011 marked the fourth anniversary since Blackstock and the AFN filed the complaint with the Human Rights Commission in 2007. Canada motioned to have the case dismissed in December 2007, but the tribunal has not yet issued its decision, despite a CHRC requirement that rulings on the merit of a given complaint be issued within a four-month period.

Since the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the AFN filed the human rights complaint in 2007, all of the Society’s federal funding has been cut.

But Canada’s leading First Nations child welfare advocate remains optimistic.

“With over 7000 people and organizations committed to following the tribunal, the case is one of the most formally watched legal actions in Canadian history, and has the potential to set a precedent of equity across all services on reserves,” Blackstock said.

“For First Nations children, a ruling that Canada must rectify the discrimination would offer up more opportunity to stay safely with their families and communities, and to experience equitable government funding in areas like education and health, which are also underfunded on reserves. For Canadians, it would be a time to finally turn the page on the longstanding harmful treatment of First Nations children.”

VANCOUVER—Ten million dollars set aside by the Harper government to address the crisis of missing or murdered Aboriginal women will be redirected to the Department of Justice and the Ministry of Public Safety.

And that has some groups, like Vancouver’s Walk 4 Justice, fuming.

“We have the answers and tools already because we’ve been working on this issue for a long time,” said Gladys Radek, a co-founder of the Indigenous-led campaign.

Radek was jolted into action when her niece, Tamara Chipman, disappeared in 2005 along Highway 16 in northern British Columbia. She has since organized three walks—the first a 4,000-kilometre march from Vancouver to Ottawa in the summer of 2008—to press the federal government to initiate a public inquiry and deal with the root causes of violence against Indigenous women.

“This funding will do nothing to address the issue,” she said. “This is about power and control again.”

Eight months after the 2010 budget release of promised funding, Minister for Status of Women Rona Ambrose announced the money will be spent on seven different initiatives, the bulk on a national police support center for missing persons.

“While NWAC is supportive in principle to see the Government of Canada taking steps to address the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women, we must undoubtedly express our disappointment with the exclusion of Sisters In Spirit in the ongoing development of public policy in the matter,” they stated in a release.

The Conservatives kept Sisters in Spirit—NWAC’s research, education and policy initiative that deals with missing and murdered Aboriginal women—in limbo for eight months, and then gave NWAC only a day’s notice before the announcement was finally made.

Status of Women officials made clear to NWAC that any new funding proposals would not permit the use of the Sisters in Spirit name or the continuation of their groundbreaking and growing database.

Since 2005, Sisters in Spirit has been gathering complex statistical information on violence against Aboriginal women. It has shown that more than 582 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since roughly 1980. Twenty of the cases have occurred in the past year, and 226 in the past 10 years. Such information was previously scattered and highly deficient.

Liberal MP and Official Opposition Critic for Status of Women, Anita Neville believes the Conservative government’s move was deceptive.

“It was a duplicitous announcement,” Neville said. “Ambrose framed it as ten million going towards Aboriginal women but a good deal is going to their own justice systems, not Aboriginal women. Sisters in Spirit was told to shut down, told not to collect stats or advocate, but still they were used as a poster program. It’s all smoke and mirrors and it’s disrespectful. Ambrose should be ashamed at playing with women’s lives this way.”

Despite Harper’s stated commitment to “take concrete steps to address the issue of missing or murdered Aboriginal women,” the details in the announcement are not specific to Aboriginal women.

Instead, the largest portion of the funding will be spent on a generic RCMP missing-persons database and amendments to the criminal code to allow more police freedom around warrants and wire-taps. A much smaller fraction of the funds will go toward what many see as the most critical work: victim, family and healing support, and dealing with the root causes of violence.

“Working with the community and police was a part of Sister in Spirit’s comprehensive plan, but the idea that this is the sole focus of this new strategy completely misses the point,” said Niki Ashton, an NDP MP. “I doubt it will make a difference for Aboriginal women living on the ground. It’s a short-sighted approach and reflects a lack of consultation.”

NDP Aboriginal Affairs critic Jean Crowder agrees with Ashton.

“They [the Government of Canada] needed to work with Aboriginal women to see what else would be helpful and what was missing, but the money is going towards the Department of Justice and the Ministry of Public Safety.”

