Last year there was a report written, “Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council Recommendations” and I thought it was well done. I’m not sure how well some of their recommendations are being pursued. For example. One of them is to establish an Ombudsperson office with staff to investigate all complaints about policing in Alberta in an independent, transparent and timely manner. This body will have punitive powers and ensure compliance with recommended actions.
I did a Google search for the office. If I found the right information, it says the Ombudsman cannot investigate:
Decisions made by the Federal government
Members of the Legislative Assembly
Federal or municipal police forces
Decisions made by universities or schools
Decisions made by the courts
Private businesses or private matters
Does this mean the advisory council recommendations are an exercise in futility? Is this a good question? Or does it mean something has been accomplished, but we don’t know about it? I’d like to find out.
The Mayor of Edmonton, Amarjeet Sohi, called for a strategy to address racism in Edmonton moments after being sworn in as the city’s first South Asian mayor. I’d like to know what has been accomplished. It is hard to find a recent hate crime story in the news. Just what are they doing to address this issue?
If the Ombudsman can’t investigate the police, who is?
One story that really bothers me is the one about an “Indigenous teenager in Edmonton, Alberta, who has spent nearly a year without a chunk of his skull after a local police officer allegedly kicked him in the head “football-style.” The lad was handcuffed, lying on the ground, and wasn’t offering any resistance when Const. Ben Todd attacked him. Apparently, Todd wasn’t even suspended for the incident.
What’s happening with this?
Minorities all over North America are scared of the police. In the United States, it’s even worse.
A group I belong to is challenging members to set up their “Citizening” and take an active role in making Alberta into the province it needs to be… for everyone.
I would like to take an active role in helping to reduce racism, discrimination, and work towards assisting with other social issues. But, I can’t do it myself.
If you would like to join me, I’ve set up a Google Group, where discussions on how to move forward on this issue, can be addressed, and develop action plans for various levels of engagement. If we can put together a good-sized group, perhaps we can help draw more attention to racism in Alberta, and encourage local officials to stay on track.
There’s a homepage for the group, that gives a basic overview of how it can work, with a preview of the group, so you can see how it’s setup. You can join it here.
It’s easy to ignore one voice. One-hundred or more voices isn’t so easy to dismiss. Maybe, just maybe, we can get something done.
The news was shocking to many non-Indigenous Canadians, while many Indigenous Peoples either witnessed the graveyards being created, or grew up hearing about the graveyards from survivors. The missing children and the graveyards were also disclosed in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final reports. Experts expect that many more graves will be found.
What if I told you there is another entity that no one is talking about that also played a major role in the operations of these schools? My research has documented how appeals to Canadians and English citizens helped fund residential schools in the Anglican Diocese of Calgary.
Partly I have accomplished this to date through visiting nine museums and archives across Canada to learn my people’s history through historical documents. These documents reveal some details of how three different Christian denominations (Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist) were involved with running colonial schools, including an Indian Residential School on the Blood Reserve.
Some of my research has examined Anglican Diocese of Calgary archival records pertaining to Anglican-run residential schools in Treaty 7 territory. I examined the 1892-1908 annual reports related to St. Paul’s Mission, Kainai Reserve; St. Peter’s Mission, Piikani Reserve; St. John’s Mission, Siksika Reserve, and St. Barnabas Mission, Tsuu T’ina Reserve. In early years, these mission schools received government sponsorship through rations of beef and flour or biscuits and milk for the pupils.
Later, the government would provide a small government grant to help with the building of the school’s infrastructure. After this, the government provided a maintenance grant for children enrolled in the schools. Despite the government’s financial help, it was still not enough to cover costs needed to operate a school. This left the denomination to make up the monetary difference.
Cover of Diocese of Calgary Report on Indian Missions, 1892. The report included a list of donors and subscribers. The General Synod Archives, Anglican Church of Canada.
Mission reports solicited funds
My research has shown that to remedy this problem, the diocese decided to appeal to peoples’ caring natures in a very systematic way. Each year the Diocese of Calgary would publish a report on their evangelizing efforts for each mission within their diocese. The missions included the residential schools.
The preface mentions that the report was meant for all who may be interested in supporting the missionary work among Indigenous Peoples. Thus, potentially anyone, regardless of their religious background, could donate to the Diocese of Calgary.
