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The Current Transcript for April 8, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: They're tired. They're fed up. No satisfaction at work. This is really right now a [French phrase]. People are just screaming. It has to change.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: They say they're exhausted, demoralized, burned out and not only are they at risk, the people they care for are too. So today, nurses in Quebec are going to work and while they're there, they are going on strike. No overtime. No extra hours. A regular day. Right now their union says that the mandatory overtime worked by its nurses costs the province an extra $270 million dollars a year. In a moment we're looking at nurses' OT in Quebec and across the country. Also today, Notice of Motion.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This is a blatant attempt to use threats of legal action to stop me from fulfilling my constitutional duty to hold the government of the day to account on behalf of all Canadians.

AMT: After the prime minister serves notice that he plans to sue him for libel, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer says, bring it on. One party leader suing another in an election year, how's that going to go? We're asking in half an hour. We're also talking to Brent Beardsley In half an hour. 25 years ago he saw the Rwandan genocide take place before his eyes. As military executive assistant to General Romeo Dallaire, he remembers how the world's leaders turned away. And with all the talk of the rule of law these days, we're going back to the 1920s, when Canada was looking for a way to assert its sovereignty over the Arctic and the Innuit. The government of the day chose to use the judicial system, making two Inuit men the target of a show trial in the far north.

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VOICE: Before the trial has even begun, the hangman, the rope and the wood needed to hang them is put on the train along with the judge.

AMT: What was done in the name of Canadians then still raises troubling questions today. That story in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Quebec nurses strike against 'being taken hostage' for overtime shifts

Guests: Roberto Bomba, Janet Hazelton, Maura MacPhee

AMT: They say they feel as if they're in detention or taken hostage. Strong words to describe how Quebec nurses see their working conditions. It is those strong feelings that have led them to take job action today across the province. They are demanding that the government put an end to mandatory overtime for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and respiratory therapists and they're refusing to do any overtime today. During the provincial election campaign last year, the Coalition Avenir Quebec, the party that has gone on to form the government, promised to end the use of overtime as a regular practice. It's costing Quebec $270 million a year. So far the change has not happened and now the province's nurses say they are tired of waiting. Roberto Barber is a spokesperson and treasurer for the FIQ, the largest nurses union in Quebec and we have reached him in Quebec City. Hello.

ROBERTO BOMBA: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: What kind of message are Quebec nurses trying to send with this strike?

RB: What began I'd say about 10 years ago with regards to mandatory overtime that was being used in an exceptional measures or emergency measures, has become a norm. It's becoming a way of managing the health care system and it's totally unacceptable and the message is that it has to stop.

AMT: When you talk about mandatory overtime, how much extra do they work every day?

RB: It could go easily an additional eight hours. So just to get an image, somebody who plans to go to work a regular shift begins at midnight and they're planning to finish at 8. They would go home and send their kids off to school or plan for daycare, however they're being taken hostage at 8 o'clock and they'll end up working till four o'clock in the afternoon. So they're doing 16 hours consecutively, at the same time they got to find loved ones, family members to make sure that their kids go to school or are sent to daycare and they get home at four and then they just have a few hours to have a meal, rest a little and then they're expected back at work at midnight.

AMT: And this is mandatory overtime? They can't say no?

RB: That's correct. Obviously, some people are able to say no, but the employers are quite resourceful. They'll tend to pick one individual nurse, often times a junior nurse and they'll pressure by saying well it's been a few days or it's been a week you haven't done an overtime, your colleagues have done two in a week, we have some nurses doing three mandatory overtimes in a week. So they pressure them in a certain way so they're forced to stay at work.

AMT: So what are the nurses doing today in terms of withholding work? They're still going in for regular shift?

RB: That's correct. So essentially, it's not a strike day. Everybody will be in at work. Our nurses, our registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, respiratory therapists are very devoted to the population. They love what they do, however today's going to be a normal day at work. And we left the employer know almost a week ahead, so that they could plan for this day. The vast majority of society throughout Canada work a normal day, so why can't nurses have a normal day?

AMT: Now if they are going to do normal hours for one day, they won't get overtime support from fellow nurses. Will they be able to even do all the jobs that are supposed to be done during a shift?

RB: That's why we gave them almost a week notice. A lot of effort was done to find adequate staffing. Our nurse managers are fully licensed nurses. So some hospitals have been scheduling nurse managers for today to take additional shifts and that's what we're telling them. Have your nurse manager work a regular shift today, once a regular shift is finished at 4 o'clock, well she could do the additional eight hours, as an overtime, working as at bedside nursing. When there's a will, there's a way. With adequate planning you could avoid the mandatory overtime.

AMT: Are you at all concerned about patients?

RB: We're definitely concerned. That's our priority. This action that we're leading is yes for the well-being of our nurses, but also for our patients. There's increased number of burnouts, so our nurses are in terms of long term disabilities, the numbers have been increasing in the last few years and it's obviously as a result of mandatory overtime. The new nurses that are entering the profession, they don't want to stay when they realize that this is what is expected of them.

AMT: Why is this happening like this?

RB: There's been poor management decisions in the last few years with our previous government, the Liberal government. I'd say the healthcare cuts were between 1.5 and 1.7 billion dollars. They reduced the number of healthcare professionals and this is what we're dealing with today.

AMT: We did ask for an interview from the government and we weren't able to do one. They did issue a press release. They say they're committed to $200 million more to hire healthcare workers.

RB: That's correct. What's interesting is during the campaign, the current healthcare minister, Madame McCann, she clearly said that she would eradicate, eliminate mandatory overtime. Nothing's been done yet and now her message is they will eliminate it during the current mandate. Well that's way too long for our healthcare nurses, who are exhausted. They're burning out. There's a crisis in the healthcare system in the province of Quebec.

AMT: The health minister Danielle McCann has said that the use of compulsory overtime is part of the professional obligation of nurses.

RB: Let's be very clear, the body that protects the population has been very clear. The president came out a few weeks ago. Under no circumstances and that's the dissidence that we have with the employers because the employers will always threaten our nurses and that's the way they manage to get them to remain hostages by telling them well your professional order, your professional body that governs you, states you're obligated to cover the unit. You can leave the patient unattended. Obviously we'll never leave patients unattended. Let's be very clear. There's always other means and one of the means and that's what we put forward is that the nurse manager could come on the unit. At the same time, what we're saying is during exceptional and emergency measures, nurses will always remain on a unit and care for their patients and support their colleagues and it's always been this situation and we've never had difficulties.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Roberto Bomba, thank you very much for your time.

