Portfolio
Photo by Adrian Wyld for The Canadian Press
Reconciliation not a priority for Trudeau government, First Nations leaders say
Published in The Toronto Star | April 17, 2024
he Assembly of First Nations is calling for a renewed commitment to reconciliation from the federal government, with First Nations leadership saying the federal budget tabled on Tuesday showed Indigenous Peoples are not a priority
Photo by Blair Gable for The Toronto Star
Federal budget’s $918M for Indigenous housing and infrastructure falls far short of what advocates say is needed
Published in The Toronto Star | April 16, 2024
Tuesday’s federal budget committed more than $9 billion in new funding for Indigenous initiatives, focusing on education and youth, on-reserve supports and economic opportunities.
Photo by Jayson Mills for The Toronto Star
Why are Indigenous people so overrepresented in Canadian prisons?
Published in The Toronto Star | April 11, 2024
When the government repealed some mandatory minimum prison sentences, it was responding to the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prisons. Why hasn’t it worked?
Photo by Adrian Wyld for The Canadian Press
She says this alternative to prison saved her life. So why isn't Canada investing in more of them?
Published in The Toronto Star | April 2, 2024
Healing lodges were proposed to Ottawa as an alternative to federal institutions. But supporters said the federal government has not done enough to support them.
Photo by Liam Richards for The Canadian Press
Auditor’s reports expose Ottawa’s failure to support Indigenous housing and policing, AFN national chief says
Published in The Toronto Star | March 20, 2024
New reports from Canada’s auditor general prove that Ottawa has failed Indigenous communities when it comes to housing and policing, says the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
Photo by R.J. Johnston for The Toronto Star
'Our guys don't have somewhere to go': Trudeau government criticized for taking too long to fund Indigenous housing
Published in The Toronto Star | February 27, 2024
Housing organizations supporting Indigenous people say they are desperate for the money Ottawa's new housing strategy is preparing to distribute.
Photo by Adrian Wyld for The Canadian Press
'Monumental': Supreme Court rules Indigenous child welfare law is constitutional
Published in The Toronto Star | February 9, 2024
The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a law that gives Indigenous nations sole jurisdiction over the welfare of Indigenous children in a landmark challenge of federal legislation by Quebec.
Photo by Justin Tang for The Toronto Star
Trudeau government's probe into abuse in Canadian sports is lacking, critics say
Published in The Toronto Star | February 1, 2024
The federal government announced The Future of Sport in Canada Commission after athletes testified before the Heritage and Status of Women committees in recent months about abuse in Canadian sport.
Photo by Blair Gable for The Toronto Star
After years of trouble, can the AFN's new chief avoid another 'explosion,' and unite First Nations?
Published in The Toronto Star | January 28, 2024
Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak has inherited an organization that has been buffeted by internal strife.
Photo by Sean Kilpatrick for The Canadian Press
Ottawa is supposed to process First Nations families' child services requests within days. Sometimes it makes them wait a year
Published in The Toronto Star | January 4, 2024
First Nations families are waiting for as long as a year to have their applications for child and family services assessed by the federal government — even though Ottawa has been ordered to process them within 12 to 48 hours.
Photo by Richard Drew for Associated Press
She confronted Justin Trudeau when she was 12. Now Autumn Peltier has a new message
Published in The Toronto Star | December 26, 2023
Autumn Peltier was just 12 when she took on the prime minister. Today she hopes to build a better future for Indigenous peoples and wants world leaders to listen.
Photo by Chris Young for The Toronto Star
Justin Trudeau vowed to end boil water advisories in Indigenous communities. But a new plan to address that is under fire
Published in The Toronto Star | December 23, 2023
The federal government says new legislation will help end water troubles in many Indigenous communities. Some First Nations leaders aren't so sure.
Photo courtesy of Toronto Star
Manitoba regional chief Cindy Woodhouse elected Assembly of First Nations' national chief
Published in The Toronto Star | December 7, 2023
Woodhouse, who was a front-runner throughout the campaign after announcing her candidacy in October, ran on a platform of rebuilding the national advocacy organization to make it a supportive place for all First Nations.
Photo courtesy of Alice McLeod, Nipissing First Nation for The Toronto Star
‘We’ve been accused of being Métis deniers’: Trudeau government’s proposed law pits First Nations against Ontario Métis
Published in The Toronto Star | November 15, 2023
A new bill recognizing Métis rights in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan is being met with outrage from First Nations and Métis groups.
