Austerity driven mythologies are driving ever greater inequity –

a comment on needed investments and the Ontario budget deficit negotiations.

( Toronto – April 20, 2012 ) – In the most recent provincial election, the Liberal party put together a platform that they called “Forward Together”.  Yet the first budget introduced by the McGuinty Government since the election represents a major step backward for the people of Ontario.

During the election, Premier McGuinty promised to invest in the skills and education of our people – to get the needed results for individuals, for families and for our economy.  Yet, the budget as brought forward delivers major cuts to our education system, deep cuts to our public services as well as to our health care system – while it does nothing to create good jobs that ALL Ontario families need to prosper.

This budget will hurt all Ontarians, but especially those who live on the margins.

A recent valuable report from the Wellesley Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives confirms that a “colour code” is keeping racialized communities members – both First Peoples and peoples of colour – out of good jobs in the Canadian labour market.  And of course inequality in employment leads directly to income inequity.  As a result, people from these diverse racialized communities are two to four times, and in some cases up to six or seven times more likely to live in poverty in Ontario.

So at a time where the these population groups in the province are moving ever closer to being a full 33% or 1/3 of Ontarians – rather than investing in measures to address the growing racial inequities and income disparities, in its austerity driven obsessions, our Government has completely ignored the impacts of these budget cuts on marginalized groups.  In doing so, it has also effectively abandoned through indifference particularly relevant and valuable initiatives that the Government itself had begun to build to start the work of addressing and redressing these disparities – such as the equity and inclusive strategy in the public education system, the equity agenda in the health system and above all, its Poverty Reduction Strategy.

In this budget, the Government has traded equity with “cost effectiveness”.  For instance, it proposes to tie the health funding formula to “efficiency”, without looking at how such a formula may differently impact and affect those communities with additional barriers to accessing health services, as well as disadvantaged individuals with multiple health care needs, who could very well end up getting less health service because it is not “efficient” to serve them.

The budget will also reduce at least 1000 full-time public service jobs.  The Government made a promise that the cuts will not affect service.  But we all know that this is simply a promise they cannot keep.  And any time public service is being cut, those who will be most affected are the ones who are most dependent on those same services, namely, low income Ontarians – most of whom are First Peoples, peoples of colour, women, people with disabilities, and new Canadians.

Further, cutting good public service jobs does not bring prosperity to this province.  What Ontarians need are more good jobs, equitably accessible good jobs, not less.  We need jobs that come with decent wages, with benefits, and in workplaces where workers’ rights are protected.  Racialized communities members are often denied opportunities to good jobs, but laying off public servants will in no way serve to correct that disadvantage.

This is clearly a pro-business budget.  The Government says it will continue to invest $2 billion a year in the Jobs and Prosperity Fund to encourage business investment and job creation.  Yet there is no fixed requirement for the companies that benefit from the fund to adopt equitable hiring principles and practices so that those who are under-represented in the labour market will thereby have equal access to all of the jobs created.

The Government wants to have a balanced budget.  But we question the need to balance the budget in five years, and more critically, we challenge the assumption that cutting and slashing public services is the only way to balance a budget. By focusing exclusively on spending cuts, and by refusing to consider more measures to increase revenues – through a truly progressive tax system, the McGuinty government is giving the people of Ontario very short shrift – by denying us all the tools we need to put our financial house in order.

Instead of freezing the planned corporate taxes, the government should in fact reverse the tax cuts that have already been implemented – over the last several years.

And instead of imposing only a surtax on those making over $500,000 – half a million dollars – a year in income, Ontario should move towards an income and corporate tax system that sees an equitable transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, from the CEOs of the banks to the janitors who clean their offices.

In addition, there are several budget-neutral measures that the Government can put in place even now to effectively address the growing “colour-coded” and other inequities.   Critical initiatives like provincial employment equity will help level the playing field for disadvantaged groups without costing the government any money.  Yet to date, neither the Government nor the opposition parties would appear to have put forward any of these much needed equity and fairness delivering policies.