RB: Have a good day.

AMT: Roberto Bomba is a spokesperson and treasurer for the FIQ, which is the union representing registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and respiratory therapists in Quebec. It is Quebec's largest nurses union and he joined us from Quebec City. Nurses in Quebec aren't alone in their concerns about excessive overtime and overwork.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Understaffed and overworked. BC nurses are forced to make critical decisions in impossible situations. Is it bad? It's that bad. Nurses need your support now.

AMT: That's an ad from the BC Nurses Union. From coast to coast to coast, excessive overtime is a familiar reality for Canadian nurses. For more on what's happening across the country and what might be done to try to solve this, I'm joined by two guests. Janet Hazelton is the president of the Nova Scotia Nurses Union. She is also a nurse and she joins us from our Halifax studio. Maura MacPhee is a health systems researcher and professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia. She's in Vancouver. Hello to both of you.

JANET HAZELTON: Good morning.

MAURA MACPHEE: Good morning.

AMT: Janet Hazelton, I'll start with you. What do you think of this job action taken today by the Quebec Nurses Union? Will it be effective?

JH: Well I think absolutely. I think that the healthcare situation across this country is, it's unfortunate that it relies on nurses working overtime in order to get the work done. We have nurses in this province that have been required to work 24 hours. There's legislation that pilots can't, can only work a certain amount of hours. Truck drivers can only work a certain amount of hours. And we believe that there needs to be legislation that limits the amount of hours that nurses are permitted to work. No nurse should have to work 24 hour shift.

AMT: Janet Hazelton, Nova Scotian nurses took a similar stand more than a decade ago, similar to what Quebec's doing today. What happened?

JH: Well we asked our nurses and the union did the same thing, we asked our nurses not to work any extra overtime. So that would mean don't pick up extra shifts at an overtime rate and in essence it lasted about three days when the employer basically came to us and said we can't operate our buildings if you keep this ban on overtime up. And the purpose of it was to point out to the employer and to Nova Scotians just how much it depends for nurses to work overtime. Just how much the health care system is requiring our nurses to work excess of their regular.

AMT: Maura MacPhee, I'm just wondering how common this is right across the country. What are you seeing? What are you hearing?

MM: I think it's common across the country and it's become a real problem because we have boomer retirement going on, so we're losing a lot of our experienced nurses. So we have higher proportions of newer nurses in a lot of situations where they're working with patients who have high needs and they get exposed to that and they burn out pretty quickly. And there are some places where maybe one out of five new nurses is just leaving and they're even leaving the profession.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: And Maura MacPhee, I mean this was happening before we had all these retirements, right? I mean Janet's talking about something a decade ago. Why does this persist?

MM: Well I think it's what Roberto said. I think it's poor planning and you know you also have to consider feeders. So you know there has to be support pre-graduation for nurses and for other health care professionals. So you have to have good alignment between your ministries, your ministry of health, your ministry of advanced education. They have to be working closely with practice organizations with the health employers to be sure that you have that smooth transition, that you have the right number of competent nurses and there's just been that lack of foresight.

AMT: You know I have some statistics here from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions that says that overtime worked even in I think 2016, amounted to 11,000 thousand full-time positions, the equivalent, 11,000 full-time positions. Does that number surprise you, Janet?

JH: No not at all and it's increasing. It's not decreasing. We're hearing every day from our nurses how tired they are. How they're expected to come in on their days off. How they're expected to stay after their shift is over. Sometimes it's not because there's no replacement, sometimes it's just that workload is so heavy that they can't get it done in their 12 hour shift and so our nurses work 12 hours shifts, days and nights. So if you work a 12 hour night shift and are expected to stay until maybe lunchtime, you can magine how tired these nurses are. The injury rates for nurses in this province, the province of Nova Scotia, have increased tremendously. We know are the highest rate of injury of any worker in the province of Nova Scotia and most of that or a lot of that is back strain, which is a direct result of the amount of hours we're expected to work.

AMT: So Maura MacPhee, is this about not hiring enough nurses? Is this about the job changing? Like what do you see in terms of what needs changing here?

MM: Well I think it's a combination of factors. But I think that another thing, what I'm very interested in is really making sure that you have the right numbers and the right types of providers to care for the patients that we have today. And quite often one of the things that upsets nurses is that a nurse is considered, a nurse is considered a nurse and that's not true anymore. And so if you just think of a nurse as a warm body, nurses feel devalued. They feel like their work is misunderstood. And nurses do a lot more than tasks and that's been I think part of the problem all along, it's not understanding nurses' work. So you have nurses, one of the things that they do is they're there 24/7 and they are the ones that are the monitors. So if something starts to happen with the patient and they start to deteriorate, it's the nurse that recognises that. So they have strong assessment skills. Then they also know what to do to intervene and we actually call it rescue from harm. So when you have nurses who are overworked and overstressed, they can't do that and we end up with something called failure to rescue, where a patient may get into trouble. The nurses have been saying this for a long time and when they're working under those conditions, they get morally distressed, they burn out because they know they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing and they take that very seriously, when they know a patient may suffer.

AMT: So are you saying that the jobs, that patient care on a ward in a hospital need to be reconfigured?

MM: Yeah. I think we have to use, we have finite resources right now, so we have to use them more responsibly and it's looking at patients and patients' needs and making sure that you have the right people caring for those patients.

AMT: So what would you do? So like if you got registered nurses and licensed practical nurses and in the case of Quebec, the respiratory therapists are all in the same union, but if you have the nurses, would you have another kind of nurse? Would you have different people? Like who would do which jobs?

MM: Well I think first you have to start by understanding the patients and one of the things that is actually in the most recent collective agreement with the BC Nurses Union and health employers is that by April 2020, there is supposed to be a tool in place that both managers and nurses are using in real time to look at their patients, determine their patients priority needs and then make a determination of who is the right person to care for patients depending on their needs of people.

AMT: But you gotta schedule people in. So are you saying you have to schedule different kinds of people in, not nurses, some other kind of health care worker?

