The recent court-ordered release of a 50-second, silent video showing an Ottawa Police officer kicking Terry Delay, a homeless Aboriginal man, while in custody has me recalling other contentious clips.
There’s enough of them out there that I thought I would make a compilation; I was struck by the number of them I could recall without really straining my memory banks. Note that I present them here in order of actual occurrence, not in the order the videos subsequently came to light.
Aug. 2010:
Curtis Billy in custody at the RCMP holding facilities in
Williams Lake, BC. See the Vancouver Sun report along with
the account from the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA).
May 2010:
Oren Mostad at the RCMP holding facilities in Williams Lake, BC.
(Vancouver Sun account; BCCLA account)
Jan. 2010:
Lloyd Gilbert at the RCMP holding facilities in Williams Lake, BC.
(Vancouver Sun account; BCCLA account)
Aug. 2008:
Kevin Spratt is tasered 13 times by
police in the state of Western Australia. He was
reportedly tasered again a week later.
Click on image to see video
Dec. 1998:
An unconscious, “soaking wet, homeless”
Frank Paul, 47, is dragged out of jail
by Vancouver police and left “in an icy alley”
where he froze to death.
Update: Then there are the videos we haven’t seen but know about. In 2003, a video “reportedly shows Clay Willey, an Aboriginal man, being tasered [by unidentified officers] while hog-tied on the floor of cell at a Prince George RCMP detachment,” writes The Tyee. He subsequently died that day. In Nov. 2009, the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP announced they would investigate Willey’s death.
In Canada, Aboriginal AIDS Awareness Week kicks off today; globally, it’s World AIDS Day. To mark both, we offer this profile of one woman’s life with HIV, sharing her struggles and successes.
For most expectant mothers, sharing the news of their pregnancy is usually welcomed with warm words of congratulations. Not so for Krista Shore.
“I’ve been criticized big time: people definitely think my child is ill, my partner is ill, or the baby that I am carrying is ill,” she explains.
That’s because Shore is one of the growing number of Indigenous people in Canada infected with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). It’s an epidemic that’s struck at the heart of many Aboriginal communities.
Originally from the Peepeekeesis First Nation in Saskatchewan, the 28-year old Cree mother of two now lives with her partner in Regina. Diagnosed in 2006, Shore is now into her fifth year of being HIV-positive.
But as one can imagine, it hasn’t been easy. Shore says she has come a long way from first feeling her life was a death sentence to now feeling tremendously grateful.
And she’s far from alone in her journey. According to the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network (CAAN), Aboriginal individuals accounted for 7.5% of the estimated 58,000 Canadians living with HIV in 2005; they made up 23.4% of new HIV infections in 2006. That’s almost three times greater than the non-Aboriginal rate of infection in Canada.
So why are Aboriginal people in Canada so over-represented in the HIV/AIDS epidemic?
“The health determinants impact our people,” explains CAAN CEO Ken Clement. “Things such as poverty, lack of self esteem, residential schools, violence, to drugs and alcohol abuse. Unfortunately, Saskatchewan has been hit the hardest and northern British Columbia, Inuit communities, and northern Manitoba as well.”
“There is never enough being done,” says Clement. “We need … those with HIV to be able to go back to their communities without facing stigma, discrimination or ignorance.
Shore agrees: “That [stigma] takes a toll on the individual when they go in for the proper health care and treatment. They are discriminated against not only from their own people and their community, but by their own family members and health care system.”
They’re issues she knows firsthand. Shore describes an obstetrician nurse-in-training who advised her to undergo tubal sterilization, so she doesn’t have any more children.
“At the time I was diagnosed, my children were wards of the government,” she says. “I was a mother of two children at that time. Not being educated, I thought it was a death sentence.”
Indeed, it might come as a surprise to many that women can and do deliver healthy, HIV-negative babies despite being infected themselves.
“I am in a serodiscordant relationship, meaning I am HIV-positive and my partner is HIV-negative, so I had a good opportunity to be able to have a HIV-negative child,” explains Shore. “When a woman has access to universal care and treatment and support, a woman is capable and able to lessen the risk of transmission to 1 per cent.”
Shore says that with thorough testing and monitoring, prescribed antiretroviral drugs, and stringent protocols during delivery, it is possible for a mother with HIV to give birth to a HIV-negative child.
Today, Shore is a little over 6 months pregnant; in less than 10 weeks, she’ll give birth to what will be her second child since being diagnosed.
Somehow, this busy full-time mom manages to find time to also advocate on behalf of the All Nations Hope Network and CAAN, dedicating herself to helping pregnant HIV-positive Aboriginal women. She wants to help them to feel safe and supported throughout their pregnancy and to give them the best fighting chance possible.
“There needs to be a connection between the service providers that can provide the proper education, but also with school boards, child family services and all others that come into play in dealing with our people, especially when dealing with our high-risk people,” she says.
As for the stigma, Shore works tirelessly to combat society’s disapproval and attitudes to HIV and AIDS.
“People need to take the time to see that not one of us is invisible. That’s where people need to really separate how they treat people, that I am a human being, I am not a human doing.”
To that end, Shore is part of CAAN’s new campaign, “Respect + Honor = Healthy Mother, Healthy Child” — a message she feels strongly about.
Despite the criticisms sometimes thrown her way for her choices, Shore says she would much rather focus on her work and, most importantly, her children.
“I look at my little child and she is nothing but a true blessing, a true picture of health.”
UPDATE: Regina Leader Post reports that Saskatchewan now has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in Canada, with many of those cases being Aboriginal people.
A multidisciplinary artist who’s immersed her energy across several fields, Kinnie Starr‘s interests range from music, visual arts and women’s issues (she possesses a Women’s Studies degree from Queen’s University) to leading youth workshops and being a yoga expert.
However Starr is most recognized for her musical output which began to raise much notoriety within North America’s hip-hop community in the late nineties. Over the last ten years the media has focused their attention on her brilliant hip-hop/rap skills that express her various philosophies and insights.
Her last two albums, “Anything” (2006) and “Sun Again” (2003) spoke volumes about her ability to spin beats, poetry, rhymes and to collaborate with other skilled musicians. Starr’s music has gained mainstream attention and has appeared on television programs such as The L-Word, Thirteen, Fashion Television Canada and in even in Zellers advertisements (contrary to her earlier stance against corporate culture).
Her latest offering, “A Different Day” (produced by Chin Injeti on Last Gang Records), focuses on the theme of love and the many directions it can take. The album delivers less signature hip-hop/trip-hop sounds and instead offers a stripped down, sometimes poppy sound with much guitar (acoustic and electric).
If you’re a fan of Neko Case, Jenny Lewis or Feist, you will connect to the music on “A Different Day.” This is a very much a transition album as Starr seems to be maturing in her sound and is attempting to rebuild her musical identity. The challenge has not led to a stand-out disc, but does have several stand-out tracks.
Typically, when an artist is in this phase of their career their next project is more focused and engaging for the listener. However, Kinnie Starr remains a creative force to watch. Support the cause and purchase a track.
Reviewer David McLeod (Ojibway/Metis) is the Executive Producer of National Aboriginal Music Countdown, a two-hour radio program heard weekly across Canada.
Some of Pickton's alleged victims (clockwise from top left): Yvonne Boen, Dawn Crey, Stephanie Lane, Nancy Clark, Sharon Abraham, Jacqueline Murdock.
In a special letter to today’s Vancouver Sun entitled “Top Robert Pickton cop in his own words,” retired RCMP inspector Don Adam attempts to respond to the mountain of criticisms over the RCMP-Vancouver Police Missing Women Task Force’s handling of the investigation into this convicted serial killer.
As head of the so-called ‘Pickton investigation,’ Adam indicates he is well aware how it has been “described in the media… [as] either merely botched, or … possibly the worst investigation in Canadian history.”
And yet, despite Adam’s efforts to “answer to and be responsible for the actions of our Task Force,” there is, as far as I can tell, a near-total omission in his piece regarding what is arguably a key commonality among Pickton’s victims: their Aboriginality.
A series of word searches within Adam’s text revealed but one direct reference to Aboriginal people:
“He also told her he liked native women.”
To put the quote in context: “[Pickton A man] also told [a sex trade worker] he liked native women.”
That’s it. That’s the extent of any discussion by Adam of how the victims’ shared identity (and their related socio-economic status) could have played a role in all that’s happened.
I do not have the exact figures before me as to the exact proportion of Aboriginal women among Pickton’s known victims, but one source reports his “first six victims were Aboriginal.”