“What it needed to do was build on Sisters in Spirit, [who are] the experts. Money needed to go into helping the families of the murdered and missing women, to help them understand the legal system, and access trauma counseling. But that’s not what is happening.”

Opposition critics have also accused the Conservatives of pushing through pieces of their tough-on-crime agenda under the cover of this national strategy.

According to the Department of Justice website, the seven initiatives include amendments that would “streamline” the process for securing authorization for wire-taps, potentially avoiding court orders or judge-issued warrants.

While the government claims the change is linked to potential investigations involving Aboriginal women, the initiative is actually a recycled portion of Bill C-31, allowing warrant-less wiretapping. The bill died last year when Harper prorogued Parliament.

Canada’s lack of consultation, transparency and relationship-building in this instance illustrates a glaring pattern concerning the Conservative’s policies toward Indigenous Peoples.

Upon taking power in 2006, the Stephen Harper government canceled the Kelowna Accord—a $5.1-billion strategy to improve Aboriginal health and water services, housing, and education. This, despite the reality that over a third of First Nations children live in overcrowded homes, and one in three First Nations people consider their main source of water unsafe to drink.

This move was the first in a series of cuts Harper would make to Aboriginal communities despite the optics of attempted reconciliation with First Peoples.

In 2007, Canada was one of only four countries to vote against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In spite of a recent endorsement, some Aboriginal leaders believe Canada’s signature does not reflect a desire to honor Aboriginal people or their rights, but rather a need for good public relations.

And just two years after Harper’s apology to Aboriginal people for the residential school project and its legacy, the Conservatives cut funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF). The decision meant the end of significant funding to a Canada-wide network of 134 community-based healing initiatives addressing intergenerational trauma resulting from the schools.

The recent announcement by Minister Ambrose indicates that $4.65 million will go towards community and school-based programs to deal with cycles of violence and improve the safety of Aboriginal women in Aboriginal communities.

“While this focus on violence within Aboriginal communities is important, I think given the statistics we have seen, we also need to look beyond Aboriginal communities, at for example non-Aboriginal perpetrators who commit murder and acts of violence against Aboriginal women, like Robert Pickton,” Crowder said.

According to Amnesty International, Aboriginal women are almost three times more likely than non-Aboriginal women to be killed by a stranger. In addition, 60 per cent of women and girls were killed in urban areas, 28 per cent in rural areas, and 13 per cent on-reserve.

There is also recognition within the Aboriginal community and among advocates that those in positions of power in Canadian society, in particular police and justice system officials, have themselves been accused and charged as perpetrators of violence against Aboriginal women.

Some view this as key to understanding Aboriginal women’s lack of trust in the justice system and their confidence in police protecting them from violence.

Last month former Attorney General Wally Oppal was hired to look into police investigations of the disappearances and murders of women, many of them Aboriginal, from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and why serial killer Robert Pickton was not charged after an incident in 1997.

Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and Ernie Crey, whose sister’s DNA was found on the Pickton farm, issued a statement in October 2010, expressing their views about the Canadian justice system.

“Why were the lives of these and so many other Indigenous women in Canada not adequately supported, and how could our systems treat them, and others, as something to be thrown away, then put to the bottom of the heap in pursuing their murderers and abusers?”

With such mistrust in Canada’s justice system amongst First Nations leaders, advocates, and Aboriginal women’s groups, why is the Department of Justice now spearheading a campaign to end violence against Aboriginal women?

“Many of the family members are now thinking of reporting crimes less because they feel it won’t do anything anyways,” said Gladys Radek.

“I feel so sad for the families, the money needed to go towards their needs. They need their Healing Center. But they have been silenced again.”

Regardless of the funding allocation, NWAC has made a commitment to the families to continue to hold annual family meetings, work with families to share stories, convene community workshops and develop tools and resources.

According to an NWAC press released addressed to the families of missing and murdered women, “the movement and group of family members and community will remain under the Sisters in Spirit name.”

Meanwhile, Radek’s group Walk 4 Justice continues their work—spreading awareness, working with family members and communities to advocate for missing and murdered women, and urging the public to take action—with no government funding.

Angela Sterritt is a writer, artist and broadcast journalist based out of Vancouver BC. She is from the Gitxsan Nation.