Our Government can and should help bring prosperity to every Ontario family.  This can only happen by making sure all Ontarians, regardless of their race, gender and ability, have the supports they need – and the opportunities they deserve – to succeed.   We need our government to invest in public programs and services, to deliver on it stated equity commitments, to create truly universal and accessible education and health care systems, and to design a tax system that would achieve an equitable distribution of wealth.  Then – and only then – will Ontario prosper.

Contact – michael kerr – as below or 416-971-9676  and  kerr.michael@gmail.com

Colour of Poverty – Colour of Change
# 1701 – 180 Dundas St. W. Toronto, Ontario  M5G 1Z8
E-mail – colourofpoverty@gmail.com  Phone – 416-966-3882  Fax – 416-971-6780

Web-site – www.colourofpoverty.ca

Anna Mae Aquash

Anna Mae was born on March 27, 1945 to Mary Ellen Pictou and Francis Thomas Levi, both Micmac Indians. She came into the world in a small Indian village just outside the town of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, Canada. Levi left before Anna Mae was born, and Mary Ellen’s third grade education didn’t provide her the skills required to support her children. Still a young woman herself, Mary Ellen Pictou admitted to being a little too unsettled to offer her girls much in the way of discipline. Aquash spent her early years in an atmosphere of poverty and uncertainty.

Aquash’s mother married Noel Sapier, a Micmac traditionalist, in 1949. A strong believer in the preservation of what was left of the Micmac culture and religion, Sapier brought discipline and emotional security to the family. He moved them to Pictou’s Landing, another small Micmac reserve, and tried to make a living between seasonal farmhand jobs and traditional craftwork. Although they were still very poor, Aquash learned a great deal about the richness of her people’s culture at this time.

Poverty often breeds disease, and conditions were very poor at Pictou’s Landing. In 1953, Aquash was plagued with recurrent eye infections. By the time an Indian Department physician recognized the signs of tuberculosis of the eye, Aquash had already developed tuberculosis of the lung. She recovered but was physically weak for some time afterward.

In 1956, Noel Sapier died of cancer, and a new phase of Aquash’s childhood began. Until then, she had encountered racism mostly during trips to nearby towns. Now she went to an off-reserve school and was shocked by the way she was treated there. Although reserve schools were notoriously below standards, Aquash maintained an A-average before attending her new school. By the end of her first year, however, she was failing all her subjects. In later years, she would often talk about how the constant jeers, racial slurs, and lewd comments had ruined her school years. Aquash was not alone; most of her Micmac tribespeople followed the same pattern of failure when they enrolled in off-reserve schools.

Aquash’s difficulties with verbal and sometimes physical threats from classmates continued in high school. She steadily performed at lower and lower grade levels, but she stayed in school, something that many of her Indian classmates had not done. Her school problems were compounded in 1956, when her mother ran away to another reserve to marry Wilford Barlov. Aquash and her siblings came home to find that they had been abandoned. Because it was common for Micmacs to work as migrant farmhands throughout the Maritime Provinces and New England, and Aquash herself had worked summers as a harvester, she dropped out of school and turned to the only profession she knew, working the potato and berry harvest.

Become a Community Organizer

In 1968, Natives were calling for equal rights, cultural recognition, and the fulfillment of promises made in treaties. Aquash worked as a volunteer in the Boston Indian Council’s headquarters while holding down her factory job. Her council work centered on helping young, urban Natives develop self-esteem, a technique that seemed to help them avoid alcohol abuse. It was a topic close to Aquash’s own life. At this time she and Jake Maloney had broken off their marriage and, for a short period after the breakup, she frequently drank too much. She had also seen the havoc created by heavy drinking in Indian communities.

At the Indian Council Aquash heard about a planned protest by AIM. A number of New England AIM members were joining with national leader Russell Means to protest the “official” version of Thanksgiving by converging on the Mayflower II, a reconstruction of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to America. The traditional story behind Thanksgiving was that the Pilgrims were greeted by- and shared a feast with–welcoming Indians. This version, of course, neglected to mention the legacy of conquest and slaughter that Europeans brought to the New World. Aquash participated in the protest and the event made her even more determined to work for Native rights.

