Rick Garrick

The Ontario Native Women’s Association (ONWA) released its Journey to Safe SPACES: Indigenous Anti-Human Trafficking Engagement Report at the Italian Cultural Centre in Thunder Bay.

“Together, we have been able to look deeply at what is needed to safely exit Indigenous women and girls from human traffickers and gangs,” says Cora-Lee McGuire-Cyrete, executive director of ONWA.

The report includes input gathered from people who were most directly impacted by human trafficking and survivors who were willing to share their stories.

A grandmother originally from Deer Lake attended the 2019 Dennis Franklin Cromarty First Nations High School (DFC) graduation to watch her grandson graduate even though she had just been released from hospital.

“My grandson graduated today and I am so proud,” says Delilah Quill, grandmother of DFC graduate Morley Quill. “All of my kids graduated from DFC. I have three kids and this is my first grandson that graduated from there.”

Quill says she made it just in time for the graduation, which was held at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Coliseum building in Thunder Bay.

The community of Webequie is calling for support after the body of 17-year-old Braiden Jacob, from Webequie, was found in Thunder Bay on Dec. 9.

“He has been found and that is not a good thing to hear, especially with our young people,” says Webequie Head Councillor Harry Wabasse. “A lot of young people here were very close, especially in a community this small too.”
Wabasse says the community is “very fragile at this moment, especially the young people.”

Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler shared how residential school impacted one of his cousins during the Orange Shirt Day Indian Residential School Awareness Walk in Thunder Bay.

Attawapiskat Chief Ignace Gull wants to share the steps his community followed to implement a drug search policy in the community to combat illegal drugs.

“What we’re doing is we’re saving lives,” Gull says. “We’re trying to save young children and the unborn. That is why we are doing it. It is very important to share the steps that we took in order to be able to do it the way we did it.”

Gull says a petition was signed by 418 people in 2015 to mandate the chief and council to do something about the illegal drugs that were being brought into the community.