Advocates, families of Poorman, Harrison and O'Soup call for coroner's inquest
Advocates and the families of 2 Indigenous women and an Indigenous girl who died in the summer of 2022 are demanding action on the cases are calling for a Coroner's Inquest into the deaths. Tatyanna Harrison, Chelsea Poorman and Noelle O'Soup died just weeks apart 3 years ago. The group say they're bringing this forward after an independent forensic pathologist review disputes the cause of Harrison's death.
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Toronto Star
3 hours ago
- Toronto Star
‘Pretendian' or ‘victim': Inside this would-be Ontario lawyer's attempt to remake a life built on fraud
Before the headlines, Nadya Gill's life was filled with promise. Originally from the GTA, she played on Canada's youth national soccer team. At 16, she entered university in the U.S. on athletic scholarships, where she excelled on the pitch and in the classroom and earned the first of five post-secondary degrees. A coach told a Connecticut TV station her competitive drive could easily lead her to becoming a lawyer, a doctor, or 'a UN ambassador.' She graduated from law school, where she won awards and worked summers at the Crown law office in Toronto. After passing the bar exam, she landed a dream articling position at a sports law firm. It allowed her to work remotely and play professional soccer in Norway. Then came the rumblings online; her life fell apart — and she had to pick a new name. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Two years ago, Nadya Gill and her twin, Amira, now 26, were outed as 'pretendians,' first by online sleuths and then a reporter in Nunavut, for falsely claiming to be Inuit to receive scholarships and grants. In September 2023, the RCMP charged the sisters and their mother, Karima Manji, with fraud. Last year, it was Manji alone who pleaded guilty, admitting she sent enrolment forms to Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI) with the false information that she'd adopted her own daughters from an Iqaluit woman. The forms were approved and she was provided enrolment cards that entitled the twins access to benefits earmarked for Inuit students. Manji had in fact given birth to her daughters in Mississauga in 1998. In court, it was revealed that the girls had received more than $158,000 for their education from September 2020 to March 2023. Contributors Opinion The violence of pretending to be Indigenous The recent call for organizing a Canada-wide dialogue about Indigenous identity by the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) is a solid step Contributors Opinion The violence of pretending to be Indigenous The recent call for organizing a Canada-wide dialogue about Indigenous identity by the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) is a solid step To many, Nadya's successes were a slap in the face and a reminder of the harm caused by more famous Canadians who've been exposed for falsely claiming to be Indigenous. In March 2024, Toronto Life magazine published an exposé on the family under the headline, 'The Great Pretenders: How two faux-Inuit sisters cashed in on a life of deception.' It went to press before a judge in Iqaluit sentenced Manji to three years in prison and called the twins 'victims.' On a warm sunny morning this past week in an Etobicoke park not far from where she grew up, the Star spoke with Nadya Gill under her new name, Jordan Archer, about her involvement in Canada's first criminal case of Indigenous identity fraud. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW It's the first time she has spoken publicly about the scandal that she says has destroyed her life. In the basic facts, Archer's story is this: She's a first-generation Canadian, born to a mother who immigrated from Tanzania and lived for only a brief period in Nunavut. Her father, Gurmail Gill, is British. No member of the family is Inuit, nor of Indigenous background. Still, Archer says, the story the public thinks they know is wrong — not that her version will convince everyone who sees her as a villain. For the first time since the scandal broke in 2023, Jordan Archer speaks about being at the centre of Canada's first criminal case of Indigenous identity fraud. The daughter of a 'proven fraudster' 'How would you have expected me to know,' Archer says, referring to her teenage self while sitting on a park bench in athletic wear after jumping off an old hybrid bike. 'Put yourself in my shoes. If your mom came up to you, gave you the story, with proof.' 'Proof,' Archer says, was the Inuit enrolment card her mother applied for — by outright fraud — in February 2016, when Archer was 17 and already going to school in the U.S. Like many teens, Archer says she was only too happy to let her mother handle all her applications, finances and logistics. Manji was controlling, the kind of 'soccer mom' who would scold her daughter after a match if she hadn't performed up to her standards. She was also someone a judge would call a 'habitual and persistent fraudster.' ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW At the time she filed the false applications, Manji was already facing serious fraud charges. In August 2017, she was sentenced to defrauding the charity March of Dimes, her longtime employer, of $850,000, for which she received a non-custodial sentence after reimbursing $650,000. Karima Manji, seen after her arrest in the March of Dimes fraud case. Toronto Police Service As unlikely as it may sound — the case was publicized — Archer says she wasn't aware of those charges until much later. At the time, she was living in the U.S. and had distanced herself from her mom, who still controlled many of her life decisions. She returned home from school in the U.S. at 20, which is when Manji told her: 'You're going to Saskatchewan … to a program where you'll do property law in the summer. It's for Indigenous students.' That's when, she says, Manji presented her with 'officially issued proof' — the Inuit enrolment card — and told her 'the story.' Manji had lived in Iqaluit in the '90s and had grown close to an Inuit family. That much was true. As her mother explained, when the father became ill with cancer, Manji took care of a daughter. That connection, Manji lied, had made her eligible for Inuit enrolment and, by extension, so were her daughters. Should Archer have questioned things? Maybe. But she says she believed her mother. In the interview, she likened the logic of her mom's explanation to a marriage — it wasn't a blood tie but 'a connection.' (In retrospect, this explanation is nonsense. To qualify, an applicant must both be Inuk according to Inuit customs and identify as an Inuk.) ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Still, Archer emphasizes that she accepted and embraced the connection she now thought she had — believing in some way that 'I belonged to the Iqaluit community.' She says she immersed herself in learning about Indigenous culture and participated in ceremonies, activities and educational sessions. She volunteered for the Akwesasne Community Justice Program and facilitated Kairos blanket exercises where participants step into roles of Indigenous groups throughout Canadian history. If she knew about the fraud, why would she do that, she asks. 'I think if you're trying to hide something, you stay under the radar.' As for what the card meant, Archer says she was kept in the dark as her mom secured tens of thousands of dollars for her education. 'I know the card gets you benefits, you have some kind of status with it, but I had no idea what (Manji) was doing with it.' Who questions their parents about things that happened before they were born, she asks? 'I know my dad's from England … I didn't say, 'Show me your birth certificate.'' 'Our communities are small, we know each other' The Iqaluit RCMP charged both Manji and the twins with defrauding the NTI — the organization tasked with enrolling Inuit children under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement — in September 2023. As is often the case with fraud, the big lie ended up being trivially easy to disprove. Manji had written on the application forms that Nadya and Amira were the birth daughters of a real Inuk woman named Kitty Noah, and then the application was approved without a shred of proof. (While there's no question her mother 'dug this hole,' Archer asks how the bogus application forms could have been accepted without a birth certificate.) ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Manji then used the girls' status cards to apply for benefits from Kakivak Association, an organization that, among other things, provides sponsorship funding to help Inuit students from Baffin Island pay for education. By early 2023, while Archer was articling and had already played in Norway, social media users began questioning the story of the successful 'Inuit' sisters from Toronto with the South Asian names. 'Our communities are small, we know each other. We know of each other and our families. There are only around 70,000 of us in Canada,' famed Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq wrote in a tweet asking how the twins could get scholarships meant for Inuit students. 'The resources and supports are limited.' In late March 2023, a reporter with Nunatsiaq News asked Amira to respond to the social media allegations. In a statement, Amira passed on Manji's story, that the twins' 'Inuit family ties' were through a family her mother had lived with. (Amira Gill declined to be interviewed for this story. 'My sister has chosen to keep her life personal, away from the public eye,' Archer said when asked about her twin.) But that's not what Manji put on the form; NTI soon released a statement that Noah was not the twins' birth mother and asked the RCMP to investigate. Kitty Noah has since died. When she found out she'd been listed on the application, she was 'flabbergasted,' her son later told CBC. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Why Jordan Archer wants to tell her story Today, Archer says she struggles to make ends meet. She's working part-time at a hockey rink as a community service representative, 'directing people to the lost and found.' A Zamboni driver recently asked about her background. 'How much time do you have?' Archer told him, recalling the exchange. 'No matter what career I try to explore, I don't want this to come back.' Michelle Mengsu Chang/ Toronto Star She lost friends along with her articling job. In the wake of the case, the Law Society of Ontario initiated an investigation into her status as a lawyer. To practise law in Ontario, applicants for a licence must be of 'good character'; Archer feels she has no choice but to abandon a law career, at least at this point. She says she used to be puzzled when people described being debilitated by stress, but 'now, I really, really do understand. There were months when I wouldn't move or go anywhere.' Last fall, Archer thought she'd found a lifeline and signed a contract to play pro soccer. She felt she had been forthright about her past before signing but, ultimately, the league decided to rescind its approval of the contract. She was devastated. But it was also a 'turning point' — the realization she had to do something to try to clear the air and provide a 'fulsome' picture of the story. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'No matter what career I try to explore, I don't want this to come back.' She's since written a memoir, titling it 'When Life Conspired Against Me.' A summary provided to the Star described the book as an examination of the toll of the public backlash that destroyed her professional reputation. She's 'a victim of online bullying and was crucified in the media, despite not being involved in the fraud,' the summary reads. (The book does not have a publisher.) 'I'm serving a life sentence for a crime I didn't commit,' Archer says in a prepared blurb. 'I was the victim, but that means nothing when the court of public opinion plays both judge and executioner. In their story, I'm the villain, and that's all that matters.' Looking back, Archer says she now knows her mom would have pursued any chance at an advantage. 'She saw, you know, a bureaucratic loophole and she just went for it,' she says. 'Whether it was an Indigenous community or any other community, she would have just gone for it.' Confronting her mom was 'one of the hardest things I've ever had to do,' she told the Star in the days after the interview. Their relationship is messy, she adds. 'She didn't just hurt me, she detonated my life … and yet she's my mom.' She feels a 'heavy, inescapable obligation' to still be there for her mother, but 'supporting her didn't mean forgetting the harm. It didn't mean pretending everything was OK.' 'She trusted me 120 per cent' Soon after Manji pleaded guilty last year, the Crown withdrew the charges against Nadya and Amira. In response, the then-president of NTI called the withdrawal of charges against the twins 'unacceptable.' The twins 'benefitted from their mother's fraud scheme, and yet their role in the scheme will go unanswered,' Aluki Kotierk told Toronto Life. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW There's little chance Archer's story will convince anyone who believes she should have known. 'How can they say they didn't know they were not Inuit,' one First Nations advocate wrote on X. To those skeptics, Archer says she never claimed to be Inuk by blood; that was her mom's lie. Still, she hopes the doubters read the judge's words. Canada 'Egregious exploitation': Toronto woman sentenced to 3 years for Inuit identity fraud Karima Manji, who is not Indigenous, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000, after her twin daughters used fake Inuit status to receive Canada 'Egregious exploitation': Toronto woman sentenced to 3 years for Inuit identity fraud Karima Manji, who is not Indigenous, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000, after her twin daughters used fake Inuit status to receive 'The true victims of Ms. Manji's crime are the Inuit of Nunavut,' Iqaluit judge Mia Manocchio wrote. Manji 'defrauded the Inuit of Nunavut by stealing their identity. She has further victimized the Noah family and the memory of Kitty Noah. This is an egregious example of the exploitation of Indigenous Peoples.' 'Finally,' Manocchio continued, 'Ms. Manji has victimized her own children, her two daughters, whose lives and careers have been severely compromised by her fraud.' Manji is now serving a three-year sentence — a term that, the judge wrote, serves as 'a signal to any future Indigenous pretender that the false appropriation of Indigenous identity in a criminal context will draw a significant penalty.' Manji was also ordered to pay back $28,254 — what remained after she had already reimbursed $130,000. (Not that the 'proven fraudster' deserved any credit for paying back the fruits of her crimes, Manocchio wrote — 'if such were the case, then a fraudster with means could essentially buy their way into a reduced prison term, whereas an impecunious fraudster would serve the longer term.') Reached by phone at a halfway house, where she was in the middle of drywalling, Manji, 60, insisted to the Star that Nadya — she doesn't call her Jordan — was unaware of the scheme. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'I never, ever said a word to Nadya,' she said. 'She trusted me 120 per cent, if you can imagine, when this all started, she was in the States … her whole focus was on soccer.' Manji said she is appalled by the hurt she caused not only to Inuit communities, but to her own children, 'especially Nadya.' (The girls have an older brother.) While serving some of her sentence at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Manji said it would take weeks to read her daughter's letters, because 'I just feel so awful.' Unprompted, Manji offers up an explanation for her actions: She was brought up in a strict, conservative family and believed that if you were a doctor, lawyer or engineer, 'you would do fine in life.' She had an unhappy upbringing and marriage and wanted to make sure her kids didn't go through that. 'If I made sure they were successful in terms of their education and career, that they wouldn't have to have gone through what I've gone through,' she says.