Aquash, along with her daughters, moved to Bar Harbor, Maine, to work in the Teaching and Research in Bicultural Education School Project (TRIBES). The girls attended the school and Pictou taught. The curriculum there consisted of traditional subjects as well as Indian history, values, and beliefs to foster pride in the students. Although the project was successful, it was closed in 1972, when funding was cut. The family returned to Boston, where Aquash enrolled in the New Careers program at Wheelock College. This program included both classroom instruction and community work. Pictou’s assignment was teaching at a day care center in Roxbury, a predominately African American section of Boston. She excelled in the program and in her work, and was eventually offered a scholarship to attend Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Aquash declined the offer, preferring to continue her work in the black and Indian communities.

The Trail of Broken Treaties March

Around this time, she met and began a relationship with Nogeeshik Aquash, a Chippewa artist from Ontario. Together, they raised her daughters and became more involved in the growing Indian rights movement. In 1972 the couple participated in the march on Washington, D.C., called Trail of Broken Treaties. Originating with AIM, the march included Indians from all over the country who converged on the capital to draw attention to Indian issues. The group took over and occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs building and then presented a list of 20 civil rights demands. After a week of occupation, the government promised to review their demands, point by point, a great victory and the first time a national organization of Indians had faced a confrontation as a united people.

Several months later, in April of 1973, a group of 200 Indians, led by AIM, congregated at the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre , in which 500 army soldiers opened fire on a group of Minneconjou Ghost Dancers, killing 300 men, women, and children. Wounded Knee, located near the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, was chosen as the place for protest because of its painful historical significance. AIM wished to draw public attention to its efforts against the reputedly corrupt administration of tribal chairman of the Oglala Sioux, Richard “Dick” Wilson, who used beatings and intimidation to rule the reservation.

After hostilities increased, the town was occupied by 2,000 Indians in a siege lasting 70 days. When word of the occupation and resulting siege by federal troops reached Boston, Pictou and Nogeeshik left for South Dakota. Arriving several days later, they immediately busied themselves by sneaking food and medical supplies to the occupiers. Initially, they camped at Crow Dog’s Paradise, the home of medicine men Henry Crow Dog and Leonard Crow Dog. Later, inside one of the stores at Wounded Knee, Aquash helped deliver Pedro, the first son of Mary Brave Bird, who would soon marry Leonard Crow Dog. On April 12, 1973, Anna Mae married Nogeeshik Aquash in a traditional Lakota (Sioux) ceremony presided over by Nicholas Black Elk and Wallace Black Elk.

The standoff at Wounded Knee ended with the indictment of AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means. The Aquashes returned to Boston, where they continued their work for the movement. Aquash was on her way to becoming a national AIM leader. In 1974, she moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, to work in the AIM office there. Within a year, she was involved in the Menominee Indian takeover of an abandoned Alexian Brothers Catholic Monastery in protest of the termination of their federal Indian status. The conflict in Gresham, Wisconsin, ended peacefully, but from that time on, Aquash was constantly under FBI observation.

Back to Wounded Knee

During the summer of 1975, Aquash and AIM security chief Leonard Peltier attended an AIM conference in Farmington, New Mexico, to lend support to Navajo protests over mining in the Four Corners area. From there, they were called back to Pine Ridge to help organize security for Lakota traditionalists and AIM supporters who were being attacked by Wilson’s provisional police force. They camped on the property of the Jumping Bull family. On June 26, 1975, a fight broke out between two FBI agents and AIM members. Two agents and a young Indian were killed. AIM members scattered as an international manhunt began for the FBI agents’ killers. Peltier was later arrested, charged, and convicted of the murders of the two FBI agents.

Three months later, in September 1975, Aquash was arrested with several others during a raid on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Fearing the worst, she jumped bail and went “underground” (hid from the law). In November, she was leaving the Port Madison Reservation in Washington State when federal agents began watching the two vehicles in the AIM caravan. In Oregon, just one mile short of the Idaho border, state troopers stopped the group and Aquash was again arrested. She was extradited to South Dakota in handcuffs to face charges from the raid at Rosebud, as well as federal charges of transporting and possessing firearms and dangerous weapons, including dynamite. Since she had not been indicted on the earlier charges, the South Dakota judge released her on bail; she fled again on November 24, 1975.