This evening it’s the Opening Night of Beyond Eden at the Vancouver Playhouse. Applause and intrigue from mainstream reviews can attest to its visual and musical magnificence.

Last Saturday I watched the show and could not peel my eyes from the stage, nor quell the urge to erupt into tears. It was the historical and analytical elements that appealed to my emotions, but the dominance of rock music over Haida culture that revoked them. Despite my expectation to see the production shaped and guided by the rich ethos of Haida Gwaii, I was still memorized by talent, visuals, and direction of the musical.

Composer Bruce Ruddell spent the last two years work-shopping Beyond Eden across Canada, discovering how the Haida/rock musical would hit audiences. But he began plotting the best way to re-tell the story over thirty years ago when his friend Bill Reid shared the exploration journey account with him.

It goes back to 1957 when a group of anthropologists eager to move on from the basement of their museum and enter the field, set to ‘save’ the Haida culture from what they saw as its fatal destiny. Commissioned by the federal government Wilson Duff and his crew sailed up the coast, meeting stormy weather, Haida spirits and conflicted views on the way.

The emotionally powerful production evoked thoughts on what academic and artistic scholar Marcia Crosby has coined the ‘Salvage Paradigm’.

Tragic and poetic, like the play, the salvage paradigm explicates how museums were stimulated by a process of taking cultural monuments and items such as totem poles, ceremonial masks, and cedar boxes from Indigenous people and placing them in museums as artifacts. The logic used was that this process would salvage what was left of a dying Native culture.

It’s an argument played out in Beyond Eden between the anthropologists and Haida rebel youth Victor Duncan, played by Tracey Olson. His arms waving and his face filled with concern and reason, he explains that the decrepit  poles are not dying but “going back to Mother Earth where they belong”. With a chorus he sings “Occupation and Invasion”, advising the explorers to back off and think twice about their mission. Ridiculed by the others, his character is somewhat alienated.

There is no question that colonization, including the outlawing of the potlatch and other ceremonies had a great impact on Native people and culture. However, the question Beyond Eden asks, is did chopping down Mortuary Poles from Haida villages and placing them in museums with primarily non-Native patrons and collectors really save the Haida people?

The fictional character based on Wilson Duff is Lewis Wilson, played by John Mann of Spirit of the West. An incredible performance, Mann’s expressive, touching and often disturbing reenactment of the anthropologist depicts his inner conflicts with the expedition. As Haida spirits begin to circle him on stage, cloaked in cedar regalia and woven hats, the story comes alive.

It’s clear at this juncture that Ruddell’s objective is to portray Haida people not as ‘savages’ or as ‘disappearing’ but as powerful and articulate beings. While severely affected by the white man’s policy of extermination and assimilation, the Haida culture and legacy is strongly alive, but in this play, mainly in spirit.

Haida singer, Erika Raelene Stocker’s remarkable solos of traditional songs linger in the air long after each syllable, her voice echoing the ballads of yesterday that continue to be heard today. She glides through the glowing poles, like a ghost, eerie to the audience and characters that can hear her.

During a storm while on board, she and other Haida spirits visit Duff and caution him not to go further. The Watchmen, a Haida symbol and traditional role used to alert a pole owner of an enemy is played by North of 60 actor Tom Jackson. He is a spirit who posits a traditional story and a riddle for Duff to unravel.

Haunted by the spirits who taunt the moral intent of his expedition, Duff ostensibly begins to loose control. His eyes bulge out of his pale skin and his seemingly frail frame drops to the ground, belting out screams of torment.

Parallel to the musical, in real life, Wilson Duff was pushed to insanity, taking his own life following the expedition. He too was forced to question his antics and ethics regarding the displacement of the poles.

Max, played by Cameron Macduffee, is reminiscent of Bill Reid. While visited by Haida ghosts as well, Max is intrigued by the beauty and mystique of the songs and dances but is less connected to their message.

It is clear in a song Ruddell has composed that Max feels less vindicated to keep the culture on the land and more inclined to identify with its artistic formline qualities.

“See how deep this cut, how the plane runs vertically. See how deep this cut, how the form arcs beautifully… Teaching these hands to see…,” Max sings.

