St. Theresa Point to honour Ashlee Shingoose, other area MMIWGs
St. Theresa Point First Nation in northeastern Manitoba is holding its first Red Dress Day event on Monday, as the community mourns one of its own. In March, Ashlee Shingoose of was identified as the previously unknown victim of a Winnipeg serial killer. She'd been given the name Buffalo Woman, or Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, by Indigenous community members.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Edmonton Journal
11 hours ago
- Edmonton Journal
Canadians reject that they live on 'stolen' Indigenous land, although new poll reveals a generational divide
Article content Notably, there was a significant generational divide among those who answered the national opinion survey, conducted by Leger Marketing for the Association for Canadian Studies and provided to Postmedia. More respondents in the youngest cohort, 18-to-24-year-olds, agreed they did live on stolen Indigenous land (41 per cent) than rejected the idea (37 per cent). That contrasts with those in the oldest age group of 65 years or older, who overwhelmingly said they did not live on stolen land (65 per cent) with only 15 per cent agreeing they did. In between them, the remaining age groups were on an unbroken sliding scale in their answers: the older they were the more likely they were to reject the statement they lived on stolen land, and, conversely, the younger they were the more likely they were to agree that they did. The sentiment rejecting the idea they live on stolen Indigenous land was a low majority regardless of the respondents' region in Canada, except for in Atlantic Canada, where most people still rejected the idea, but at a nationally low rate of 44 per cent, with 29 per cent of Atlantic respondents saying yes, they do live on stolen land.
CBC
12 hours ago
- CBC
Family has not given up hope that Indigenous woman who disappeared in Barrie will be found
Family members of an Indigenous woman who went missing in Barrie, Ont., two years ago say they have never given up hope of finding her. The family of Autumn Shaganash gathered on Tuesday in Sunnidale Park in Barrie, where Shaganash was last seen, to appeal to anyone with information of her whereabouts to come forward. "We know that Autumn is somewhere out there and hope that one day soon she will return home to us," Lili Moore, her sister, said as she read from a statement. Shaganash, 26 at the time, was last seen walking in the park on June 10, 2023 between 10 a.m. and 12 noon, according to the Barrie Police Service. She was wearing tan-coloured leggings, slip-on Puma sandals, a black hoodie and carrying a black and tan Juicy Couture purse. Surveillance video from a nearby home captured her image walking with a man, each of them carrying a ski. Police have said he told them he was walking a few steps ahead of her and was momentarily distracted. When he turned around, she was gone. According to the family, Shaganash was on her phone talking to an unknown person on the morning she went missing. Police say, within three minutes of the end of that call, her phone went to voicemail. Police say she used an app and that that they haven't been able to determine who she was talking to. "We miss you so much, Autumn, and we want you to come home," Moore added. Moore said the family is grateful that Barrie police continue to focus on finding Shaganash in the hopes of reuniting her with her family. 'We're not going to ever stop looking for you' Kimberly Moore, Shaganash's cousin, said she hopes that Autumn is still alive and that the family still looks for her today. "I know if she was here and if she could say something, she would be telling us, 'Don't stop looking for me. Don't stop advocating for me,'" she said. "Autumn, if you do hear this somehow or see this somehow, we're not going to ever stop looking for you." She said the family has hired a private investigator, and family members would like to see the people who were interviewed shortly after Shagash went missing be reinterviewed. She added that the family searched the park a year ago and found no human remains. She said she would also like to know who was talking to Shaganash on the phone that morning. And she added that she would like others to learn from her cousin's case. "I urge families to look for that person right away. And get that camera footage right away if somebody does go missing," she said. Clarence Moore, Shaganash's uncle, said his niece used to call her grandmother every night. That hasn't happened in two years, he said. "It's not like Autumn," he said. "We just hope and pray that we could find her or anyone out there could help us find her, even let us know if you know anything about what happened. I'm pretty sure that somebody knows out there what has happened. She cannot just disappear like this on her own. We're just really concerned now because it's been two years." The last two years have been difficult on the family, especially for his mother, he added. He said he thinks about Shaganash every day. "We're just trying to be strong for each other and have faith that we'll find her and that one day somebody will be empathetic and compassionate enough to let us know what has happened or even to let us know where she is, if she is around still," he said. Barrie police still receiving tips Peter Leon, corporate communications coordinator for Barrie Police Service, said eight electronic billboards are running in Barrie this month, displaying information about Shagash's disappearance and reminding the public of a $50,000 reward for information leading police to her or her whereabouts. "We are still receiving tips. And those tips are valuable to this investigation. I want to assure the public that this investigation remains active and it remains ongoing," Leon said. The service's major crime unit is following up on every tip, he said. Shaganash's family has suffered and she needs to be reunited with her family, he added. "We need to go where the information takes us and our investigators are prepared to do that," he said. Leon said canine units and drones have searched the park repeatedly and an extensive land search has been done with emergency support units. After the March ice storm this year, the park underwent a significant cleanup. "If anything was going to be discovered, there was the potential at that time as well," he said. Minni Moore, Shaganash's grandmother, said she prays for her granddaughter's safe return. "One day at a time, waiting for my granddaughter to come home," she said. "I miss her bad."
