'Rise above': Tlicho advisor reacts to online racism

A former Tlicho government C.E.O. and current advisor to the First Nation is asking people to "rise above" reacting to racist comments made earlier this week on social media.

David Radcliffe, the Yellowknife Catholic school board's co-ordinator of aboriginal program activities, referred to Tlicho caribou hunters on Facebook as "animals" and their community hunt as a "slaughter."

Radcliffe posted the comments on a video a Lutsel K'e resident had uploaded on Facebook, showing hunters arriving in the community by snowmobile from Dettah. The Tlicho went there to hunt caribou because there are no hunting restrictions in the area.

Hunting is banned in the Tlicho region, part of the wintering ground of the declining Bathurst caribou herd.

Radcliffe commented that "planeloads of hunters and 16 snowmobiles from the Tlicho region are in the East Arm killing what is left of the caribou herd" and went on to say of the hunters, "These animals should be ashamed of themselves. They call themselves keepers of the land, well this just goes to show that they keep what they can get no matter what the cost."

The comments were quickly shared and denounced on Facebook. 

John B. Zoe, who was born and raised in Behchoko and serves as an advisor to the Tlicho government, says that the first thing that came to mind upon viewing the comments was "misinformation."

"It's a bunch of Skidoos approaching a community, and that's about it," says Zoe. "The arrangement between the Tlicho and Lutsel K'e community was already prearranged, for them to come in, to do a monitored harvest. It's not unusual for that type of activity, because the most recent one was within the last five years. And it all has to do with availability in the North Slave."

But Zoe says he doesn't necessarily want to react to the comments. 

"Because you react, and then it just multiplies. I think we need to rise above that, and look at the misinformation, and where that misinformation's supposed to come from. The caribou decline is a very complex issue."

School board to investigate

Yellowknife Catholic Schools acting superintendent John Bowden said the board is "looking into" the comments. He said once the superintendent and another senior manager return from vacation the board will "have a thorough review of this situation."

Radcliffe is also the husband of Sandy Lee, a former territorial cabinet minister, Conservative Party candidate, and now a regional adviser to federal environment minister Leona Aglukkaq.

Zoe would not speculate on an appropriate punishment for Radcliffe's comments, saying that it would be up to Yellowknife Catholic Schools. 

"They, I think, need to look at the position and the relationship that is targeted by those words," he says. "But it would be really be up to them, because they're the ones that have that authority."

Radcliffe has since deleted his comments about the hunt and shut down his Facebook account. He declined an interview with CBC. 

'If we react, we take ownership'

Zoe says that the entire Tlicho nation has been affected by the incident, and that it is far from the only time he has seen racist comments online. Radcliffe himself has previously used profanity to describe the people of Attawapiskat, referred to the Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network as "a terrorist organization" and called calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women "racist."

However, according to Zoe, responding in kind would be a waste of resources, and the efforts of the Tlicho will be better spent helping the community deal with the fallout.

"It takes a lot of energy to deal with negativity," he says. "I'm sure the younger ones would be impacted by not knowing what's going on. We need to understand where it's coming from, and make sure that we're not doing it to ourselves.

"If we react, we take ownership. And we don't need to take ownership of something that doesn't belong to us."