At the risk of second-guessing Mr. Adam and his team or completely misunderstanding the nature of police work, based on what he wrote to the Sun, I do feel cause to wonder what it might say that such a common characteristic tying together the profiles of many of Pickton’s victims — i.e., their Aboriginality — failed to register all that highly on his team’s radar back then or, apparently, even now in retrospect.
I would like to hear from people about what they think, especially whether I am being fair or misplaced in my observations here. It’s admittedly an immediate gut reaction, but, as I say, I couldn’t help be struck by the near-absence of this aspect.
UPDATE: As a reader (“SandyFrance”) rightly points out in the comments below, the man who said he “liked native women” was not Robert Pickton. Despite this egregious error on my part, the fact remains that many of Pickton’s victims were Aboriginal (First Nations, Metis and/or Inuit). Nowhere in Adam’s letter is this fact mentioned. While it does not necessarily take anything away from my original point, I nonetheless regret the error.
Since 1999, November 25 has been the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. It was started to commemorate the brutal 1960 assassination of three sisters in the Dominican Republic. To mark the day, MI is exploring a problem not readily acknowledged or discussed in Indigenous communities: senior abuse.
While violence comes in many forms and touches every age group, the abuse of Aboriginal seniors rarely gets the attention it deserves.
‘Grandmother Spirit’ is the name of a groundbreaking research project exploring the safety and well-being of elderly Aboriginal women.
An initiative of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), organizers take the stance that, in order for one to understand Aboriginal senior abuse, one must first consider the historical and ongoing impacts of colonization on Aboriginal communities.
Billie Allan, an Anishinaabe member of the Shabot Obaadiwan First Nation, is a Health Research and Policy Officer with NWAC. As she explains:
“The devaluation of older people in society, even within broader Canadian society, we are very deeply affected by that. And the whole impact of colonization on our culture, things that did a lot of harm, was that devaluing of our old people.”
According to existing research literature, the risk of senior abuse increases when one or more of the following factors are present: social isolation, disability, reduced cognitive capacity, dependency or residing with someone who has an addiction (such as alcohol, drugs or gambling). Sadly, the older a senior gets, the greater the odds are that s/he will be abused.
And although no hard data exists on senior abuse in Aboriginal communities, Allan says there is plenty of anecdotal evidence. “We do know every community can identify that something is going around and people know about it.”
Senior abuse can range from the obvious — physical, sexual, psychological or emotional — but can also include financial or institutional abuse, neglect or the violation of rights.
“It can be children or grandchildren taking their grandparents’ medication or pressuring them to ask for prescriptions that they don’t need, [or] sedating our grandmothers and grandfathers so they can use their house for other purposes. Using their bankcards or giving it to someone, selling items from their house. And then there’s the spiritual and cultural piece — that is, shaming someone or harming one for trying to practice their cultural and spiritual beliefs,” said Allan.
Joyce Drouin agrees that ‘power of attorney’ is a large issue when it comes to senior abuse. She’s an Elder Abuse Prevention Coordinator with the Nepean Rideau Osgoode Community Resource Centre in Nepean, ON. But she also sees sad similarities between senior abuse and other forms of abuse.
“I really believe it is the cycle of violence. There is a consistent pattern that I see in terms of the cycle of violence with seniors as it is with women with partners and these types of situations. The pattern is very clear: the incident, the honeymoon period, and then the walking on egg shells,” Drouin says.
Allan and Drouin both note the many challenges that come with addressing senior abuse in Aboriginal communities. “There is a lot of shame in terms of reporting your children or your grandchildren,” Drouin adds. “It is very difficult to admit.”
Another problem is that it is often hard to prove the seriousness of senior abuse. “In most cases, they are not criminal offences,” says Drouin. “Neglect has to be over a long period of time with a pattern to be a criminal offence.”
And even in situations where seniors are provided with necessary support services — like housekeeping, home care and respite — there can still be problems.
Allan found that some community care givers can be nervous about reporting senior abuse. “They worry about the consequences, about how they are going to be treated by the community if they do speak about it, or fear of losing their job.”
She believes that, in order to stop senior abuse, grandmothers must be directly involved in the process. Historical roles need to be revitalized and respect given back to Aboriginal women.
With the ‘Grandmother Spirit’ project, part of NWAC’s mandate is to create material that raises awareness about senior abuse. Together with the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, they’ve developed public service announcement television commercials set to be released next month.
The hope is that tools like these will help communities begin talking about this often difficult issue.
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Since 1999, November 25 has been the 