It’s remarkable how some people in decision-making positions can be so tone-deaf to the public conversation. In Quebec, we’ve seen the furor over police abuse of Indigenous women in Val-d’Or, the resulting Viens commission report, and the shocking story of Joyce Echaquan dying in a Joliette hospital as she listened to racist slurs from the nurses whose job it was to treat her.
A few months after the death of Joyce Echaquan, Mireille Ndjomouo, a 44-year-old Black woman, posted a shocking video on Facebook from the Charles-Le Moyne Hospital in Longueuil on Montreal’s South Shore.
It’s been several days in isolation as I sit here surfing YouTube and trying to figure out what to watch. I’ve eaten about everything on the restaurant menu several times as I try not go stir crazy and jump out the window into the inviting snow outside.
Attawapiskat is mourning the loss of two Elders who were deeply loved and admired by many in the community.
The “personhood” granted to municipalities and corporations has always stuck in my craw. After all, they seem to be exempt to the rules of law compared to those who actually are born, drink their mother’s milk and learn the rights and wrongs most humans are taught.
Cree culture has always been about sharing and taking care of each other. Sometimes we forget other peoples have the same values as what we see doesn’t always show that
Flying back from a trip a year ago, we disembarked at the same time as passengers from a plane coming from Beijing. The crew and all passengers were wearing masks. I remember telling my friend how dystopian it looked, and we cracked some jokes about it.
Another two weeks have passed, but I haven’t yet sprouted wings from the rumoured side effects of the Moderna vaccine. I can’t claim that I am an archangel, nor even a minion.
It’s 2021, but on the racial-justice front, one could be forgiven for thinking we’re back in 1921. That’s the year that white citizens of Tulsa, Oklahoma, went on a rampage in the segregated city’s Black neighbourhood, looting and torching hundreds of houses, businesses, churches and schools.
A few weeks back I was lucky to get a vaccination against the Covid-19 virus that everyone in the world clamouring for, unless you live in virus-free New Zealand, thanks to the strict rules set by their government