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba cabinet minister breaks silence about 2019 workplace harassment probe
Manitoba's sole cabinet minister has defended her work at a Winnipeg college and said she's being unjustly targeted more than five years after an investigation concluded she had harassed an employee. At least three employees of Red River College Polytechnic filed separate complaints about the behaviour of their boss, Rebecca Chartrand, in 2019. Chartrand, who won the riding of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski for the Liberals in April, was chosen by Prime Minister Mark Carney to be part of his inner circle. Between her failed 2015 run for office and her successful second try, the new MP and minister of Northern and Arctic affairs spent about 2-½ years in a senior management role at RRC Polytech's Indigenous education unit. On Tuesday, Chartrand provided a lengthy statement in which she touted her commitment to positive change and the progress she made on 'enhancing programs and fostering a student-centered environment' at RRC Polytech. She said her work is a 'source of great pride.' 'Let us concentrate on building up the community and supporting positive developments within the Indigenous community, instead of focusing on negativity that fans lateral violence within the Indigenous community,' the cabinet minister said via email Tuesday. The findings of the 2019 probe into her treatment of one particular employee on campus was leaked against the backdrop of the rookie politician's sudden rise up the ranks on Parliament Hill. Investigators from Rachlis Neville LLP concluded Chartrand had repeatedly harassed and humiliated a subordinate, who is also an Indigenous woman, over an extended period in 2019. RRC Polytech hired the firm that fall, after undertaking an internal investigation sparked by the same complainant. That one concluded Chartrand had breached school policy when she pushed through a controversial student survey — a project that several of her colleagues had raised concerns about — and taken retaliatory action against the employee who flagged the suspected breach. That individual, who left the college in 2020, repeatedly flagged the gist of those conclusions with her federal Liberal contacts before the April 28 election. 'As an Indigenous Liberal member who supports Mark Carney, I have been trying to warn the Winnipeg Liberal head office about (Chartrand). She will be a liability if elected and a scandal waiting to happen,' she wrote in an April 6 email to a fellow Liberal who was heavily involved in Carney's campaign. 'Let us concentrate on building up the community and supporting positive developments within the Indigenous community, instead of focusing on negativity that fans lateral violence within the Indigenous community.'–Rebecca Chartrand The Free Press has interviewed that employee and four others who worked closely with Chartrand when she oversaw Indigenous strategy at RRC Polytech from June 2017 to December 2019. Each of them expressed serious concerns about her treatment of employees — either themselves, former colleagues or both — who had voiced differing views to ones she held. Three said they made written complaints about her, but the report of only one of them was escalated and substantiated. They all agreed to share their experiences on the condition of anonymity. 'She's very authoritarian and she surrounds herself with 'yes' people and if you're not a 'yes' person, you're not going to be there — or she's going to make it really tough for you,' one source said. She said she frequently witnessed what she called 'lateral violence' — undermining and bullying of the whistleblower whose complaint was escalated. Chartrand's hostile behaviour made others 'cower,' the source said. Another ex-staffer recalled being fired on the basis of 'insubordination' after questioning the appropriateness and legalities of collecting deeply personal information from prospective students, via the survey. Chartrand faced criticism during the 2018-19 school year for creating 'an assessment readiness tool,' exclusively prepared for applicants of an Indigenous studies program, that requested details about their alcohol and recreational drug use. Multiple sources described Chartrand as a vindictive ladder-climber, citing one instance when she uninvited a staff member from an international trip to a conference he had pitched they go to because they'd had a disagreement. The employee in question had expressed problems with the survey, sources said. The decision to push forward the initiative and write off workers' concerns showed her 'bad judgment,' said a fourth ex-employee who indicated he contacted the federal NDP after learning Chartrand was nominated as the Liberal candidate for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski. That employee said he left RRC Polytech when his complaints involving Chartrand were unresolved. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. The Liberal party has declined to comment on the vetting of specific candidate applications, citing confidentiality. RRC Polytech has released limited information about Chartrand's tenure over the same rationale. 'I'm really disappointed at (the Liberals') lack of integrity or their lack of an answer to the people,' said the whistleblower whose complaints were substantiated by Rachlis Neville LLP. 'To be honest, it makes me question if the prime minister has been given the correct information to make the best decisions for who is in key positions.' She noted it was the party that had first brought her and Chartrand together, as they both worked on her 2015 bid under the leadership of then-Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. Maggie MacintoshEducation reporter Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., she first reported for the Free Press in 2017. Read more about Maggie. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative. Every piece of reporting Maggie produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