On February 24, 1976, a Lakota rancher found Aquash’s dead body while riding the perimeter of his property. Her body’s deteriorated condition indicated that she had been dead for some time. The body was initially taken to the Pine Ridge Public Health Service for an autopsy. Her cause of death was listed as exposure, and since no one was able to identify her, she was buried as a “Jane Doe”–an anonymous corpse. Her hands were cut off and sent to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., for possible identification, and a week later, Aquash was identified. When her family was informed, they called on AIM to help them secure a second autopsy. On March 11, 1976, another post-mortem revealed a .32 caliber bullet hole at the base of Anna Mae’s skull. Her death was then officially designated a homicide. Aquash was reburied with traditional rites, and the investigation of her murder began.

Her body was found on the side of a road in 1976. An autopsy was done and it was thought that she died of exposure, and since no one could identify her, she was buried as an anonymous corpse. Her hands had been cut of and sent to Wasington for finger printing, and a week later the body was identified as Anna. Her family then requested for her body to be dug up and for a second autopsy to be done. This autopsy revealed that she had been shot in the back of the head, and her death was officially labled a homocide. 

    In March 2003, 28 years later, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham were indicted for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. They were both later convicted and then sentenced to life in prison. There are many other people who may have been part of the murder and there have been other charges made as well. People believe that Anna was killed because she knew to much information on a previous murder.

The murder of Anna Mae Aquash will never be fully resolved, but she will always be remebered as a powerful woman who fought for the rights of her people.

Anna Mae Aquash Quotes:

- “I’m Indian all the way, and always will be. I’m not going to stop fighting until I die, and I hope I’m a good example of a human being and of my tribe.”

 

- “These white people think this country belongs to them. They don’t realize that they are only in charge right now because there’s more of them than there are of us. The whole country changed with only a handful of raggedy-ass pilgrims that came over here in the 1500s. And it can take a handful of raggedy-ass Indians to do the same, and I intend to be one of those raggedy-ass Indians.”

 

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(via pictou_aquash/ & bio)

• Day 100! of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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                                     Racism Free Ontario Forum Agenda

                                          Partners / Speakers / Workshops

Hello everyone!

This is just a friendly reminder and update about the forum tomorrow.

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LOCATION

Event: Racism Free Ontario Forum

Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (PT)

Location:
OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education)
252 Bloor Street West Toronto
Closest station is St. George Subway Station
7349257, M5S 1V5

For more information click here:
Racism Free Ontario Forum
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Speakers

Workshops

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 Opening Panel

Avvy Go will be discussing why we should continue to fight for racial equality, and why there is still hope despite all the worrying signs.

Neethan Shan will be discussing the challenges and marginalization faced by racialized children and youth in our education system and our potential avenues and tools to address them.

Media Workshop 

Community vs. Corporation
Karen Sun and Florence Li. How do communities organize and build solidarity in the face of corporate intimidation and threats of litigation? How can we increase capacity in our own communities to confront corporate machinery and mobilize our community partners? How can we benefit from cross-generational organizing and learn from activists who have come before us? Join Karen Sun and Florence Li, two members of the Solidarity Committee Against Anti-Asian Racism (SCAAAR), who will share about best practices and engage participants in conversations about the challenges and struggles in community organizing. These questions we will ask come largely from the organizing against Maclean’s magazine’s “Too Asian?” article and are issues that we continue to face in our continued work against racism in the media and higher education.

Social Media Workshop

May Lui. May Lui, anti-racist activist and educator will be leading an educational and fun workshop on how to identify and deal with online racism and look at strategies we all can use to fight back against racism and other oppressions.

