Continuing Coverage: (click headline)
First Nation condemns 'inadequate' punishment of BC lawyer who took on '60s scoop cases
Stephen Bronstein was suspended for one month and fined $4,000 after admitting to mishandling the cases of Sixties Scoop survivors. A First Nation in B.C.’s Cariboo region is condemning the B.C. Law Society’s handling of a Vancouver lawyer’s mishandling of residential school survivor cases.
Bronstein was fined $4,000 after admitting to mishandling the cases of residential school survivors. He was also barred from acting as counsel for any ’60s Scoop claimants in the future.
The ’60s Scoop was a large-scale program that allowed child welfare organizations to remove Indigenous children from their families and place them in the foster care system and allow them to be adopted by white families.
The Tŝilhqot’in Nation on Wednesday condemned the law society for not adequately punishing Bronstein, noting that many of his clients were from the First Nation.
**
NDP joins call for provincial gov't to apologize for residential schools
**
Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Webstad was recently told she is a link for reconciliation between First Nations and non-First Nations in Canada. |
Phyllis Webstad was 6 years old when the new orange shirt she chose for
her 1st day of school was stripped off her back. It was the early 70s
& she was the 3rd generation to attend St. Joseph’s Residential
School in Williams Lake, BC. |
OUR HOMETOWN: Truth and reconciliation champion
Phyllis Webstad continues to help the country understand the residential school legacy
While the suggestion is daunting, the 53-year-old member of the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation said she cannot help but think about a picture of a bridge hanging on her living room wall that her Aunt Agnes Jack purchased at a yard sale.
“The bridge is woven together with rope and tree roots,” she said. “It’s not pretty, it’s not perfect, but it’s enough that you could walk across it.”
Webstad said she keeps thinking about that.
“That’s been my life it seems because I grew up on the reserve, I’m half Secwepemc, I’m half white and I have lighter skin so I’ve been more readily accepted in the non-Indigenous community and I’ve been able to be a bridge builder or gap person.”
She described the time period since the announcement confirming the remains of 215 children buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School as a whirlwind.
Webstad’s mom Rose Wilson gave birth to her in July 1967 at her grandmother Lena Jack’s home in Dog Creek. She found her birth father in Kamloops a few years ago. “I have eight other siblings, one passed away, so there are seven. They all live in Kamloops.”
Read more: Orange Shirt Society launches first textbook on residential school history
No comments:
Post a Comment
tell us your thoughts!