The report encompassed the following sections: a short statement made by the bishop of the diocese, a missionary report for each mission, a financial statement, a list of subscribers and donors, pictures of the missions and a subscription card for donations.
Such a report caught not only the interest of national citizens but international citizens as well. The diocese listed the names of their donors, including the place where they were located. The majority of the donors came from Canada and England.
The reports do not detail the religious background of the individual donors, however the Methodist Church was listed as donating funds one year.
The TRC’s Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 1 also shares that the Oblates, the Roman Catholic order that “established and managed the majority of church-run Canadian residential schools in Canada” had two “French missionary fundraising bodies that funded their work.” First is the l’Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi (Society for the Propagation of the Faith). Second is the l’Oeuvre de la Sainte-Enfance (Society of the Holy Childhood).
As the TRC noted: “The Protestants, like the Catholics, encouraged church members to make regular contributions to overseas missionary work … The financial support the missionaries received from outside Canada was considerable.”
Calgary Indian Missions subscription card. The General Synod Archives, Anglican Church of Canada
Contributions from many
The reports I examined, and other research, clearly indicate more people were involved in maintaining schools than just the leaders of the designated churches and the Canadian government. Instead, the daily operations were made possible through the financial contributions of citizens across Canada and the globe. These citizens were not required to make donations, but nonetheless did.
Through my research travels, I meet fellow Canadian citizens of European descent who feel so entitled to tell me their version of my people’s history. Largely their message has been to point their finger and condemn an opposing religion or Christian church that is different from their own.
My research suggests that just as donations from beyond immediate church leadership made these institutions possible, so must widespread public accountability play a part in responding to the urgent problem of the unmarked graves and the TRC Calls to Action.
No longer can we say as Canadians that we had nothing to do with the residential schools. Nor can we deflect the responsibility of the negative outcomes that the schools have had upon generations of Indigenous Peoples.
Instead, residential schools are a societal problem not only in Canada, but around the world. We must take action to rectify the wrongs that have happened for over a century and a half. In order to reconcile, we must first acknowledge the truth of what has happened and engage in justice so that together we can heal as a society and move forward in reconciliation.
If you are an Indian Residential School survivor, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Environmentally dangerous dumps, landfills and pulp and paper mills are more likely to be sited in African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities. These communities suffer from high rates of cancer and respiratory illness. (Shutterstock) — Ingrid Waldron, McMaster University and Juliet Daniel, McMaster University
In the 1940s, the town of Shelburne, N.S., became home to a new garbage dump. Residential, industrial and medical waste from throughout eastern Shelburne County was burned at the dump over the decades, leaving nearby residents concerned about health issues.
The placement of this dump was an act of what we now refer to as environmental racism — the disproportionate siting of polluting industries and other environmentally hazardous projects in Indigenous, Black and other marginalized communities.
Questions about the high rates of cancer — and deaths — among members of Shelburne’s African Nova Scotian community, compared to their white neighbours on the other side of town or even within the South End, have long simmered. We, along with our colleagues, are embarking on a major research project to determine whether the legacy of the dump may be even more sinister than people knew at the time.
Community-based research on environmental racism
Much of the motivation for the study comes from the work of local activist Louise Delisle, who has gone door-to-door in her community to catalogue cases of cancer, both recent and historical.
Locations of African Nova Scotian communities, First Nations communities and toxic facilities in Nova Scotia. (ENRICH Project)
The data collected by the ENRICH Project over the years indicate that environmentally dangerous projects like dumps, landfills and pulp and paper mills are more likely to be sited in African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities, and that these communities suffer from high rates of cancer and respiratory illness.
Momentum to address environmental racism is also growing. A federal private member’s bill introduced by Nova Scotia MP Lenore Zann, the National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism, passed second reading on March 24, 2021.
Bill C-230 returned to the federal Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on June 21 for amendments, where it was approved a few days later. It will move to third reading in the fall of 2021, and then to the Senate, after which it may become Canada’s first legislation to address environmental racism.
Many factors influence cancer
As many factors can influence the incidence of cancer within a population, we’ll oversee a team spanning several research disciplines, with McMaster University serving as the hub and significant representation from Dalhousie University, co-ordinated by cancer biologist Paola Marignani.
