River of tears
As a chaplain who lives and works in Thunder Bay, I’ve had the privilege to provide spiritual care and grief counselling to Indigenous youth from Northern Ontario reserves suffering the intergenerational trauma of residential schools.
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No Easy Answers
ON JANUARY 7, the RCMP arrested 14 Wet’suwet’en protestors and took down a barricade blocking access to Unist’ot’en camp on the Wedzin Kwah (or, to use its more recent colonial misname, the Morice River), about 130 km south of Smithers, B.C. Images of the arrests, made after a B.C. Supreme Court injunction to allow construction of the Coastal GasLink LNG pipeline, created a sense of unease for many Canadians.
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Community in Corrections
TERRI-LYNNE MCCLINTIC made headlines in 2018, almost 10 years after she was convicted for her role in the 2009 kidnapping, rape and murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford. She was originally handed a life sentence and sent to Grand Valley Institution, a federal women’s prison in Kitchener, Ont. At the end of 2018, however, it was revealed that McClintic had actually been transferred from Grand Valley to a very different type of prison. As of April of last year, she had been serving out her sentence at Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge.
Saved By the Voice of a Child
This year my local newspaper introduced me to several children and youth who knew that our community has no more time for silence about mental illness. These young people filled our awkward silences with their own stories.
Last month it was 16-year-old Gwen who talked about her anxiety disorders. “It was a huge weight that was controlling my life.” Gwen’s clear, courageous words are making the world a friendlier place for someone who might otherwise feel alone and overwhelmed – right here and now. For that someone, Gwen pointed to one next step: “Now I know I can control it. […] When you have so many thoughts in your head, talking is a big release.”
Watch Your Step
“Watch your step,” we were told by our soft-spoken guide.
And then a second time as we drew in close to see what he was referring to: “Watch where you step – this is a mass grave; you cannot step here.”
Indigenous | News | Politics
Protect the Peel
The Peel Watershed, rich in natural resources and wonders, sprawls over 68,000 square kilometres throughout the Yukon wilderness. On December 1st of last year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of First Nations and environmental groups to commit to the Watershed land use’s Final Recommended Plan, a plan the Yukon government had threatened to “derail” after years of research and public consultation by an independent commission. Yukon Premier Sandy Silver called the ruling “a victory” and stated, “We believe that when people look back at this moment in time, they’re going to see this as the beginning of a new era, one that’s based upon reconciliation” (CBC.ca). Now there are two months of public consultation remaining; the Yukon government plans to release the Final Peel Watershed Land Use Plan in January 2019.
Important Lessons
To honour the TRC’s call to reconciliation, we at the Centre have been advocating for follow-through on TRC Calls to Action 7-10, which call for reform of K-12 education for Indigenous peoples, by Indigenous peoples. The Trudeau government has expressed strong support for reconciliation in many ways: committing to the implementation of all TRC Calls to Action; mandating all Cabinet Ministers to prioritize building relationships with Indigenous peoples on a Nation to Nation basis; and making historic and much-needed financial commitments to Indigenous communities in all three of its budgets. These have been important steps.
Seven Generations
Thankfully, “Mush Hole” Indian Residential School no longer exists. Its horrific legacy, however, remains. It is hard to know how to address the harms my parents’ generation (unwittingly?) caused our Indigenous neighbours, who also acknowledge they are made in the image of the Creator and who clearly live in a world infused with the Creator’s presence. But now we are aware, and are thus both implicated and responsible.
In a Reservation Cemetery
There I stood, an old white man who’s written a half-dozen books of meditations, a professor who spent 37 years teaching in a Christian college, and more of my life in church than most Americans can even imagine. I had nothing to say to a couple of Lakota kids who were saddened and snickering that a cemetery stone said their ancestor had been “a Christian and a friend of the whites.”
On the road to justice
How should churches deal with political issues? That question has long sparked incandescent discussions among Christians. Many hold that God calls Christians to promote public justice. Yet we differ strongly on what those policies should be and which political parties, if any, Christians should support.
Caledonia pastor awarded Canada 150 medal for Indigenous reconciliation
“I rejoice when I see glimpses of that glory and taste that grace happening in communities where the church can be at the cutting edge of society,” he says, adding that Christians have an unquestioned role in reconciliation with their Indigenous neighbours. “It’s very simple. Jesus says ‘this is my command that you love one another.’ When we hear of suicides or missing women, we as Christians should hear Christ and his cries.”
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Two tales of a city
Smithers, B.C., was just in the news for two very different reasons: ranked in the top five mountain towns in the province, and host of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. The latter is not on any tourism brochures, but it’s not something to ignore either.