MM: Well I think that it's again you look at who you have on your team and one of the things that we are doing that's a positive is looking at team-based care delivery. So if you a team where you have an experienced nurse, you have less experienced nurses and you have some of your allied health professionals, then it's looking at your patients and making assignments and working together as a team so that you have extra eyes, ears, hands, noses, taking care of patients instead of what we often do where we have a nurse assigned to their assignment, where they have an independent assignment. So it's working as a team and it's also looking at patients needs and sayin if you have a high acuity patient, you have to have an experienced nurse looking after that type of patient. There may be other types of patients where you can assign someone else and it may not be a nurse. It could even be a social worker.

AMT: Okay, let me just ask Janet Hazelton though, she's saying that there's not a good enough understanding of a nurses' job. Isn't like why wouldn't that understanding exist in a hospital? Don't administrators know these things already? Is there something else at play?

JH: Well I think that to Maura's point, I think we have to look at the acuity of the patients and we have to staff for that acuity level. So and I see in an ICU, there's a higher requirement for nurses in an ICU than perhaps a medical floor and I think we have to look at the skill set of the nurses that are being assigned to particular units. Some of our younger nurses that come out, they find it extremely stressful, they find it hard to get climatised to the pace from when they come out of university. And years ago we used to have a lot of time to mentor our younger nurses and to ensure that they got proper orientation, but there's no time in the system anymore. There's no down time.

AMT: So they're thrown is, what you're saying. Into the mix.

JH: Yeah absolutely and there is no downtime anymore. There is no time in a nurses' day to hardly, there's hardly time to even get your lunch, let alone to take the time to mentor these new grads, to make sure that they feel safe, they feel that they're working in an environment that they have enough support. When I graduated, we had lots of mentorship from our senior nurses. That's not happening as it should and it's because of the workload.

AMT: We are out of time, but I really appreciate hearing the perspective from the two of you pointing out that what Quebec nurses are talking about is being talked about right across the country. Thank you for your time today, both of you.

JH: You're welcome.

MM: Thank you.

AMT: That's Janet Hazelton, president of the Nova Scotia nurses union. She's in our Halifax studio. Maura MacPhee is a health systems researcher and professor of nursing at UBC. She joined us from Vancouver. Over to you, let us know what you think can be done to change the reality for overworked nurses. If you've got experiences in a hospital that point to that, you can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Email us from our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. If you're an overworked nurse, we want to hear from you. Stay with us. The news is next. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Retired Major Brent Beardsley on the lessons of Rwanda 25 years later

Guests: Brent Beardsley

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, we may be seeing SNC-Lavalin 2.0, if the PM goes ahead with a threatened libel suit against Andrew Scheer. We'll talk about that later this half hour. But first, lessons from Rwanda.

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[Choir singing at observation of 25th anniversary of Rwandan genocide]

AMT: Across Rwanda this past weekend people came together to mark the 25th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. Over a period of a mere 100 days in 1994, more than 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans were massacred. It left every survivor with a story of trauma and loss.

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VOICE 1: Three guys passed by us and they had machetes and they were just you know walking around trying to find new people to kill.

VOICE 2: On April 22nd, my uncle was murdered, my two brothers were murdered. One was severely cut with machetes. It's the memory of hoping that someone was going to notice and come to our rescue. Unfortunately we didn't see that happening.

AMT: I spoke with the women you just heard last week. Each had a harrowing story of escape, of escaping the genocide. Each has now made a home in Canada. In Rwanda at the time, there was a small U.N. peacekeeping force led by Canadian General Romeo Dallaire. His warnings to world leaders and to the U.N. about the impending massacre fell on deaf ears. His plea for more international support to stop the massacre was ignored. Retired Major Brent Beardsley was the military executive assistant to General Dallaire at the time. He was in Rwanda during the lead up and right through the terrifying days of that genocide. Brent Beardsley joins us from Kingston, Ontario today. Hello.

BRENT BEARDSLEY: Good morning. How are you?

AMT: Well I'm wondering how you are. You know this a time 25 years ago that you were watching all of this unfold.

BB: Well a lot of memories, but we had a good reunion this weekend of the Canadians that were there. That was a great experience. So we passed a great weekend of memory and recollection and even at our old age a commitment to try and do better.

AMT: And so what stays with you from the very start of those days, Major Beardsley? Like what image can you not shake?

BB: I think the disappointment at the lack of a response by anyone. Many nights I went to bed during Rwanda and just wanted to scream into the telephone, is anybody listening? It appeared that the telephone worked one way, you know that we were calling the world. General Dallaire trying to tell people what was happening and nothing was happening in response and I think that that's the single greatest memory that I wrestle with every day while I was there and every day up to now.

AMT: Because you guys could see it coming.

BB: We could in fact. We had had significant warnings almost four months in advance. We had an informant come to us, that warned us that this was being planned. We passed that on to the United Nations in New York. We saw a definite destabilisation of the situation deterioration. You could see preparations being made with the militia with the propaganda with the increased distribution end and word of that and it was definitely something was in the offing we knew something was coming.

AMT: And how small was that peacekeeping force that you were a part of?

BB: The force itself before the genocide was 2500. It had barely reached its full strength, there was committed strength of 2538. So we we'd hit just short of that.

AMT: And so you were looking for reinforcements and they just didn't hear you? They just didn't think it was important? What did they say on the other end of that phone?

BB: In fact nations turned the other way and wanted to withdraw their contingents because of the danger to their troops. So Belgium fold, Bangaladesh withdrew. Ghana was prepared to stay. Tunisia was prepared to stay. General Dallaire needed he believed about 5500 troops and he pushed for reinforcements. That was taken off the table. The United Nations or our headquarters, the director of peacekeeping operations stated that there was tno way that they were going to, that they could find troop contributing countries. So their preference was for a withdrawal and General Dallaire basically took that off the table. So we were stuck between withdrawing or reinforcing. So it came down to reducing the size of force. The actual figure we were supposed to go to was 280. In fact, we stopped withdrawing at 450. We were able to hold 450 troops. So our whole force was 450 until after the genocide. With one notable exception.

AMT: What's that?

BB: Except for Canada. Canada was the only country in the world that increased the size of its contingent and we went up to 15.

AMT: And you were in Kigali at the time, right, is that where you were?

BB: We were infact, yes, the force headquarters.

AMT: And this massacre began and continued, you must have been able to hear it.