Winnipeg Free Press
21 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Police chief expresses desire for advanced-tech stun guns to replace officers' firearms
The head of the Winnipeg Police Service hopes stun guns can help reduce the use of more lethal force, eventually to the point officers no longer need guns. 'Those alternate weapons, intermediate weapons, they save lives. And the technology is just advancing rapidly, where my hope is one day that we never have a shooting where someone's lost their life,' said WPS Chief Gene Bowers. 'So, if that's the use of leveraging technology, I hope one day it gets to there, that firearms aren't a needed weapon.' Bowers' comments followed the release of an annual use of force report, which notes WPS officers used Tasers 524 times last year, including 221 instances in which the devices were presented and/or used to coerce someone, 216 times stun-gun probes were deployed (for use over a longer distance) and 87 times when the weapons were used to 'push stun' (applied while pressing the device against someone.) MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Police chief Gene Bowers said Tasers offer a safer alternative to guns. The combined use is up from a five-year average of 262 times per year since 2019, and 302 total uses in 2023. Bowers said Tasers offer a safer alternative to guns. 'Any time that we're not using deadly force is a good thing,' he said. The latest Tasers can subdue a person from a further distance away, increasing their effectiveness, he noted. In 2024, police either presented a weapon or used force in 968 incidents, or 0.4 per cent of 239,903 total dispatches, up from 0.33 per cent the previous year. Serious incidents included six officer-involved shootings and four fatalities last year. While the chief highlighted benefits of stun-gun use, a local law professor cautioned against framing Tasers as a safe tool, which could lead police to use them more readily. 'There is a risk with this perception that Tasers are essentially not lethal weapons. They should be considered as less-lethal weapons, they're less likely to result in death,' said Brandon Trask, an associate professor of law at the University of Manitoba. He noted deaths in North America has been linked to Tasers, which he said are more dangerous for people who are intoxicated by drugs or have a heart condition. 'A pretty major electrical current going through their body can result in some pretty horrific outcomes,' said Trask. He expressed doubt that police could completely end their reliance on guns, since they are at risk of facing much more lethal weapons on the job. 'It's very ambitious to think that this advancement in this area of technology is going to be a huge game-changer,' he said. Meanwhile, the police chief also shed light on several other key WPS files. When asked if he personally supported calls to search the Prairie Green landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women slain by a serial killer before he became the chief of police, Bowers said he did. 'I've always been supportive of a search, an advocate of that,' he said. Bowers served as WPS deputy chief in charge of investigations when the decision was made to not search Prairie Green for the remains of Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris, which was met with intense community backlash. A search eventually did begin late last year and has since located both women's remains. Bowers also revealed that police are still pursuing a plan to track race-based data of people officers interact with and will hire an external Indigenous consultant who will work on that file. 'It would be an external consultant to help with reconciliation, to help with partnerships (with) the Indigenous community… to ensure that we're doing things that aren't offensive or causing issues with the community,' he said. In a separate update, police also noted the Manitoba Integrated Violent Offender Apprehension Unit, a joint effort of WPS and the RCMP, has now made 730 arrests. The unit aims to crack down on violent and prolific offenders. Bowers noted two federal changes he'd like to see to help reduce the number of people who commit repeated acts of violence. 'If someone's to the point where they're utilizing firearms, machetes and causing harm to citizens… consideration to the release should be really considered. If they do reoffend, there should be something in place where they should be detained in custody until they can have their hearing… that's bail reform,' said Bowers. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. The federal government should also explore imposing mandatory minimum sentences for some offences linked to using firearms and other dangerous weapons, such as machetes, he said. The police chief also supports creating a 24-hour sobering or detox unit for first responders to take people experiencing drug-related psychosis. 'I think there's a great need for somewhere where we can take people that they're safe and other people are safe… if they're in a psychosis…. It's just working through the logistics of it and getting it in place,' he said. X: @joyanne_pursaga Joyanne PursagaReporter Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne. Every piece of reporting Joyanne 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.