Photo courtesy of Library and Archives Canada
Supreme Court of Canada hears case on broken treaty promises with up to $126-billion award on the line
Published in The Toronto Star | November 9, 2023
A landmark case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada this week could leave the federal and provincial governments on the hook for a $126-billion award to First Nations in northern Ontario for failing to honour treaties for 150 years.
Photo by Gino Donato for The Globe and Mail
Northern Ontario doctors face ‘hidden crisis’ of emotional distress amid staffing shortages
Published in The Globe and Mail | September 15, 2023
In Northern Ontario, the burden of the doctors’ shortage is felt much more acutely than in other parts of the province. Rural doctors are responsible for both primary care in their family practices and emergency care in the hospitals.
Photo by Christopher Katsarov for The Globe and Mail
When every minute counts
Published in The Globe and Mail | September 13, 2023
On any given day at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, trauma nurse Thao Sindall cares for some of Ontario’s sickest and most injured patients. The Globe and Mail followed her for a 12-hour shift
Photo by NATHB
Children with complex medical conditions are aging out of the system designed to support them
Published in The Globe and Mail | September 8, 2023
Health care systems for adults with complex medical conditions, particularly for those that arise at birth, are not as co-ordinated as those for pediatric patients.
Photo by Joy SpearChief-Morris
Alberta conservation program looks to change how ranchers deal with grizzly bear conflicts
Published in The Globe and Mail | August 18, 2023
As the number of grizzly bears increases, they are being found farther east from the mountains, encroaching onto ranchland, causing potential conflict with humans and livestock.
Doctor shortage leaves Northern Ontario emergency rooms on the brink of shutting down
Published in The Globe and Mail | August 9, 2023
Emergency rooms across Northern Ontario’s rural hospitals are in “dire” need for more physicians and funding as doctors struggle to keep emergency rooms open through the summer trauma season.
Photo by Jesse Winter, The Globe and Mail
Almost 900 wildfires burning across Canada as provinces and territories set record temperatures
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 17, 2023
Nearly 900 wildfires continued to burn across Canada on Monday, as military assistance arrived in British Columbia and plumes of smoke triggered air quality warnings in more than a dozen U.S. states.
Photo by Elizabeth Kataquapit
Indigenous communities face harsher effects from wildfire smoke
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 15, 2023
For Indigenous communities, it is the smoke, not flames, that accounts for the majority of wildfire-related evacuations.
Photo by Ryan Peruniak, The Narwhal
Bears aren’t as deadly as you’ve been taught.
Published in The Narwhal | July 13, 2023
In Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, Parks Canada is hiring Indigenous employees to change the way people think about bears.
Illustration by Michelle Theodore, The Walrus
Being Black in a Small Town
Published in The Walrus | April 21, 2023
Schitt’s Creek and Gilmore Girls would have us believe there’s room for only one Black person in every small town. When will pop culture catch up to reality?
Photo by Chickweed Arts, The Globe and Mail
Reclaiming Inuit ingredients sets this body-care company apart – while connecting it to community
Published in The Globe and Mail | March 20, 2023
At the heart of their business, the Clarkes see Uasau as a product serving the North, returning traditional Inuit cultural practices and the healing properties of the bowhead whale to their community in a contemporary way.
Photo by Jeffery Burnett, CBC Docs
30 years after an historic fight against clear cutting, Indigenous communities are still fighting for forests
Published in CBC Docs | March 17, 2023
Two directors tell the story of the people trying to protect some of our last old-growth forests
Photo by Adrienne Row-Smith, The Narwhal
Ottawa’s Greenbelt is federally owned but not federally protected
Published in The Narwhal | February 1, 2023
The horseshoe of wetlands, forests and farms between Ottawa’s downtown and suburbs isn’t immediately at risk from Ontario’s new development policies. But it’s still threatened, which is why some think it should be made a national park.
Photo by Kamara Morozuk, The Narwhal
Chiefs of Ontario want development-friendly More Homes Built Faster Act repealed
Published in The Narwhal | December 9, 2022
First Nations chiefs say Housing Minister Steve Clark requested meeting on omnibus housing bill, then disappeared: a ‘blatant disregard of our nation-to-nation relationship’
Photo by Jesse Winter, The Globe and Mail
Olympic race walker Evan Dunfee hopes to take lessons of success on the track into local politics
Published in The Globe and Mail | September 10, 2022
Evan Dunfee began race walking when he was about 10 years old because he wanted to be the best at something. Twenty years later, he crossed the finish line at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, with a record-breaking gold medal.