BB: Yes. Hear and smell. Within a couple of days there were a significant number of massacres that the stench of dead permeated everything and also you know the bodies started to pile up. It accelerated you know as the days went on. Now for a couple of weeks, while we still had military observer teams out and around the country, it was happening everywhere. There was massacres taking place throughout al the prefectures of the country, but those teams withdrew. We didn't have a clear picture of what was going on outside Kigali, but certainly in the city itself it was accelerating.

AMT: You I got a piece of tape here from the day after the genocide began on April 7th of 1994. This is General Dallaire speaking with CBC Radio's As It Happens.

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VOICE 1: Well I think that if you stated that all hell's breaking loose in Kigali, that would be a reasonably fair statement.

VOICE 2: Are you in danger right now also?

VOICE 1: We've had firing throughout the day and firefights and rounds coming in and around throughout the day and they're still going on tonight.

AMT: So that General Dallaire talking to Ann Medina was hosting that day on As It Happens. How you talk about the death all around you. How concerned were you for your own safety at the time?

BB: Well concern edof course I guess. It was dangerous to go out. We did go out and we picked up people. We were picking up our UN staff, NGOs,our civilian staff or civilian, our civilian Rwandan staff and then later just anybody that we could pick up and get in. So there was there was an element of danger to that, but it was our compounds themselves that were under attack periodically. Sometimes by shellfire, stray bullets, firefights were taking place near those areas. So there was a significant amount of danger, yes. Nothing like the Rwandans were facing though, so I guess in that extent we could consider ourselves lucky.

AMT: But you have to make choices. You were out there trying to help people?

BB: It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do with my life. We had so many patrols that we could send out because of course as people fled the Watsons we picked up people and brought them into the stadium and a number of other protection sites we had to protect and provide for them. So that took up a significant number of troops and then of course were trying to hang on desperately trying to hang on to the airport because it would be our only lifeline to the outside world. So you took us troops up you had a certain number of laughs that you could say there are patrol in and then you have all these requests for for for rescue and you had to pick and choose which ones you could do. Could you get into the area? Could you pick the people up? Do you have enough transport to pick them up and bring them out and the risk that would be run to the people and to yourself. And basically we were picking and choosing who lived and who died and that work I did for a number of weeks until we got more Canadians in then it was handed off to other officers. But that was very very hard hard work. You did the best you could with what you had, but even with that statement and that motivation it was pretty rough.

AMT: And I'm guessing that was happening like you had to decide right away. I'm wondering what that did you when you got home.

BB: When I got home I was actually I was very ill. I came down with a number of sicknesses in Rwanda. I was evacuated in early May and replaced. When I came home I recovered physically, it took me about a year and a half to get over it. What I didn't realise at the time was the psychological damage and how it can creep up on you. And I've crashed twice since Rwanda, once in 2001, once in 2016. And there is a cumulative effect over the years that you have to monitor your health quite carefully and seek medical assistance. And of course with support from your faith in your family and friends you know do it very well today and whatever, but the damage is done and you'll live it forever.

AMT: You know we spoke with several Rwandans about living with trauma today after 25 years ago. And we also reached a woman who lives in Kagali and she tells us she's troubled by how the history of this genocide is already being talked about. Listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We still have a fight of genocide denial and genocide ideology out there. We need to preserve our memories. We need to write down for my let's say if I have children, I want them to know who was their grandmother, their grandparents, their aunts, but also to have enough data, enough personal information to fight against anyone who will challenge them trying to deny the genocide. The perpetrators, the people who killed the Tutsi or in charge of preparation of genocide, they are trying to deny that it didn't happen. It was just you know something simple. It wasn't a geonicde. That's what's happening.

AMT: Are you surprised to hear about denial of this genocide?

BB: No I'm not at all. United States Professor activist named Gregory Stanton has written a book on the stages of genocide and the last stage is always denial. The perpetrators deny that the genocide took place and they try to turn it into a two way genocide. You know yes we killed some of them, but they killed us or the perpetrators were in fact the victims and the victims were the perpetrators. And this has happened after every genocide, whether it's the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, whatever you, whichever one you examine, you always find this denial. The denial of the Rwandan genocide of course is close to me and what she said is absolutely true. We have today a very concerted campaign. It's been engineered right from 1994 in France, some in Belgium and they have tried to argue that it was the role, the RPA, the Rwandan Patriotic Army and the Tutsis that were in fact the initiators of the genocide and conducted most of it. And unfortunately, we have Canadians now that are spewing this garbage. I won't dignify your show by mentioning their names, but if you look at their sources and their it's just not there. Their academic researchers is just not there. They basically turned to French scholars and two genocidiers and that's their source for denying the genocide. And the tragedy of it is that number one you're committing a murder of truth after killing the people, you then commit the truth. You then kill the truth. The International Committee for the International Criminal Tribunal for wonder you know heard from thousands of witnesses and made many conviction and has millions of pages of testimony. You know and that's really laid out the facts of what happened in Rwanda and I think it's important that we remember and that's why these events that we have on the anniversaries are so important is that we remember the truth and make sure that the truth is passed on to our children sure, so that the genocide doesn't become a memory that we've forgotten. I think the next point also that I would like to make is can you imagine telling someone who has lost every member of their family, their mother, their father, their brothers, their sisters, kids maybe, and they're the sole survivor that what they experienced didn't happen and there was no genocide, that it didn't take place. You know and they have to live with that and whether they were Armenians, whether it was Jews from the Holocaust and whether they were from Tutsis from Rwanda, this has happened generation after generation. It's a disgrace. I wish publishers and news organizations would give far more time to verifying and not allowing deniers a platform to spew this garbage.

AMT: Brent Beardsley, it's really important to talk to you and hear this. Thank you for speaking with me.

BB: And thank you Anna Maria Tremonti. All the very best.

AMT: Okay bye bye. Brent Beardsley, retired Major in the Canadian Armed Forces. He joined us from Kingston, Ontario.

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Scheer 'almost salivating' at the prospect of Trudeau lawsuit, but it won't happen, says legal expert

Guests: Errol Mendes

AMT: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: One week ago I received a letter from a lawyer representing Justin Trudeau, threatening to sue me for my criticisms of his actions in the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal. If Mr. Trudeau intends to pursue this course of legal action, I urge him to do so immediately. This is an urgent matter of public interest and it deserves to be heard in a legal setting where Liberals do not control the proceedings. I look forward to Mr. Trudeau presenting his evidence to Canadians under oath in open court.

