Latest news with #African-Canadian
Winnipeg Free Press
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
NDP says political staffer fired for cause, wants lawsuit turfed
The NDP government said it did nothing wrong when it fired a political staffer in 2024 and has disputed her allegation it was due to racial bias. In response to a lawsuit launched by Shondell Orinthia Babb, the government said in a statement of defence that she had violated its code of conduct by making derogatory comments about Jewish people. Babb, a former press secretary to Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine and Housing Minister Bernadette Smith, is seeking damages for wrongful dismissal in a statement of claim in December. She alleged her firing was a result of discrimination and said the government did not have just cause to terminate her in May 2024. In her lawsuit, Babb describes herself as an African-Canadian. In its statement of defence, the government argues it had sufficient cause to terminate Babb and asks the court to throw out her lawsuit. 'On… May 24, 2024, the plaintiff made derogatory and discriminatory comments about Jewish people in the presence of other employees, including her supervisor,' reads the government court filing. 'The derogatory comments violated the defendant's code of conduct and respectful workplace policy.' The court filing doesn't mention the specific comments. The government said it had received a complaint about Babb as per its code of conduct, but when she met with the human resources director to discuss the issue, the plaintiff 'repeated the derogatory comments and failed or neglected to apologize for the offence that been caused by the said comments.' As a result of the comments, her response to the complaint and meetings with employees who heard the comments, the government said it decided her termination was warranted and justified under its employment agreement with her, its defence filing said. Premier Wab Kinew's chief of staff, Mark Rosner, told Babb in a letter dated May 29, 2024, that she had violated the code of conduct and workplace policy and that she was terminated immediately, Babb said in her court filing. She denied violating the policy in her lawsuit. The government denied the allegation of discrimination and her claim she suffered mental distress as a result of being let go. Babb was hired on Oct. 18, 2023, the day Kinew was sworn in as premier after winning the election. Press secretaries are political staffers — not civil servants — hired by the party in power. Before the termination, Babb had been moved from the press secretary role to that of an executive assistant to the sport minister, Babb said in her court filings. She characterized the assistant job as administrative, which the government disputed in its filings, describing the role as an advisory position that fit her employment agreement. The government said it was not a demotion and her pay had remained the same. Babb's lawyer filed a notice of motion seeking to disqualify Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, a Winnipeg law firm, from working on the case on behalf of the government. Babb argued she had used the law firm's services, beginning in 2020, in relation to her hair care business. She alleged the firm was in a conflict of interest. The law firm has denied there is a conflict of interest. A judge has yet to rule on Babb's motion. Erik PinderaReporter Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Erik. Every piece of reporting Erik 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.
CBC
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
She's thought to be Canada's first Black woman painter. Now the public can finally see her art
When a former coworker told David Woods that her mother was a painter, it would've been totally normal for the Nova Scotian artist, curator and multi-hyphenate to brush it off as water-cooler talk, an easy-to-forget conversational placeholder. Luckily, Woods had the good sense to follow up. "I think the first thing that struck me, when I walked into her home in Sackville, was that I didn't realize the level of artistry that she was referencing," he remembers. Hanging on the walls of his colleague's home weren't just the pictures of a hobbyist. It turns out that her mother was someone thought to be the first documented Black woman painter in the country, one whose works were never shown publicly — until now: An artist named Edith MacDonald-Brown. "A lot of the works were done in the late 19th century, so late 1800s and early 1900s. And a lot of them were executed when she was a teenager: You know, 12, 13, 14 years old," Woods says. "So, I was just totally amazed by that. You look at comparative works at that time period, she would've equaled or surpassed most of the artists that were creating work in the province at the time." Born in Africville — a historic African Nova Scotian enclave in Halifax that the city demolished in the 1960s — in 1886, facts about MacDonald-Brown's life are scant. Woods says she was classically trained, producing "salon-type style painting of the late 1800s" that would've been similar to what was popular in Paris at the time. The Canadian Women Artists History's Artist Database claims many of MacDonald-Brown's works were lost in the razing of Africville. She gave up painting after marriage — a common occurrence for women artists in that era — and never pursued a career making art. "Not that that was a thing back then for women, anyway," Woods says. "It's not like you can Google her name and there's all this stuff," he adds. "She never exhibited while she was an artist." Woods says MacDonald-Brown is "important for a number of reasons. First, as an artist, she was brilliant," he explains. "It was a level of brilliance at such an early age, and one can only imagine if she had had the opportunity to paint professionally, how far [she'd have gone]: These were essentially student works. You can imagine, if she, with that level of mastery, had gone on to a career in art, how far she would have gone." But it isn't just artistic excellence that makes MacDonald-Brown's name one that should be well-known. "The second thing is she comes from a community that has been disparaged for almost all of its existence — and where one leads you to think that this level of achievement of people from here would not have reached that kind of level," he says. "So, it's important: She came from Africville and was an accomplished artist from that community. And then the third importance is that when we talk about Black, African-Canadian history in art, most of the commentators start with Black immigrant art. So, this allows us to show that there's a deeper root." Woods would know: After that day in his colleague's dining room, he has been working on restoring both the works and legacy of MacDonald-Brown. The result? He has curated the first-ever exhibition of her works, From Africville: The Paintings of Edith MacDonald-Brown, on view at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery. If you're thinking her story sounds a little familiar, if her working in relative obscurity and then gaining bigger recognition posthumously, makes you think of another famous Nova Scotian woman artist, Woods is quick to cut any nascent Maud Lewis comparisons. "I'm not sure they are comparable in any way," he says. The self-taught Lewis, he says "was a known entity, and a lot of people owned the work, and she was kind of a folk hero while she lived." Meanwhile, classically trained MacDonald-Brown "was virtually unknown outside of her family. So nobody possessed her work. All of her works belonged to her family. She never sold works. She didn't interact with society as an artist." Then there's the matter of style: Lewis's works are in the tradition of folk art, meaning she painted without following convention. MacDonald-Brown, meanwhile, displays her classical background in the way her art looks and feels. The story and work of MacDonald-Brown fits into Woods's work overall: Back in 1997, he mounted the first exhibition of Black art in Nova Scotia—and has been correcting the historical record of art history in this country ever since by highlighting erased names. There are two other shows curated by Woods currently on view in Canada that similarly highlight overlooked Black contributions to art history: Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901) at the Owens Art Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick and The Secret Codes, a group showcase of African Nova Scotian quilts that's headed to the Canadian Museum of History after successful showings in P.E.I., Toronto and Nova Scotia. Woods adds that the MSVU Gallery show took years to come to fruition, not least because of the amount of work required to restore MacDonald-Brown's art. "They hadn't been treated or touched for over 100 years," he says, listing how one piece had been partially painted over, one was ripped and all had accumulated decades of dust that, without restoration, makes the images themselves harder to see. "I was just glad I had the opportunity to preserve her work, because many of our works might not have lasted much longer," Woods says. "So we now know that they are recorded and that they will be written about. They will be celebrated, and the images will be shared by many."