Winnipeg Free Press
21 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Sex charges stayed against chief after child testifies she lied
Child sex abuse charges have been stayed against a Manitoba chief after the young alleged victim admitted in court Friday she lied when she told police the man had taken cellphone pictures of her vagina. 'I have my life back,' Lake St. Martin First Nation Chief Christopher Traverse said outside court, minutes after prosecutor Boyd McGill stayed charges of sexual assault, possessing and creating child pornography and sexual interference. Traverse, 41, said his life was turned upside down after he was arrested in February 2024. His bail order prohibited him from talking to or seeing his kids, he had to sell his house, was removed from the boards of the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council and Anishinaabe Child and Family Services and banned from attending Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs events. Child sex abuse charges have been stayed against Lake St. Martin First Nation Chief Christopher Traverse after the young alleged victim admitted in court Friday she lied when she told police the man had taken cellphone pictures of her. 'The whole process was very difficult… and I stopped being there for my community,' Traverse said. 'This is worse than murder, to accuse an individual of touching a girl like that,' he said. 'That's the worst kind of charge you could (face) and I endured that pain for over a year and a half, being called names and all that.' Traverse said he expects to resume his regular duties as chief immediately. He's also hoping for an apology from the Indigenous groups that turned their backs on him. 'They put me down,' he said. 'Now they are going to know I didn't do this kind of stuff.' Traverse was accused of sexually assaulting the girl in December 2023, when she was eight years old. In an interview video played for court last April, the girl said she was watching television when Traverse put her over his shoulder and carried her to the bathroom 'like someone was kidnapped' and told her to pull down her pants (she amended her statement in court, saying Traverse pulled her by the hand to the bathroom). The girl said Traverse told her to pull her pants down. When she didn't comply, Traverse pulled her pants down himself and touched her vagina before taking a picture of her exposed body on his cellphone. The girl said Traverse deleted the picture, and then used her cellphone to take another picture, which he 'forgot' to delete. She claimed Traverse told her not to tell anyone about what had happened. 'I shut my mouth,' she said. 'I thought I would get in big trouble if I told.' The girl said her mother later discovered the picture on her cellphone. 'She was like: 'Who did this to you?' I said Chris.' During cross examination Friday, the girl said around the same time period she had taken a picture of herself using the toilet, which was later discovered by her mother, who told her not to do it again. The girl admitted she then lied to her mother, telling her she took the picture 'by accident.' During subsequent questioning, the girl admitted she took the second picture of her vagina and after her mother discovered it, she blamed Traverse. 'I just got scared,' the girl testified. 'So, Chris didn't take the photo?' Olson asked the girl. 'No,' she said quietly. 'You thought you were going to get in trouble with your mom, didn't you?' Olson said. 'Yes,' the girl replied. Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. The trial before provincial court Judge Stacy Cawley was held over two days, two months apart, and was marked by angry outbursts between the alleged victim's family and Traverse and his supporters. A second day of testimony set for April had to be adjourned after Traverse was assaulted as he arrived outside court. Police confirmed Friday a man in his 40s and a man in his 50s have been charged with one count each of assault. Their names have not been released so as to protect the identity of the child witness in the case. When the trial resumed Friday, Sheriff's officers were stationed outside the courtroom and sat in the small court gallery separating the two families. Sheriff's officers escorted Traverse and his family as they left court. Dean PritchardCourts reporter Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean. Every piece of reporting Dean 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.
