Media release: Wellness Within: An Organization for Health and Justice is calling on the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services to follow British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, PEI and most recently, Newfoundland and Labrador, in ending the discriminatory and racist practice of issuing birth alerts for “at risk” parents and their babies.
June 4th marks the one year anniversary of the death of Chantel Moore, who was killed at the hands of an Edmundston, NB police officer. Elizabeth Goodridge reflects on Chantel’s death and what it tells us about the world we live in.
Elizabeth Goodrige reports on Sunday’s march for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relations.
Press release and link to petition: Wapna’kikewi’skaq – Women of First Light strongly requests that the investigation into Chantal Moore and Rodney Levis’s death be led by Indigenous people. “We need Indigenous people, especially women to be leading this investigation”, stated Clan Mother and Board member, miigam’agan, “We have seen time and again how the truth is hidden, and the institutions protect their own.”
The cold weather didn’t stop Indigenous people and their allies from coming to the Public Gardens in downtown Halifax to attend the Red Dresses in K’jipuktuk event on Saturday afternoon. Two plainclothes cops also showed up. Elizabeth Goodridge tells the story.
Last Friday Judy Haiven joined the march and tribute to Tanya Brooks, the Mi’kmaq woman who was murdered 10 yeasr ago in Halifax. “Given recent reluctance by the Halifax police to end street checks and apologise for their racism, race likely played a role in their unforgivably slow investigation,” Haiven writes.
Delilah Saunders, chair of the Loretta Saunders Community Scholarship Fund, talks with Tammy Mudge, one of this year’s awardees: “Celebrate who you are and what you have to offer and give yourself more credit than you do now! Go time!”
When frequent NS Advocate contributor Delilah Saunders read a poem by Shannon Webb-Campbell that contained a graphic description of the murder of her sister Loretta it caused real hurt. ” I can’t bring myself to share the poem with my parents or family. I’m unsure if she consciously decided to not reach out to my family because she knew no family would agree to having their loved one written about in such gory detail, or if she is just that out of touch with the protocols that exist in our Indigenous communities.”
Delilah Saunders writes about the pain and emotional labour involved in speaking in public about her murdered sister Loretta and other missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. “My problem lies with the for-profit multi-billion-dollar industries/universities that penny pinch when a speaker provides expertise when their pricey textbooks fail to do so.”
Judy Haiven looks at the similarities between the Gerald Stanley and Raymond Cormier trials. “In each case, a white middle-aged man thinks nothing of ‘getting rid’ of his “problem” by committing a crime. Both victims were poor and Indigenous, from First Nations’ reserves. If an Indigenous person is murdered, it seems the benefit of the doubt goes to the white guy.”