Canada

The Atlantic Spotlight on Photojournalist Daniella Zalcman’s “Signs of Your Identity”

Sarah M Donnelly

Link: Erasing Indigenous Heritage by Emily Anne Epstein (Oct. 30, 2016)

Excerpt:

For nearly a century, the Canadian government took indigenous Canadians from their families and placed them in church-run boarding schools, forcibly assimilating them to Western culture. Children as young as 2 or 3 years old were taken from their homes, their language extinguished, their culture destroyed. With support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, photographer Daniella Zalcman has been documenting the lingering effects of this trauma for her book, Signs of Your Identity, this year’s winner for the FotoEvidence Book Award.

 

“Canada Is Finally Launching An Inquiry Into Its Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women Crisis”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here, from HuffPo.

Globe and Mail Article on Cindy Blackstock

Kate Fort

Here.

“What I saw were children being systemically removed from these communities. And I’d go to these communities, and there was no running water, and people would wonder why the kids weren’t clean, and I’d think maybe someone should do something about the water. We would see the multigenerational impacts of residential schools, and there are no mental-health services that are culturally appropriate. So there were all these layers of inequality and I started to realize it was the system, in many cases, that was creating conditions where families were not going to be successful in caring for their kids. And nobody was really holding the system to account.”

 

UBC Law’s Indigenous Legal Clinic to Hire Part-time Legal Services Director for Term Appointment

Sarah M Donnelly

Link to job announcement (PDF) here.

Calls of Justice for Aboriginal Women Echo Down Canada’s Highway of Tears

Teresa Walrod

From the New York Times:

Dozens of Canadian women and girls, most of them indigenous, have disappeared or been murdered near Highway 16, a remote ribbon of asphalt that bisects British Columbia and snakes past thick forests, logging towns and impoverished Indian reserves on its way to the Pacific Ocean. So many women and girls have vanished or turned up dead along one stretch of the road that residents call it the Highway of Tears.

More HERE.

 

Murray Sinclair on tragedy, respect and the lessons of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Sarah M Donnelly

Link to CBC radio segment and article by Shelagh Rogers here.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s Mandate to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General

Sarah M Donnelly

Link to letter here.

“I made a personal commitment to bring new leadership and a new tone to Ottawa. We made a commitment to Canadians to pursue our goals with a renewed sense of collaboration. Improved partnerships with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments are essential to deliver the real, positive change that we promised Canadians. No relationship is more important to me and to Canada than the one with Indigenous Peoples. It is time for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous Peoples, based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership.”

Some top priorities:

  • “Develop, in collaboration with the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, and supported by the Minister of Status of Women, an approach to, and a mandate for, an inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada, including the identification of a lead Minister.
  • Work with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs to address gaps in services to Aboriginal people and those with mental illness throughout the criminal justice system.”

Canadian Supreme Court Rules Métis, Off-reserve Indigenous People Require Federal Recognition

Sarah M Donnelly

Download decision here.

Link to previous post here.

 

Indigenous Women’s Movements to End Violence Against American Indian, Alaska Native, and Aboriginal Women

Victoria Sweet

The Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center, Indian Law Resource Center, National Congress of American Indians, National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and Native Women’s Association of Canada are co-sponsoring an event to  be held during the NGO-Forum of the Commission on the Status of Women’s 60th Session.

The event  will take place on Tuesday, March 22nd at 4:30 p.m., at the United Nations Church Center Chapel.

More information can be found here.

CSW-parallelevent

Manitoba Path to Reconciliation Act

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Bill text here.