Top 5 aboriginal news stories in Atlantic Canada to watch in 2010
1. Report on the state of child welfare services in New Brunswick’s aboriginal communities.
Last fall, New Brunswick’s Child and Youth Advocate Bernard Richard visited ten First Nation communities in the province to discuss and examine the current state of child welfare services.
The review was ordered following the 2008 suicide of a 13-year-old girl from Elsipogtog, N.B. while she was in foster care with relatives. Shortly after the teen’s suicide, authorities discovered the girl had been sexually assaulted by a male relative while she was under his care. In July 2009, the Elsipogtog man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for sexual assault.
From Sept. 5 until Oct. 28, Richard met with aboriginal leaders, social workers and community members from all 15 First Nations in the province to discuss the various problems with the current child and welfare services, including the lack of funding. Richard is expected to release his report on First Nations child welfare services in the next few weeks.
2. Calls from Wagmatcook Band officials for a public inquiry into the 2008 RCMP shooting death of John Andrew Simon.
On Dec. 2, 2008, RCMP responded to a call that a man was intoxicated and threatening to kill himself at his home on the Wagmatcook First Nation in Nova Scotia. After a brief standoff, a police officer crawled through a window to enter the home of John Andrew Simon, 44, and shot him. Simon, a fisherman, died several hours later in hospital from multiple gunshot wounds.
Residents in Wagmatcook have mistrusted the RCMP policing their community ever since. That mistrust greatly increased last month when a report that investigated the RCMP shooting cleared the officer who shot Simon of any wrongdoing. Wagmatcook chief and council recently decided to end its policing agreement with the RCMP and have offered the contract to the Cape Breton Regional Police.
Wagmatcook band officials are calling for a public inquiry into Simon’s death. Chief and council have scheduled a meeting with Nova Scotia’s minister of justice, Ross Landry, for Jan. 19 to discuss the current situation.
3. The disappearance and murder of Hilary Bonnell of Esgenoopetitj First Nation in New Brunswick.
On the evening of Sept. 4, 2009, Hilary Bonnell, 16, attended a house party on the Esgenoopetitj First Nation. She called her mother at 3 a.m. on Sept. 5 to confirm a shopping trip they had planned for that day. Hilary was last seen on a surveillance video at a local convenience store shortly after 7 a.m. that morning. After that, Hilary vanished.
Hilary’s parents filed a missing person’s report with police on Sept. 6 when they were unable to locate her themselves. A community-led search for Hilary was already underway when RCMP posted the missing person’s report on their website on Sept. 8. After two months of searching and following up on leads, RCMP eventually located Hilary’s remains buried in woods about 30 minutes outside of Tabusintac, N.B.
On Dec. 8, 2009, RCMP charged Hilary’s cousin, 29-year-old Curtis Bonnell with 1st degree murder in her death. Bonnell is expected to appear in provincial court in Miramichi, N.B. on Jan. 18 to enter an election and plea.
4. The trials of John Graham, Richard Marshall, and Thelma Rios in the 1975 murder of Mi’kmaq activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.
Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, originally from the Indian Brook First Nation, N.S., was a member of the American Indian Movement when she was shot and killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in December 1975. Her murder went unsolved for more than 28 years before a grand jury in Rapid City, S.D. issued indictments for former AIM members John Graham and Arlo Looking-Cloud in 2003.
A 12-member jury convicted Looking-Cloud of first degree murder in the death of Aquash in Feb. 2004. Graham, a Tuchone from the Yukon Territory, was arrested in Dec. 2003 in Vancouver, B.C. and extradited to the U.S. in December 2007 to stand trial for murder.
In Aug. 2008, another AIM member, Richard Marshall, was indicted on aiding and abetting in the murder of Aquash. In Sept. 2009, Thelma Rios was also indicted on kidnapping and murder charges.
All three trials are scheduled to take place in Rapid City, S.D. this year. Graham and Marshall go to trial on Feb. 16. Rios’s trial is expected to start on July 6.
5. The 400th anniversary of Mi’kmaq Grand Chief Membertou’s baptism into Catholicism.
On June 24, Mi’kmaw people from across the Maritimes are expected to gather at Port Royal National Historic Site in Annapolis Royal, N.S. to commemorate the baptism of Grand Chief Henri Membertou into the Roman Catholic religion in 161o
Membertou’s baptism was seen as a sign of good faith between the Mi’kmaw and the French at the time. The baptism also resulted in most Mi’kmaw people converting to the Roman Catholic religion.
Following the commemoration events in Annapolis Royal, a weekend cultural gathering and powwow is scheduled to take place on the Commons in Halifax June 25-27.
