BREAKING Another suspect arrested in Toronto Pearson airport gold heist: police
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
Behind prison walls, National Indigenous People’s Day was celebrated this month, with inmates at a Manitoba federal prison granted access to music, drumming and sharing circles — positive steps forward to reconnect Indigenous inmates with their culture and rehabilitate a group that is incarcerated at a disproportionate rate.
In mid-June, CTV News was given exclusive access inside Stony Mountain Institution to observe community partners holding an afternoon of music, dancing and food for nearly 200 Indigenous inmates who had signed up to participate.
The prison yard was transformed into an outdoor venue, where a band led by Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee performed songs for inmates.
Settee has visited the prison before to do outreach with inmates, but this is the first time he brought his band, Keewatin Breeze, with him.
“We wanted to show them that they are not forgotten about, and they are still our people,” Settee told CTV National News.
“Show those relatives of ours here that they matter and that we are waiting for them when they come out on the other side, and want to be able to give them the hope to start a new life, because everybody deserves a second chance.”
A report released at the end of May shines a light on the importance of this work — auditor general Karen Hogan found in the report that Black and Indigenous offenders face poorer outcomes than any other groups in the federal correctional system and have greater barriers to returning to life when their sentence is up.
But this information isn’t new. Hogan pointed out that this issue has been reported on in previous audits, and correctional services have done little to adjust their practices.
Meanwhile, the number of Indigenous inmates in Canadian prisons is rising.
According to statistics from 2018, Indigenous men represent 28 per cent of Canada’s prison population. Among women’s prisons, Indigenous women make up 40 per cent of the prison population.
Yet Indigenous people make up less than five per cent of the overall Canadian population. And the number of Indigenous women sentenced federally has increased by 60 per cent in the last decade, numbers that speak to how the Indigenous community is over-scrutinized, over-policed and ultimately over-incarcerated in Canada.
Settee pointed out that having access to one’s culture can help in the healing process and in understanding how to make amends and change your life.
“The message that we carry is that everybody can change, anybody can turn their life around,” he said.
The performance at Stony Mountain was for inmates from the medium-security portion of the prison. The men who attended are convicted criminals, many serving life sentences.
“As a lifer, you don’t have a guarantee that you’re ever getting out,” Jonas Budd told CTV National News.
The 52-year-old is in prison for second-degree murder. Recently, he started working with elders in the institution’s spiritual lodge, and said he has found it transformative.
“Because I am a product of the Sixties Scoop, my parents are a product of the residential schools — so a lot of abuse, a lot of lost culture, lost language,” he said.
That intergenerational trauma is a common thread among Indigenous inmates, and reconnecting these inmates to the culture they’ve lost is a big part of the work being done here.
On this day, there was dancing and drumming.
One inmate is serving his 15-year sentence through a program which focuses on Indigenous healing.
“I fell into drugs and alcohol and that’s what led me here today,” Larry Duck said. The 31-year-old reflected that being able to utilize Indigenous teachings of healing is helping him.
“I feel like I’m finally a part of something that I’ve been searching for for many years,” he said.
The focus is on life back on the outside, with inmates offered education and counselling.
“Our role is reintegration,” Laura Kirby, manager of assessment and intervention at Stony Mountain, told CTV News. “Our role is not punishment. Our role is to meet the needs of these men and ensure that when they go back to their communities, they are successful.”
It’s a goal that Settee said he wants to help every person move towards.
He said that inmates had expressed gratitude for the performance, telling him and his bandmates that it was the “first time that anyone came to check up on us […] and it felt really good that somebody came to just say hi and say that we’re here for you.
“It’s an amazing feeling to do this.”
No matter how long a person is in prison, they should have the opportunity to access a better way forward, he said, and for these inmates, that starts with these crucial moments of connection to Indigenous teachings and their own culture.
“It could be 20 years, it could be 25 years, but they have those things to ground them and give them hope to live day to day being appreciative of life. It can happen here,” Settee said.
And the Grand Chief said he will continue to remind inmates of that, long after the show is over.
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
Hailey and Justin Bieber are going to be parents. The couple announced the news on Thursday on Instagram, both sharing a video that showcases Hailey Bieber's growing belly.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre would not legislate on, nor use the notwithstanding clause, on abortion, his office says, as anti-abortion protesters gather on Parliament Hill.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods can have a detrimental impact on health. But 30 years of research show they don’t all have the same impact.
Miss Teen USA resigned Wednesday, sending further shock waves through the pageant community just days after Miss USA said she would relinquish her crown.
For some immigrants, their dreams of permanently settling in Canada have taken an unexpected twist.
A video circulating on social media of a young girl being hit by a bike has some calling for better safety and more caution when designing bike lanes in the city. The video shows a four-year-old girl crossing Jeanne-Mance Street in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood to get on a school bus stopped on the opposite side of the street
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.