Photo by Jeff Mcintosh, The Canadian Press
The housing crisis in Canmore, Alta., is driving out doctors, families and development
Published in The Globe and Mail | September 10, 2022
Housing has long been an issue in Canmore, a former mining town of about 16,000 about an hour’s drive east of Calgary. A combination of a seasonal workforce, vacation properties and several failed attempts at building new housing have pushed up prices and squeezed supply.
Photo by Crystal Mercredi, The Globe and Mail
Elders want historic church in Alberta’s Fort Chipewyan rebuilt, chief says
Published in The Globe and Mail | August 26, 2022
The chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation says the fire that destroyed one of Alberta’s oldest churches this week is a significant loss and that elders in the community want it rebuilt.
Photo by Gavin John, The Globe and Mail
Indigenous designer transforms Hudson’s Bay blankets into coats
Published in The Globe and Mail | August 8, 2022
For Stephanie Crowchild, sewing is a healing practice, a process for revitalization and a way of reclaiming her identity as an Indigenous woman after a period of personal darkness.
Photo by Jason Franson, The Canadian Press
Indigenous survivors look to move past anger after papal visit
Published in The Globe and Mail | August 1, 2022
For some survivors, the meeting with the Pope was an opportunity to voice demands for further justice. For others, like Noella Robinson and Joan. St. Denis, the meeting was a chance to put aside anger and move forward with healing.
Photo by Vatican Media, Reuters
Pope Francis renews his residential schools apology in Quebec
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 27, 2022
In a province where Catholicism once dominated many facets of life, Pope Francis renewed his apology to Indigenous people for the harms caused by many Catholic members in government-funded residential schools.
Photo by Todd Korol, Reuters
Chief Littlechild’s headdress gift to Pope Francis carries heavy significance
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 26, 2022
The bestowing of a headdress can carry multiple meanings, knowledge keepers and elders say, and there was a purpose to placing it atop Pope Francis after he apologized on Monday for decades of abuses at Catholic-run residential schools.
Photo by Patrick T. Fallon, AFP, Getty Images
Support workers to aid residential schools survivors during Pope Francis visit
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 25, 2022
300 cultural support workers will be on hand in Alberta to aid residential school survivors during the Pope’s historic apology
Photo by The Daniels Corporation
This couple spent eight years searching for a condo in Toronto that fit their accessibility needs
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 22, 2022
Eager to move from an apartment with a shower kept together by duct tape, the Roses went on the hunt for an accessible home.
Photo by Vatican Media, Reuters
Indigenous nations, organizers struggle to secure space for residential school survivors for papal visit
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 18, 2022
Indigenous groups say they are worried that many residential school survivors will not be able to attend Pope Francis’s appearances across Canada later this month, owing to ticket shortages and poor communication from the Catholic Church and the federal government.
Photo by Patrick Doyle, Canadian Press
Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge wants to break the culture of silence around abuse in sports
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 15, 2022
Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge wants to be a “change maker” in Canadian politics. She’s starting with the Canadian sport landscape, working to break the culture of silence surrounding abuse and to bring joy back to sports.
Photo by Patrick Doyle, Canadian Press
Hockey Canada’s culture must change in wake of ‘extremely horrific’ sexual-assault allegations, Sport Minister says
Published in The Globe and Mail | July 6, 2022
Hockey Canada’s handling of sexual-assault allegations involving eight Canadian Hockey League members, including players with the gold-medal-winning world junior team, reveals a culture problem within the organization that needs to change, federal Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge says.
Everything but the fairy tale ending
Published in CBC Sports | July 29, 2021
I stand at the start line behind my blocks, trying to see through the pouring rain that is beating down on me...
Photo by Fred Lum, The Globe and Mail
Indigenous and Black communities have a shared past of injustice. They deserve a shared future of justice
Published in The Globe and Mail | May 29, 2021
Solidarity in the face of systemic racism and police violence is more than just symbolic; it’s the latest stage in a common struggle against colonialism. What will the next stages be?