Armed with chainsaws and axes, despite Duff’s desperate pleads to halt the project, the poles come down. Adorn with elaborate Haida designs, giant tubes that dominate the stage are slowly brought down, the spirits bracing the fall.

An abrupt end, it leaves one guessing and wanting more, much like the tension expressed between nourishing or supplying markets that desire Native culture for profit or drawing upon our youth and ancestor’s need to keep our integrity, authenticity and sovereignty safe from exploitation.

Singer-songwriter Inez scooped up four prizes at the recent Aboriginal People's Choice Music Awards, and is nominated for three more at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. (Nadya Kwandibens)

At the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards (APCMAs) in Winnipeg earlier this month, B.C.-based singer-songwriter Inez Jasper worked the stage with talent and poise. Clad in black and violet leather and backed by an impressively choreographed dance routine, she belted out her slinky dance-pop hit Breathe in front of an audience of about 4,000 people.

That night, Jasper — who simply goes by Inez —scored an impressive four awards: best new artist, best pop CD (Singsoulgirl), best album cover and single of the year (Breathe ).

Just one album into her career, the artist of Stó:lō, Métis and Ojibwa heritage has already established herself as a musical force. Inez won the top prize (and $10,000) at the National Aboriginal Day Talent show in Ottawa in 2008, and was recognized as a national aboriginal role model the same year.

This Friday, she’ll be in Hamilton, Ont. to perform at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, the largest such event in North America, and there is little doubt in Indigenous country that Inez will win even more glory. She is vying for hardware in three categories: best blues album, best female artist and best album cover design.

Where aboriginal musicians such as Buffy Sainte Marie, Redbone and Peter Lafarge fought to take a stand in society, newer artists such as Inez are taking a different stance.

“I’ve always been taught it’s not about wearing an aboriginal symbol on your shirt or a feather in your hair — it’s about knowing who you are in your heart and carrying that pride wherever you go,” Inez explains from her home in Chilliwack, B.C. While the tunes onSingsoulgirl have echoes of Beyoncé and Canada’s Lights, Inez’s songs also make direct references to her Stó:lō background. In addition to the uplifting ballad Sto:lo Strong, there’sStick Game Jam, in which she sings about her people’s gambling tournaments. Stick or bone games are unique to Stölo and other indigenous tribes and are accompanied by fast paced hand drum songs to spur players on.

Inez says her music is “about representing my people, and giving other people who relate to me a chance to be inspired and make their dreams come true, too.”
A new mom juggling a career and a family, the 28-year-old singer faces challenges shared by other young aboriginal women – but she has an image to maintain and it’s not something she takes lightly.

“Because of experiences such as residential schools, our image as aboriginal people has been skewed, so we have to work hard to repair it, heal it and change the way we see ourselves,”she says.

Inez melds mainstream pop with sounds inspired by her Sto:lo heritage. (Nadya Kwandibens)

Hellnback, a young Cree man who is part of the Juno-nominated hip-hop group Team Rezofficial, doesn’t like to be pigeonholed. “I hate the term ‘Native hip hop’ — it’s like people are saying, ‘He has done good for a Native, but not as a musician,’” he says. “I’d rather be nominated for best hip-hop group, not just bestaboriginal hip-hop group.”

“Even just 10 years ago, the sheer number of contemporary native musicians was small — hence, so was the scope of the content in the music,” says Carrielynn Victor, also Stó:lō and a singer with the rap group Rapsure Risin. “Now, there are more natives coming up and out, so more views are presented.”

Inez grew up on the Skowkale reserve in British Columbia. Her mother and father are both musicians, and at age three, Inez was enrolled in classical violin lessons –not to learn violin per se, but in the hopes that the skills would transfer to fiddling, a tradition practised by her Métis grandfather. But Inez got bored, and after attempts with other instruments, she realized that her preferred form of expression was her voice.

It wasn’t until she was studying for her nursing degree at the University of British Columbia in 2002 that Inez realized her potential. She was commissioned to sing the national anthem at university sports games, which exposed her to the thrill of roaring applause.

“I would be standing there and the crowd would be going wild, you could barely hear me singing the anthem over the cheers. But the applause was not for me, it was for the team,” she recalls. “That’s when I realized, this is what I want – to be belting out my song with the fans cheering for me.”