Intersectionality Of Oppression Workshop
Kim Crosby. Bringing to the table the complexity of our multiple oppressions including, but not limited to racism, sexism, ableism and heterosexism is crucial to creating communities and movements where no one gets left behind and we can participate with our full selves. This workshop will describe systems of oppressions and their characteristics as well as collectively name global and local strategies of resistance.

Youth Panel

Krisna Saravanamuttu believes that in order to combat racism, injustice and inequity, we have to first know the history of where we’re coming in order to forge a better tomorrow.

Shaun Shepherd’s concluding remarks will be on the need to understand the evolution of racism as a means to combat it. The institution of racism has evolved in the structures it employs. Combating racism requires community organizing which adapts strategies to address novel racist structures.

Performances

Jorge Antonio Vallejos, aka Black Coffee Poet, will be reading pieces about his identity and his experiences with incarceration and racism.

Wen Xu will be playing  2 pieces of music in this event. “Spring on Qingjiang River.”  This music depicts the natural beauty of Qingjiang River and evoke water-colour of landscape in Spring. “Joyful News.” This music expresses  the happiness after receiving good news by bright and vivacious tune.

Sandra Lovelace Nicholas, a Maliseet woman from New Brunswick’s Tobique Nation,  has been a driving force in securing rights for Aboriginal women in Canada, and is also a wonderful example of the impact one woman can have when she sets out to correct an injustice.

Sandra lost her status when she married a white man, and even once divorced, she and her children didn’t recover her status. At the time, the Tobique band council refused to allocate her a subsidized house. The law made no similar provision for Native men who married non-aboriginals. Women who lost status were effectively barred from having their children educated on the reserve and taking part in band decisions. In 1977, Ms. Lovelace Nicholas took her case to the United Nations human-rights committee, charging that the discriminatory measures in Canada’s Indian Act violated an international covenant on civil and political rights – a case she won in 1981. The law was not reversed until 1985; it took her nearly ten years to recover her status.

Challenging discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act, which deprived Aboriginal women of their status when they married non-Aboriginals, she was instrumental in bringing the case before the United Nations Human Rights Commission and lobbying for the 1985 legislation which reinstated the rights of Aboriginal women and their children in Canada.  In 1990, she was awarded the Order of Canada, and in 1992, she received the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case. Sandra Lovelace Nicholas’ efforts have helped advance the cause of civil rights in this country, and her pride, strength and determination have made her a role model for many Aboriginal women. A proud mother of 4, she studied at St. Thomas University for 3 years and has a degree in residential construction from the Maine Northern Technical College.  She continues to make her home on the Tobique First Nation.

(via Senators  & Sandra Lovelace Nicholas fought for Aboriginal women’s rights )

• Day 99 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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Beverly K. Jacobs (Gowehgyuseh). 

Jacobs is a lawyer by profession and holds a Bachelor of Law Degree from the University of Windsor and a Masters Degree in Law from the University of Saskatchewan. She has taught at the University of Windsor, the University of Toronto, the University of Saskatchewan and Ryerson University and began her career as an entrepreneur and consultant with her own firm, Bear Clan Consulting where she dealt with issues such as Bill C-31, Residential Schools, Matrimonial Real Property, and Aboriginal Women’s health issues.

Jacobs’ work on Missing and Murdered Aboriginal women was inspired by her work with Amnesty International as the Lead Researcher and consultant for their Stolen Sisters Report. This 2004 groundbreaking document highlighted racialized and sexualized violence against Aboriginal women in Canada. Her work with Amnesty International led her to run for President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) in 2004. There she successfully secured funding for Sisters In Spirit, a research, education and policy initiative aimed at raising public awareness about Canada’s missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

In her role as NWAC President she has traveled extensively to raise awareness, rally citizens and inspire young Aboriginal women. Jacobs was re-elected for a second term as President of NWAC in 2006; in the same year she was appointed Chair of the National Aboriginal Council on Species at Risk (NACOSAR), which advises the Minister of Environment and makes recommendations to the Canadian Endangered Species Conservation Council. In October 2008, Jacobs was honoured by Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, and Civilian Peace Service Canada as one of 50 Canadian women whose work and dedication has helped to further a culture of peace in Canada. In November 2008, she was the recipient of the Governor General’s Award in commemoration of the Persons Case, which salutes Canadian contributions to the advancement of women’s equality.