AMT: Conservative opposition leader Andrew Scheer telling reporters yesterday that Prime Minister Trudeau is threatening to sue him and daring him to do so, saying the PM's libel claims are unfounded. In a notice filed last week Mr. Trudeau's alleges comments made by Andrew Scheer about the Prime Minister's handling of the SNC-Lavalin file, as he puts it beyond the pale of fair debate. Mr. Scheer says he welcomes an open court battle. You heard him there giving his ongoing concerns on the SNC-Lavalin file had been shut down by the Justice Committee. So just when we thought the saga of SNC was grinding to a halt, Canadians may see SNC 2.0 beyond the court of public opinion and in an other court. Joining me now to discuss this latest twist is Errol Mendes. He's a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa. Errol Mendes is also the president of the International Commission of Jurists Canada. And he joins us from Ottawa. Hello.

ERROL MENDES: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: So the leader of the governing party wants to sue the leader of the opposition for libel in an election year. What are you thinking about this?

EM: Well Anna Maria I can't help feeling after listening to your last segment how we've moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. When you really think about it essentially what was happening here was the prime minister was sending a warning letter to the opposition member. Yes you can talk about what you think went wrong in the SNC-Lavalin, but please don't hype it up to the extent that you're doing and actually moving into the area of defamation. But whether or not we'll ever see the inside of a court, I don't think so.

AMT: Why not?

EM: Well maybe because we've seen incidents like this before. In 2008 for example Prime Minister Harper sent a similar notice to the leader of the opposition Stephan Dion, over the allegations that Prime Minister Harper had been involved in a bribery attempt to get his vote to bring down the Liberal government over an allegation that he had been given an improper life insurance policy which never really turned out and it was dropped and I think this all too. But basically it's a warning from the prime minister to the leader of the opposition. Please don't hype it up to the extent that you are moving into defamation territory.

AMT: Well Andrew Scheer's lawyers say this has no merit. Now Mr. Scheer has said bring it on.

EM: Well if you saw the press conference, you couldn't help but notice that the leader of the opposition was almost salivating with this prospect because he knew he wanted to see the optics of a whole slew of witnesses and discoveries taking place on emails, letters, etc. That's why it's not going to happen to to have the prospect of the prime minister being a witness in a court trial, which could take many months if not over a year is not going to happen, but this is just a warning to between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition is please don't carry it too far.

AMT: So if you were advising the Prime Minister would you have him to do this?

EM: No I dont think I would have because they basically keeps the pot boiling on something which were starting to dissipate already. On the other hand there are parts of what has been allowed which is clearly ridiculous this idea that Jody Wilson-Raybould was fired. Clearly that's not the case. Prime Ministers have the right to shuffle their cabinet. So there are a few off the cuff comments that were made by the leader of the opposition which does obviously go into the defamation territory. But overall this is regarded more as a warning between the prime minister and Andrew Scheer.

AMT: How hard is it for a leader of a political party to sue another leader of a political party from libel in the middle of an election year?

EM: Well that's why it wasn't probably never going to happen and will never happen, mainly because of the optics of carrying this through into an election period. And therefore why I think that when you look at what will happen the next few weeks hopefully this will actually just be another situation where a warning has been given. Obviously Andrew Scheer will try to make a lot of hay out of it because it keeps the controversy going etc., but I think overall Canadians are worried a lot lot more than this issue. You know when you look at all the other major issues facing Canada, the fact that our agriculture sector is deeply threatened by the actions of China. The fact that our own now to a point to may actually not go through because of the the Congress and th eU.S. I mean there's a lot more things for Canadians to be worried about than to two men basically fighting it out in court.

AMT: But hasn't Justin Trudeau just handed this to Andrew Scheer on a platter?

EM: He has, but it depends on whether he will follow through on it but just leave it the letter of warning and basically maybe in the court of public opinion still leaving it out of the court to point it out to the specific sections of the state where it is clearly beyond any form of factual basis.

AMT: If one leader can threaten to sue over what he alleges are deliberate false claims by a rival politicia, could Andrew Scheer turn around and sue Mr. Trudeau or some of his critics for their characterisation of him pandering to right wing extremists?

EM: Oh sure absolutely. And therein lies the danger of this sort of tit for tat going on and that's why I think the good sense and hopefully the good sense of Canadians will basically till both of these protaganists is that there are much much bigger issues that Canada has to be concerned about. Please let's stop this.

AMT: Okay, but if they want to stop it, why even start it? Isn't the prime minister admitting he's lost the narrative here if he has to do this?

EM: Well to some extent yes, but also to also extend when you issue a warning with this, which will be made public then clearly the opposition leader was salivating at the prospect of making this public and going into the domain where he says the Liberals will not control it. It's clearly designed to send a warning. Whether or not it actually is rebounding on the Liberals is another matter, but basically I think any advice that any strategist would give even those from the opposition party would say please drop it. There are a lot more big issues that Canadians are concerned about and actually the polls are showing they want to move on to other issues.

AMT: Do you see this kind of thing going on with politicians in other countries?

EM: Yea. I mean there have been allegations of similar defamation suits, but you know I think most politicians realise that this is what all good lawyers will basically feels say to you is that if you're thinking about going into a prolonged trial, there are no winners. Essentially the best advice I think that someone I think it was Jean Chretien who said this is rather than going into a defamation suit, it will be regarded as mud being thrown at you and instead of going to court, you just flick the mud off and move on.

AMT: Okay Errol Mendes, thanks for your perspective on this.

EM: You're very welcome.

AMT: Errol Mendes, professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa. He's president of the International Commission of Jurists Canada. He joined us from Ottawa. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. What do you think is going on there? And stay with us, in our next half hour, the judge arrived with a hangman. The government wanted to send a message. We've got the story of three trials, two executions and how two Inuit men were sacrificed in Canada's push for Arctic sovereignty. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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'A grotesque travesty': Inuit men hanged in 1923 to assert Canada's control over the north, says author

Guests: Debra Komar, Melissa Irwin

AMT: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. The year was 1923 and Canada's justice system was preparing for a big show of force in the Arctic. Two Inuit men, Alikomiak and Tatamigana were put on trial for murder on Herschel Island, a speck of land in the Beaufort Sea off Yukon. Alikomiak had confessed to shooting and killing an RCMP Corporal, William Doak and a Hudson's Bay Company trader named Otto Binder. Tatamigana was charged in relation to earlier deaths in the Inuit community that had already been dealt with under the Inuit justice system. Both men were found guilty and they became the first Inuit Two Inuit men executed for murder under Canadian law. The Canadian government saw this case as a way to use the justice system to assert its sovereignty over the wider Arctic and over the peopel living there. The judge in the trial even told the jury that part of their duty was to and I'm quoting here "make these tribes understand that the stern, but at the same time, just had of British justice, extends also to these northern shores." That's the quote. The case has been seen by those who've studied it since as severely flawed and its effects are still being felt today in the relations between Inuit and the Canadian justice system. Forensic anthropologist Debra Komar has looked at this case for her book. It's called, The Court of Better Fiction: Three Trials, Two Executions and Arctic Sovereignty. And Debra Komar is with me in Toronto. Hi.