That was certainly the case at the APCMAs earlier this month. And when she hits the stage in Hamilton this Friday, this young talent is bound to get another rapturous reception.

The Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards take place in Hamilton, Ont., on Nov. 27.

Angela Sterritt is a writer and broadcaster based in Vancouver.

by Angela Sterritt, WindSpeaker Newspaper

The International Village Mall, also known as Tinseltown, opened its doors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in December 1999. The mall owners, Henderson Development Ltd, envisioned a high-end fashion and entertainment complex serving a clientele with considerable disposable income. But the low-income residents from the neighborhood also visited the mall to purchase cups of coffee, groceries and fast food.

From her balcony at the Vancouver Native housing complex directly across the street from the mall, Gladys Radek, a Vancouver-based Carrier grandmother, had a perfect view of Tinseltown. While she sat on her deck doing beadwork, Radek observed the goings on at the mall and she began to notice some disturbing trends. She witnessed several incidents of security guard intimidation and outright harassment of Native patrons, she said.

Radek witnessed well-dressed Native shoppers being followed by security guards, while Caucasian shoppers went unnoticed. She observed disabled people in wheelchairs being asked to leave or even wheeled out of the mall by Securiguard Services Ltd., the group hired by Henderson to keep the premises safe.

“There were people that were not even allowed to enter the building, because they were considered dirty,” Radek said.

She personally suffered harassment at the hands of the security guards on a number of occasions, she said, and after one humiliating incident on May 10, 2001 where she was stopped on her way to Starbucks, questioned and then asked to leave the mall, she decided to make a complaint to the B.C. Human Rights commission.

In her official complaint, Radek accused Henderson Development and Securiguard Services of denying her access to the facilities because of her race, color and disability. Radek has a prosthetic leg and walks with a limp. She further claimed that her treatment was part of a larger pattern of discrimination against Native people and the disabled.

Evidence at a tribunal revealed a written policy, drafted by Securiguard and Henderson, known as the “site post orders.” The policy outlined the reasons why people should be removed from the mall, including ripped or dirty clothing, red eyes or bad body odor.

In the preamble to the orders, “borderline suspicious” shoppers were to be followed and “suspicious” people were to be removed.

“They were stereotyping Aboriginal people and disabled people, and we all seemed to fit into the one category. We were either borderline suspicious, suspicious or we were criminals,” said Gladys Radek in an interview after the July 13 decision where the tribunal ruled in her favor.

Radek was awarded $15,000 in damages, the largest ever in Canada for injury to dignity in a systemic discrimination case.

Witnesses at the tribunal, 17 in all, testified they had been harassed by security, though they did not fit into the “site post order” criteria for ejection.

Tribunal member Lindsay Lyster concluded that the implementation of the written and unwritten policies were based on stereotypes of disabled and Aboriginal people. Lyster said the “vagueness and room for interpretation” in the preamble of the orders made “the operation for unconscious stereotypes all the more significant.”

The security guards suffered from a lack of sufficient training and knowledge on issues related to race, and physical and mental disabilities, said Lyster. Evidence also indicated the guards were generally unaware of the right of way through the mall permitting all members of the public to pass through.

In an interview following the decision, Radek’s legal counsel, Tim Timberg, concluded that, “The significance of this case is that we have proven that a pattern of systemic discrimination existed over a five-year period in Vancouver, in present-day Canadian society.”

“It is a sad set of facts that we are celebrating this case in 2005,” he said.

The respondents are now on a form of probation for six months to ensure a new policy at the mall is implemented.

Lyster directed Henderson and Securiguard to consult with Radek and Timberg in making the policy changes and suggested they also consult with community members as part of the effort to put an end to the discrimination.

But Radek said it is not over yet. While Securiguard was replaced halfway through the tribunal, she is not confident the necessary changes have been made up to this point.

“We still have to go over the policy with them and make sure the guards are not continuing to treat people with prejudice,” Radek said.

The biggest victory for Radek is that her grandchildren will have the knowledge and tools to use their voices and stand up against injustice.

“I made a voice for all of them, not just one or two,” she said.

By Angela Sterritt

Windspeaker Contributor

VANCOUVER

• Author:
  • Angela Sterritt
• CSQ Issue:
  • 29.3  Fair Trade and Indigenous Peoples