(via Native Leaders of Canada – Beverly Jacobs)

• Day 98 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Art was five years old when his parents and grandparents were forcibly removed to Manitoba in 1942 to work on a sugar beet farm. He later became a teacher and was a principal in several Winnipeg schools for 18 years. He has been active with many cultural organizations, especially in the Japanese Canadian community. As president of the National Association of Japanese Canadians, Art led the negotiations to achieve a just redress settlement for Japanese Canadians interned during the Second World War.

He is author of the book Japanese Canadian Redress Legacy: A Community Revitalized published by the NAJC in January 2003.

In 1991, Art received this country’s highest recognition, the Order of Canada, and in 1999 he received an Honourary Doctorate degree from the University of Winnipeg. He is currently a Citizenship Judge for Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Arthur’s Letter to Mulroney Regarding the Lubicon Tragedy

(via National Association of Japanese Canadians)

• Day 97 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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Red Slam is a hiphopsoulrock fusion band whose music uplifts, self-identifies and promotes unity through Spoken, Lyricism which Arranges Meaning (SLAM). The group is comprised of young poets, songwriters, rappers, musicians, composers, and vocalists, breakers and graf artists representing diverse indigenous nation affiliations across Turtle Island and Internationally (Mohawk, Mi’kmaq, Anishinaabe, Inca, Cree, Dene). The Red Slam Movement started back in the fall of 2008 after a 12 week Slam Poetry workshop series at the Native Canadian Centre in Toronto. In 2009 a TUAS and the OAC Grant gave way to professional development sessions with award winning recording artists Digging Roots.

In 2010 with support a Word of Mouth Travel Grant, Red Slam began the DissemiNation Tour performing live in cities across Ontario and Quebec. 2011 Red Slam featured at the NXNE Music Festival, the Home and Native Sound Music Series, and Manifesto Urban Arts Festival. They started 2012 headlining in Vancouver, BC for Red Wire’s Sentinel Shores Land Defense. Since 2010 Red Slam Collective has been successfully delivering cultural arts facilitation in the areas of slam poetry; collective rap compositions and recording; graffiti arts, break dancing and hip hop choreopoetry under their 4 Directions Urban Arts Workshop Series, to children, youth and intergenerational communities in both urban and rural settings across Ontario. These workshops integrate diverse indigenous teachings with contemporary explorations of self-identity, anti-colonial journey mapping, community capacity building and self-
empowerment.

Join our FB Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Slam/13118916774

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RedSlam

Official Sonic Bids Profile: http://profiles.sonicbids.com/artists/RedSlamCollective

MySpace Page: http://myspace.com/redslamcollective

Check us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/RedSlamCollective

Nia:wen~ Chi Miigwetch~ Wela’lin

• Day 96 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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kemba king is an artist. healer. storyteller.

she has been writing and sharing her art for over 10 years. in 2009 and 2010 she was a part of the anitafrika dub theatre playwrights-in-residence program where she wrote and co-produced the biomyth monodrama ‘where the stories are told’. during the same year, she participated and culminated from the sacred leaders mentorship program from sacred women centres international. she hosted and co-produced a radio show entitled ‘womyn’s word’ for over 10 years. she also co-directed and co-facilitated the medina collective – an organisation committed to informing and engaging young women of colour in media literacy primarily via hip hop. kemba is an emerging blogger http://insearchofmymotherstongues.wordpress.com/. kemba uses her experience in community organising and community counseling to support emerging leaders in toronto.

• Day 95 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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In 2007, Sheila Watt-Cloutier was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy work in showing the impact of global climate change on human rights — especially in the Arctic, where it is felt more immediately, and more dramatically, than anywhere else in the world. (The Arctic is the planet’s health barometer; what happens in the world happens there first.) By making a human connection – by telling the human stories — she helped a generation see the issue in a newly urgent way. Her advocacy work — not just environmental but all-encompassing — is grounded in human rights, in our shared humanity.