‘There’s Something in the Water’ official trailer.
Our team will probe the contents of the dump to identify harmful materials such as heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and fine particulate matter, and we will examine genetic and epigenetic changes to the genomes of Shelburne residents that may explain cancer susceptibility.
The study is multidisciplinary and complex. Yet we are confident it will help clarify the complex interactions between the social determinants of health, lifestyle factors, genetics and generational impact of chronic toxin exposure. It will also shed light on what is driving high cancer rates in South End Shelburne.
Our study will not just have value for the small community of Shelburne but will provide a template for further studies on the relationship between environmental racism and chronic diseases. For example, the African Nova Scotian community in Lincolnville, N.S., Indigenous communities such as Wet’suwet’en First Nation in northern B.C., and Aamjiwnaang First Nation near Sarnia, Ont., as well as African Americans living near Cancer Alley in Louisiana, who all live close to landfills, pipelines and petrochemical facilities, could all benefit from a similar multidisciplinary approach.
This study, and others like it, will bring us one step closer to addressing the wider problem of systemic racism in Canada.
By Mary Jane Logan McCallum
Christa Big Canoe
Josée G. Lavoie
This week the coroner’s inquest into the September 2020 death of Joyce Echaquan heard from hospital staff about the treatment she received at the Quebec hospital where she died.
One of the arguments presented to explain staff cruelty and Echaquan’s poor medical care was that the hospital was short staffed and lacked resources, and that staff was overwhelmed, overworked and stressed. This line of argument sounds especially compelling in a context of myriad additional pressures on health-care staff as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yet this line of argument is not new. As members of the Brian Sinclair Working Group — which works to understand how systemic racism impacts Indigenous people in health-care institutions and beyond — we heard this same logic in explaining Sinclair’s 2008 preventable death in a Winnipeg emergency room. We did not buy it then and we do not buy it now.
Pressures on staff do not produce prejudice: it is there all along. Our research has shown again and again that differential treatment based on prejudice is pervasive throughout all health-care settings regardless of the resources at hand. Professional associations and unions are vitally important voices for standards of care; and yet fail to penalize the racism of their members and make health care safer for Indigenous people.
Likewise, institutions use extreme forms of solidarity (“omerta“) and decoys like “overwork” to distract the public when Indigenous people die of unsafe treatment in their care. In the case of Sinclair we learned that obstructed sightlines, long wait times and a faulty triage system were responsible for staff ignoring a 46-year-old Anishinaabe man while he became sicker and sicker in plain sight, as every other ER patient was treated or left voluntarily.
Thanks to the pressure of Coroner Kamel who rejected the statements of some staff that prejudice simply didn’t exist at Joliette hospital, witnesses eventually gave evidence during the inquest that stereotypes about Indigenous people circulated at the hospital: specifically that Atikamekw patients used drugs and alcohol and took advantage of the health-care system.
We know from our research that assumptions like these in hospital settings lead staff to treat Indigenous patients differently than other patients, including under-treating or over-treating Indigenous patients and classifying them as not deserving of care. Indeed, Joyce’s family members testified about multiple instances where Manawan community members reported complaints related to differential care, well before and since the death of Joyce Echaquan. This is not the inevitable outcome of busy hospitals and overworked staff: rather, we need to confront prejudice, and hold those whose care is informed by prejudice accountable.
Next week, we will be hearing from the hospital’s administrators, who will, we hope, shed light on what was done with the multiple complaints of poor care made by Atikamekw patients. There should be evidence and witnesses who can answer honestly about how the hospital has responded to the prejudice Indigenous people experience — and what they are willing to do to ensure all of their staff can make the necessary cultural change so all patients receive the care they deserve.
Joyce Echaquan’s experience of overt racism cannot be attributed to an isolated incident involving the behaviour of “two bad apples.” Nor can it be acceptable that staff are too busy to meet their professional obligations.
There is a bigger picture. Where individuals are not held accountable and complaints are repeatedly ignored, people will continue to die untimely deaths in hospitals. Expectantly, it would be good if the upcoming testimony explains Echaquan’s cause of death and also explores how the hospital can adopt anti-racist policies and practices.