DEBRA KOMAR: Hello. Thanks for having me.

AMT: This is such an interesting story and I'm going to have you take me through it. These two men in an Inuit community ended up in a fight. What happened?

DK: There had been a series of retaliatory battles and so there was what the RCMP came to call the Shooting Affray, which left five dead. It was perpetrated by an individual named Pugnana who was the uncle of Tatamigana and Alikomiak. Under Inuit traditional law, they were instructed by the tribal leaders to seek retaliation against Pugnana, so they shot him. Word of this came to the RCMP detachment in Tree River so Doak went to arrest the individuals.

AMT: Okay so they had their own justice system. The uncle died because the uncle was getting a little too violent and they thought he was going to be of greater trouble to all of them and for the interests of the wider community. They said he had to go.

DK: Exactly.

DK: That's why they killed him?

AMT: Yes. So Corporal Doak, shows up. What happens?

DK: He takes a look me back in time aggada into custody and brings them back to the Tree River detachment. Now the RCMP have only been in the area for three years. In the end you would have no understanding of what the police are so they dont know whats happening. They don't have an understanding of what this is going to end in a hangman's noose.

AMT: Eventually they're separate and only one is with the RCMP officer.

DK: Alikomiak are kept in Tree River. Tatamigana and a few other Inuit who were arrested in the same sweep are taken to a seal camp a few kilometres away.

AMT: So Alikomiak is in Tree River with Corporal William Doak and he's hanging out with him essentially.

DK: There is no holding cell in Tree Rivers. So essentially he is being kept there by isolation by fear and Doak essentially physically abused him. He punched him a lot and so he kept him under control and kept him doing menial tasks for the detachment as they were holding him awaiting his transfer to Herschel Island for trial

AMT: And so at some point the corporal is dead. He shot dead.

DK: Yes. So Doak is shot at approximately 630 in the morning. He continues to bleed out takes about an hour and a half to die in that time, Otto Binder the HBC trader who is at the HBC outlet about 200 meters across the bay walks over to see his friend as he does every morning. And as he is walking across the bay he is shot dead.

AMT: So what happens?

DK: The other RCMP officers come back and they find Binder and Doak dead. At that point they take Alikomiak into custody and through the RCMP translator supposedly he gives a confession to the murders.

AMT: And he actually has even told them what Corporal Doak's last words were as he shot him. Which were what?

DK: What is the matter with you? Doak gets shot in the rear, supposedly as he is in bed. Supposedly Alikomiak goes into the store room, takes the rifle that was used to murder the uncle that he was arrested for and fires a shot into Doak. He then watches through the window waiting for Binder, sees him crossing across the bay and shoots him through the window as he approaches. That's the story that is told in the confession.

AMT: We'll get back to those final words in a minute, but in the meantime Ottawa starts kicking into high gear. Ottawa sees the death of an RCMP officer and a Hudson's Bay trader, not only as a crime, but as an opportunity. How so?

DK: So at this point there has been a long standing and I mean decades in the making debate over who has sovereignty over the Arctic. So Canada claims it, but they had no very little physical presence up there. There was a long history of violence both what they called native on native violence and in a few select instances, Inuits killing the white people that went up there to try and either as missionaries or to establish a foothold. And so there was a very clear understanding, memos were passing around Ottawa going we need to gain control of the Inuit and the north. So they saw this trial as the quickest and easiest way for Canada to truly claim sovereignty over this region.

AMT: And they set up a courtroom on Herschel Island. Why Herschel Island?

DK: It was one of two places that had a building that was large enough to house the facilities. It was relatively easy access and the media could get to it to cover the trial.

AMT: Because again they wanted this on the record, they wanted to make a statement.

DK: It had to be a show trial. So not only did Canada need to know what was happening, the world needed to know what was happening.

AMT: OK and Herschel Island is off the coast of?

DK: Yukon.

AMT: OK, but the crime didn't actually occur in Yukon.

DK: It happened in what was then Northwest Territories is now Nunavut.

AMT: And they actually had to change the law to say that, or they said they did.

DK: Well they tried. So essentially Canadian law did not allow them to do that. A crime committed in the Northwest Territories had to be tried in the Northwest Territories, but they couldn't get journalists and they didn't have a building. So they had to move it. So they passed some legislation quickly, but the governor general never signed it. So it never technically became law.

AMT: You can hear the appeals clicking away. In fact there were real defence lawyers.

DK: If anyone cared.

AMT: We'll get to the real defense lawyers. We'll get there too. So what did it take to set up a court room on Herschel Island nearly a century ago?

DK: They had to find a justice. This was the only man who had actually ever been up north. He hadn't gone into the Arctic Circ,le but he had held court in the north one year prior when a First Nations individual was charged with killing his wife. That was Justice Dubak or Deboose depending on who you talk to.

AMT: How did they get there? Where is he coming from?

DK: He was in Edmonton. So they start by rail. Then they switch to a steamer. Then they switch to a shuttle and it takes I think 37 days to get up there.

AMT: Who's traveling with him?

DK: They appoint a prosecutor and they appoint a defense attorney named Thomas Corey, the son of William Corey who was the cabinet minister for the interior at that time. Even his father didn't think he was suitable for the job and he actually wrote to the justice minister before, recommending another man. Don't take my so, take this other guy. But Thomas got the job and Thomas got the job because of a memo he had written seven months prior.

AMT: Saying?

DK: We need to hang some Inuit so that we can gain control of this region.

AMT: And he gets to be the defence layer.

DK: The sole defence lawyer, with absolutely no trial experience.

AMT: Some might think the fix was in.

DK: Oh it is. There's memos. It's very clear.