Based in Nunavut, Watt-Cloutier is an Officer of the Order of Canada. She is also the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Aboriginal Achievement Award, the UN Champion of the Earth Award, and the prestigious Norwegian Sophie Prize. From 1995 - 2002, she was elected the Canadian President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). At the ICC, she was a hugely influential voice in the successful negotiations of the Stockholm Convention, the landmark treaty banning Persistent Organic Pollutants. (POPs end up in the Arctic and have been an alarming health issue for Inuit). She was later elected in 2002 to become the International Chair of the ICC, representing the 155,000 Inuit from Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia; she held this post until 2006. Under her leadership, she and 62 fellow Inuit from Canada and Alaska launched the world’s first international legal action on climate change, with a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She is the main signatory to the petition. Displaying calm, clear and reflective leadership on various big issues, Watt-Cloutier is a much requested speaker worldwide.

(via Sheila Watt-Cloutier Speaker Profile at The Lavin Agency)

• Day 94 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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His role in escorting a group of enslaved persons to the farm of his owner’s brother made some question him. While in transit, they could easily have escaped and made themselves free, but Henson believed his owner’s offer of potential manumission (ownership of himself). So, he would not allow the escape and was sorely disappointed when he realized that his “owner” had no intention of giving him his freedom.

While many slaves escaped north where slavery had been abolished, Henson believed buying his freedom was better than life on the run. He was so trusted that he was put in charge of escorting 21 other slaves to Kentucky. While returning to Maryland, Henson preached along the way, earning him enough to buy his freedom. Betrayed by his master, Henson was sold. Deciding to flee, Henson took his family and connected with the “Underground Railroad (UGRR),” an informal network of people who assisted fugitive Blacks in gaining freedom. After a perilous six-week journey, they reached Upper Canada (now Ontario) on October 28, 1830.

In Upper Canada, Henson became a leader in the UGRR community. His involvement brought him into contact with Hiram Wilson, an American anti-slavery missionary. Together, they discussed founding a vocational school with the idea of having an organized community of UGRR refugees grow around it. In 1842, with money to establish the school secured, Henson founded the settlement of Dawn near Dresden, Upper Canada.
Henson was forced to run away with his wife and family, settling near Dresden, Ontario. With his leadership skills, he was able to command the support of abolitionists who helped him create the Dawn Settlement. It was Henson’s belief that Blacks needed to learn skills within their own community. Later, his biographyThe Life of Josiah Henson Formerly a Slave Now an Inhabitant of Canada was written and sold to raise funds for the continuation of the Dawn Settlement. Because the connection of Henson with the Uncle Tom figure helped to keep him in the spotlight, he allowed it to continue.

(via Black History Canada – Josiah Henson)

Read more about Josiah Henson:

Josiah Henson and his wife Nancy
This photograph of Josiah Henson and his wife Nancy appears on the Virtual Museum of Canada website.

From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad
See page 21 for an account of Josiah Henson’s escape from enslavement in the US and his founding of a settlement called Dawn in southwestern Ontario. Also examines controversies associated with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’sUncle Tom’s Cabin. From Google Books.

Josiah Henson – Birth of a Leader
An illustrated feature about Josiah Henson, a farmer and community leader who formerly had been enslaved. From the Parks Canada website.

An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson
Read an online digitized copy of the book An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson. From Google Books.

Josiah Henson
A biography of Josiah Henson, fugitive slave, Methodist preacher, author, and founder of the settlement at Dawn (near Dresden), Canada West. From theDictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

Dawn Settlement Tour
An online tour guide for the Dawn Settlement in Dresden, Ontario. Features information about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, First Baptist Church, and other historic structures. From the dresden.ca website.

Dresden
A profile of Dresden, Ontario, the location of the British American Institute, established in 1841 by Reverend Josiah Henson. From The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Josiah Henson 
A profile of Josiah Henson, founder of the historic Dawn Township and British-American Institute in Ontario. From The Canadian Encyclopedia.

• Day 93 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.
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