Hospital administrators are the witnesses who should be able to explain the possibilities for change that will truly prevent similar circumstances to the one that Echaquan experienced.
Recommendations coming out of this Inquest must lead to cultural change within our system and its staff and not simply argue for increasing staff or personnel. Any efforts to reduce workload or increase staff must include ensuring staff are providing fair and equitable health-care services to all patients — and combat the known racism that has been unaddressed for too long.
Mary Jane Logan McCallum is an assistant professor in the history department at the University of Winnipeg.
Christa Big Canoe is legal advocacy director at Aboriginal Legal Services.
Josée Lavoie is a professor with the Department of Community Health Sciences, College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
The authors are experts with the Sinclair Working Group.
Colten Boushie’s family fought for accountability after the racist actions of the RCMP as they investigated the death of her son who was shot and killed by a local farmer. Here she holds up his photo during the 2018 trial. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards
Years of research and community reporting have shown how Black, Indigenous and racialized people experience violence by police or over-policing. But research also shows a chronic under-policing as well. To be clear, this is not an article about the need for more policing. It is an article that outlines the different, and very damaging, ways in which racialized policing can play out.
Over-policing includes things like racially motivated street checks. Under-policing refers to a tempered response when seeking police assistance; this includes police investigations into the deaths of racialized community members. Both under-policing and over-policing can have deadly outcomes.
Boushie was a 22-year-old Indigenous man from Red Pheasant Cree Nation, located one hour west of Saskatoon, Sask. In 2016, Boushie was shot and killed at close-range by Gerald Stanley, a white farmer. In 2018, Stanley was acquitted of second-degree murder by an all-white jury. Stanley’s lawyer argued it was a “freak accident” and said the shooting was accidental. It was, and continues to be, a polarizing case.
I write this article from a position of privilege. I am a middle-class woman, raised as a settler. My work focuses on racialized outcomes in the justice system. Since I have not lost family members to police violence, I can look at racialized policing with the privilege of distance. I live on Treaty 4 Territory. I am writing this article with the permission of Boushie’s family.
The context: Settler colonialism
The recent federal watchdog reports offer insights into the bureaucratic practices of police accountability which often serves to mute settler violence.
“Settler colonialism is not eventful; it is enduring, it has its own structure and logic and refusal as well, operating like a grammar and posture that sits through time. It is a politics deeply cognizant of its own production, of the never-ending nature of inequity and the need to stay the course.”
The Boushie family have been calling for justice and demanding accountability from the RCMP for five years. The family’s concerns resulted in the two recent reports by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission.
Reports on the RCMP
The reports deliver a blow-by-blow description of racialized policing and systemic racism in action. Media releases by the RCMP at the time of the killing placed an emphasis on property offences versus the death of Boushie, which served to imply the victim was a thief and further fuelled racial tensions in the area.
When the police went to Boushie’s mother’s home to notify her that her son had been killed, officers surrounded her home and invaded it, treating it as a threat. They executed an illegal search. And sniffed her breath to see if she had been drinking.
When Gerald Stanley’s son called the police to report a shooting, it was clear that Stanley had shot Boushie. This was the scene of a homicide and yet the scene was left exposed for more than a day. A rainstorm washed away blood and evidence that can never be retrieved.
This is the state of police accountability in Canada.
The histories of policing reveal origins in slave patrols and agencies to control Indigenous Peoples. Given the actions by RCMP during the Boushie investigation, and these broader historical contexts, it is important to ask: is police accountability truly possible in a settler state?
Debbie Baptiste holds up a photo of her son Colten Boushie after a day of meetings on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa on Feb. 13, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
As streets continue to erupt in protest over police violence, hashtags fill social media and news cycles through the latest tragedy, each death is lived and relived by families. This is how police violence moves through the public imaginary — largely in cycles that rotate images of violence and resistance. In the wake are families who have lost a loved one.
Last year there was a report written, “Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council Recommendations” and I thought it was well done. I’m not sure how well some of their recommendations are being pursued. For example. One of them is to establish an Ombudsperson office with staff to investigate all complaints about policing in Alberta in an independent, transparent and timely manner. This body will have punitive powers and ensure compliance with recommended actions.