AMT: And who else is on that trek with them?

DK: There's one individual known Special Constable Gill and he is the hangman. So before the trial has even begun, the hangman, the rope and the wood needed to hang them is put on the train along with the judge.

AMT: How fair and thorough were the investigations?

DK: There was no investigations. Essentially, the first "confession" happens 10 days after the murder. There's a lot of inconsistencies. There's a lot of holes. So he's interviewed again. The story changes somewhat. There were holes in the story, so he's interviewed a third time in which he supposedly confesses again with a different story. And so those three confessions were the only evidence. There was no investigation. Nobody ever got the rifle. Nobody ever got the bullets. No fingerprints were taken. There is a very simple schematic of the scene, which you know X's were where the bodies were found. They didn't even bother to figure out which direction the bullet hole through the window was going.

AMT: And this is all in translation obviously. And there's one translator who's doing everything.

DK: Cero, yes.

AMT: And Cero actually was a translator for the man who was killed, the RCMP officer was he not?

DK: Yes.

AMT: Ok this gets even more complicated because how does Alikomiak know what Corporal Doak's final words were if he didn't understand the language.

DK: Exactly. So there's supposedly only two people in the room when this murder occurs and in the confession Alikomiak says I shot him and he said what is the matter with you. But he had no way. He didn't speak English. Doak spoke none of the native language. They had communicated exclusively through gestures and Cero when he was around. So that's sort of the first glaring inconsistency in a series of confessions that are filled with them.

AMT: There's also the inconsistency that he was supposed to have gotten up on a chair and shot the Hudson's Bay company man through a window and it had been a perfect shot. One shot.

DK: Forensic science has known for more than a century that you cannot shoot through a window and hit your intended target and there have been tests that literally replicated this particular killing, 20 shots at a target, through the same sort of arrangement and not one of them hit the target. This was a very inexperienced hunter who took one shot and supposedly dropped a man at 50 yards through a window, which is physically impossible.

AMT: So you've got two problems with the holes in the story, but no one's noticing. You've gone through the archives later and looked at this. The other point is when the judge gets there with the entourage, they've got some time to kill. You describe this judge. He's basically like he was taking selfies before there were selfies. He has his camera, he's roaming around.

DK: He's playing tourist and he's doing it in the company of people he's not allowed to do that with.

AMT: Including the accused man.

DK: The accused and jurors, which any judge will tell you is strictly forbidden. He hires a juror to be his private secretary.

AMT: Who was the jury?

DK: Part of the reason they had chosen Herschel Island was they were promised that there would be ample white men for the jury and then they found out no there aren't even four of them up here. So they began gathering them as they were traveling north.

AMT: So what happens? This goes to trial. What happens?

DK: A rather grotesque travesty. So there are three trials. The one that truly matters is the trial of Alikomiak for the murders of Doak and Binder.

AMT: The white men.

DK: Yes. The trials are ridiculously brief. There is no forensic evidence offered. The only proof they have is the confessions and under Canadian law, you are not allowed to try somebody based solely on confession. You have to prove the contents of the crime through other means, whether witness statements, forensic evidence, whatever you've got. They did none of that.

AMT: They find them guilty. Do the man even understand what is going to happen to them?

DK: No. And there is a mild attempt to translate some of what's happening, but it's not like what's happening is being explained to them or translated for them. They were smiling and laughing. They were giving the judge a cigarette as they walked out. They had zero understanding that they were going to die as a result of this.

AMT: Now the media is there. There are journalists covering this. What kinds of things are they writing? What's the reaction in the south?

DK: The initial reports coming out was that here was the majesty of Canadian justice being brought to these "primitive people" and they were being shown how it's supposed to be done. Back south there was a much different reaction. There are immediate petitions to stay this. A lot of it was sort of paternalistic, this belief that the Inuit were innocent children that couldn't understand what was happening to them. Then came the knowledge that in fact Alikomiak was a child and Canada was about to hang a child for murder. There was a lot of recrimination. They found out that the hangman had gone first. They found out the graves had been pre-dug. They found that the coffins were made. All of this begins leaking out in the media down south and there is a serious uproar about it.

AMT: But it doesn't change the fact that both men are killed. They're executed.

DK: The executions were delayed, not because of the protest, but because of a stunt that the RCMP pulled. Essentially once the the Governor General said I'm not going to stop these executions, they produced a telegraph saying go ahead with the executions, but they called it the death warrant and they hired or they recruited an RCMP officer who was beautiful and stunning and looks great in the red serge. They brought him from Edmonton to Vancouver to pick up this death warrant telegram and then had him go by dog sled north to Herschel Island.

AMT: And they let the media know. They wanted to change the narrative.

DK: Exactly they want to show the RCMP in this brave light. They're not incompetent and they're not you know bloodthirsty. They're trying to bring justice to the north. And so it takes him a ridiculously long time. Meanwhile they could have just sent the telegram, but there's no drama to that.

AMT: How long did you spend going to the archives to piece this story together?

DK: Months. There's the trial transcripts. There's all of the RCMP reports. There are files from the RCMP of all their communication back and forth, all the Justice Department.

AMT: And as you read through, what were you thinking emotionally?

DK: It was a shame to be Canadian. This wasn't a mistake or this wasn't you know sort of innocent error. There are memos that make it very clear we knew exactly what we were doing in this particular trial and that the goal was simply to execute some Inuit, so that they would understand. This was a message. We were sending a message to the Inuit and we were sending a message to the rest of the world. This is Canadian territory. We will not tolerate violence. The Inuit did not have rights as Canadian citizens. For all intent purposes, they are treated as we would treat tourists now. You don't have the benefits and the rights of a Canadian, but our laws apply to you if you are on our territory.

AMT: As an assertion of sovereignty, how do you see this case nearly a century later?

DK: It is how we established it. There is nothing before this that carries the weight of law. Since this case, the Canadian justice system has been the standard applied to the north.

AMT: It's an incredible story and it was hard to read.

DK: It is disturbing because again it was so intentional and I'm sure they believed in what they were doing and I'm sure they thought they were right. But it came at the expense of the rights of Alikomiak and Tatamigana. They touted the Canadian system as being morally superior and yet they had to break every one of their own laws in order to do what they did.

AMT: And as you went through it, you began to suspect and you don't know, but you began to suspect that the translator, the only person who could communicate with all sides who was actually in a romantic relationship with the Inuit woman who was living with the Hudson's Bay Company guy, you began to suspect that he had a bigger role in this.

DK: There was no investigation. There was the automatic assumption that Alikomiak and Doak were the only people at Tree River on that morning, therefore it had to be Alikomiak. But hat wasn't true. There were a large number of Indigenous people that were present at the time, including two men who had been tried for murder previously who were working for the RCMP. We had Binder's Indigenous wife who was present, but they automatically ruled her out because she was getting all these trade goods and what woman would possibly kill and lose her status in the community. But what I discovered was the translator was physically present that morning. They know it's in the report that he went that morning to the camp to deliver mail. So even within their own records there's acknowledgement that other people are present and who had you know arguably a motive. He married Binder's wife one month to the day, one month after he was shot and he would have understood Doak's last words. I'm not saying Cero did it, I'm saying he is a very viable suspect that was never looked at. And so we can't possibly know whether or not he had any role in this.

AMT: It's an incredible story. So many questions that resonates to this day. Thank you for your work.

DK: Thank you.

AMT: Debra Komar is a forensic anthropologist. Her book is called The Court of Better Fiction: Three Trials, Two Executions and Arctic Sovereignty. She joined us in Toronto. Now that trial and other similar trials nearly 100 years ago, set the stage for future relations between Inuit and Canada's justice system. Melissa Irwin is an instructor in contemporary issues. She's a teaching assistant in Inuit history at NunavutSivuniksavut, an Inuit studies college and she joins us from Ottawa. Hi.

MELISSA IRWIN: Hi.

AMT: How do you react to the story of this particular trial?

MI: I'm not all that surprised. You know our history books are riddled with records, documents and stories that give proof and evidence to this type of treatment to people.

AMT: How did Inuit society deal with wrongdoing with justice in their own way differently than what the Canadian government was trying to impose?

MI: The first presence of Canadian government in the Arctic was the RCMP and it was just the RCMP for a very long time. The justice system that we know today is set up by Southerners and it's a system of colonization. Before this justice system was imposed, Inuit tribes operated as a whole. We needed to. We depended on each other. Men, women, the young and the old and it was a beautiful system that worked for millennia. The Inuit subsistence way of life was achievable by helping one another sharing, cooperation and respect. And without these fundamental values, our people would not be here today. And when Inuit did something wrong, you know the wrong doer was not sent to a penitentiary. There was no jail. There was punishment and yes there were consequences and a way of handling things and this was usually through face to face counseling. Every member of a community had important roles and responsibilities. So getting rid of someone wasn't necessarily the best approach. You know Inuit had complex social and justice systems. Elders and leaders would hold meetings to handle these wrongdoers. There's a word and it refers to what had to be followed. It's guidance of respect to one another and to animals and so they were based on the principles of respect and these principles maintained the social order.

AMT: So how did the imposition of the Canadian justice system undermine the Inuit society you're describing?

MI: At the height of colonial policies asserted by the government, Inuits you know saw in our very backyard, residential schooling, resource development activities without Inuit consultation or consent. There were hunting restrictions. Our basic human rights were not being granted. Where's the justice in that? It's not just our leaders saw the importance of protecting our language, our culture and our way of life and they had to fight back and you know at the height of government intervention in our Inuit communities in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, you know we had absolutely no control over our lives anymore at that point. The government intervention had imposed so on much that you know we could no longer be independent. So the impact that it had on our people well you can imagine you know erosion of our cultural practices, our pride in ourselves, diminishing our understanding of our place in community and society you know having no value. There are so many impacts that these different policies had on our people, on our individuals, in our society and it was systemic. It was systematic right across the Arctic. You see the impacts of these policies affecting our people to this day.

AMT: You know they use the justice system to assert sovereignty and the very justice system they brought there, what did that do to the role of the elders and the leaders of those Inuit communities?

MI: It diminished the authority that we had established over a millennia. It took authority and respect away from our people and put it in the hands of government officials that really didn't care about us.

AMT: Had there been changes to make the justice system more better now?

MI: You know there's a lot of change that still needs to occur. Systemic racism still exists within our health and judicial systems and the services that are meant to serve and protect all Canadians lack adequate investment and social and cultural relevance for our people. Imprisonment is linked to poverty and imprisonment is a punishment that further perpetuate the very trauma and violence that is experienced.

AMT: You say there are many stories. So this particular story might shock a lot of Southern Canadians, but it's part of a continuum for anyone who is living the experience in the north.

MI: Stories like this which are clear examples of government agenda at the time carry on to this day. There is a huge power imbalance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. Statistics among our people are not good. If you look at high school graduation rates among the Inuit, the grad rates are very low. There is a huge need for investment in housing. Inuit have to travel thousands of miles to go see a doctor in the south. We have data and action is very slow. And a hundred years later, we're facing the same battle.

AMT: There is a community justice program in Nunavut. Can you tell us what the intent is?

MI: These committees consist of often elders or local leaders that are respected and could sit down with somebody who did something wrong and was you know going through the court system. Usually the injustice that they did was nothing serious, similar to Inuit laws, the committee would speak with that individual face to face, hear them, counsel and work with that person in hopes of bringing healing, integration into the community. Understanding, but also possibly sentence them to participate in some cultural activities. So you know a wonderful example of Inuit traditional law brought into our government justice system today.

AMT: And the irony that was the very thing that they tried to quash.

MI: Absolutely. Inuit had been so strong and independent n the Arctic forever. They thrived because they had the skills and the knowledge and the laws to live in our environment. So when these external forces came up north and told us do it this way and not do it your way, it didn't make any sense, but we had to listen. This was the government. This was for law.

AMT: And if they didn't listen, there was very harsh punishment.

MI: Absolutely. So many policies put in place that were always against us. Unfair policies that sought to diminish our spirit and our authority over ourselves and our families and our communities. You know hopefully with our leaders of today we are on a path to a better future, but we're not there yet.

AMT: Well it's really important to talk about this history. Thank you for explaining more of it to us.

MI: Thank you.

AMT: That's Melissa Irwin who is an instructor in contemporary issues and Inuit history at NunavutSivuniksavut, an Inuit studies college and she joined us from Ottawa. Let us know what you think as you listen to this story. Find us on Facebook. Go to ourwebsite cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the Contact link. Find us on Twitter, we are @TheCurrentCBC. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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Apr. 8, 2019 episode transcript

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