adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

News

Family, advocates reflect 10 years after death of Tina Fontaine

Published

 on

 

WINNIPEG – When Elroy Fontaine thinks about his older sister, Tina Fontaine, his mind takes him to a park in Winnipeg’s Point Douglas neighbourhood.

It’s where the two would sometimes hang out together.

A decade after the tragic death of the 15-year-old girl, one that shocked the country and was the catalyst for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Elroy Fontaine still stops by the special spot.

The siblings spent time in provincial care but would see each other during scheduled visits that included Slurpee runs and park hangs.

“She would sometimes take me out away from the visits … she let me play at the park,” said the 18-year-old.

“Tina would be very protective and motherly.”

Saturday marks the 10-year anniversary of the day it’s believed the girl from Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation died.

Elroy Fontaine plans to honour the day by hosting a candlelight vigil where Tina’s body was discovered.

The girl had disappeared into the streets of Winnipeg, before her small, weighted-down body wrapped in plastic and a duvet cover was pulled from the Red River on Aug. 17, 2014.

Tina was raised by a great-aunt for much of her life but had been living in a Winnipeg hotel under the care of child and family services. She was reported missing a week before her body was found.

The following year, police charged a man with second-degree murder in her death. A jury found Raymond Cormier not guilty in 2018.

Tina’s death marked a turning point in how society treated and viewed missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Advocates and family members, who had long been calling for political action to address staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls, raised their voices even louder and demanded change.

“When my sister became a poster child and there were rallies and it became national, I think it opened a lot of people’s eyes,” said Elroy Fontaine.

“It’s sad it had to take someone’s life for people to realize.”

Shortly after Tina’s body was discovered, a huge crowd marched through Winnipeg’s downtown demanding justice.

Manitoba’s advocate for children and youth, Sherry Gott, remembers the day clearly. She was a social worker at the time.

“The walk was truly so quiet, and yet there were hundreds of people there. I was shocked like everyone else and outraged.”

In the days, weeks and months that followed, there was change on different levels.

Public pressure forced the province to stop using hotels as placements for youth in care.

The Indigenous-led safety group Bear Clan Patrol re-emerged to canvass Winnipeg streets for missing Indigenous people.

The federal Liberal government, under newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, committed to a national inquiry. It published its final report in 2019, including 231 calls for justice.

Some advocates say Tina’s death brought more awareness but they still see children and youth being sexually exploited.

The advocate’s office completed an investigation into the services Tina received and issued recommendations for provincial bodies. While some have been completed, the challenges seem to persist.

“We’re not seeing real change on the ground at the systemic level,” said Gott.

Advocates say Winnipeg is still considered ground zero for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, while Indigenous children and youth continue to be disproportionately represented in the child welfare system.

Over the last year, Gott’s office has seen three young people who were sexually exploited die from drug poisoning. This further underscores the need for the provincial government to develop a co-ordinated response for mental health, addictions and abuse, she said.

“They need to show moral courage and make this a priority and respond to the kids that are falling through the cracks.”

Shanlee Scott says she sees it every day.

Scott is executive director of the resource centre Ndinawemaaganag Endaawaad, which operates Tina’s Safe Haven, named after Tina Fontaine.

The drop-in centre works with youth who have no place to stay, no way to access mental health supports or health care and have been deprived of cultural connections.

The organization partners with therapy groups and Indigenous health providers to address the gaps in care.

“Tina’s (Safe Haven) isn’t enough … Tina’s is serving an immediate need. It is not a long-term solution,” said Scott.

Gott said she’d like to see a third-party review of Tracia’s Trust, the province’s sexual exploitation strategy launched in 2008, and for the government to release a plan on how it aims to address the national inquiry’s calls for justice.

Cabinet ministers Bernadette Smith and Nahanni Fontaine, who are Indigenous, addressed the anniversary earlier this week, saying the NDP government is committed to adhering to the recommendations from the national inquiry and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

They pointed to the government’s Matriarch Circle to assist in the work and a grant program in partnership with the Winnipeg Foundation to support families of the missing and murdered.

“We all have a responsibility. It’s not just governments. It’s not just police. It’s a society issue,” said Smith, whose sister Claudette Osborne-Tyo disappeared in 2008.

The ministers said the government plans to release its strategy on missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people this fall.

Meanwhile, Elroy Fontaine finds solace in knowing his sister’s legacy lives on.

“It helps a lot to know that there’s still supporters … she’s not forgotten.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2024.

— With files from Steve Lambert

Source link

Continue Reading

News

Canada’s Denis Shapovalov wins Belgrade Open for his second ATP Tour title

Published

 on

BELGRADE, Serbia – Canada’s Denis Shapovalov is back in the winner’s circle.

The 25-year-old Shapovalov beat Serbia’s Hamad Medjedovic 6-4, 6-4 in the Belgrade Open final on Saturday.

It’s Shapovalov’s second ATP Tour title after winning the Stockholm Open in 2019. He is the first Canadian to win an ATP Tour-level title this season.

His last appearance in a tournament final was in Vienna in 2022.

Shapovalov missed the second half of last season due to injury and spent most of this year regaining his best level of play.

He came through qualifying in Belgrade and dropped just one set on his way to winning the trophy.

Shapovalov’s best results this season were at ATP 500 events in Washington and Basel, where he reached the quarterfinals.

Medjedovic was playing in his first-ever ATP Tour final.

The 21-year-old, who won the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF title last year, ends 2024 holding a 9-8 tour-level record on the season.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

Talks to resume in B.C. port dispute in bid to end multi-day lockout

Published

 on

VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.

The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.

The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.

The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.

The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.

MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.

In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.

“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.

“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”

In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.

“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.

The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.

“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”

The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.

The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.

A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

News

The Royal Canadian Legion turns to Amazon for annual poppy campaign boost

Published

 on

The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.

Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.

Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.

Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.

“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.

“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”

Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.

“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.

Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.

“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”

But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.

Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.

“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.

Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.

The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending