Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
A new online speaker series called Grandmother's Voice is helping to share Indigenous culture that was lost amid Canada's history of colonization through stories told by elders in the Halton, Ont. community.
Jody Harbour, co-founder of Grandmother's Voice, told CTV's Your Morning on Tuesday that initiative is for elders to share their wisdom and teachings to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
"My grandmother's voice was what led me to my family," Harbour said. "Indigenous people, they understand that our ancestors guide us to the good life."
Harbour says her grandmother, who was from Cayuga Nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River, helped her make sense of the generations of suicide in her family.
"When I met her, she shared with me the truths that caused the intergenerational trauma of my family and then she helped me heal and understand my responsibilities as an urban Indigenous woman," Harbour said.
She says Grandmother's Voice has become a "community of practice" providing Indigenous education for non-Indigenous people and helping those of Indigenous decent reconnect with their culture by addressing intergenerational trauma.
Despite being located in Halton, northwest of Toronto, Harbour says the series has drawn thousands of views from across Canada.
"It's led by Indigenous women, and amplifying the voices of Indigenous people that were connected to culture and their understandings of what they wanted to share with the people so that they could provide healing with their stories," Harbour explained.
Harbour said the initiative was mainly started by the grandmothers, who wanted to address the trauma that had been passed down through Indigenous families in an effort to reconnect younger generations with their culture.
"To know that they went through this genocide, and they made it to share their stories, to provide resiliency to the rest of the world. It's a magical culture," Harbour said.
"They helped me heal and understand what my purpose is as a woman," she added.
During the online sessions, Harbour said the grandmothers share their own personal experiences to connect with those who may be struggling with their Indigenous identity.
"They use a lot of metaphors when they speak, which is so beautiful because it gives you that space to really figure out how their story relates to your own," Harbour said.
Harbour said the grandmothers show "so much humility and love" to everyone involved in the sessions, two emotions she believes Western society needs more of.
"[Society has] oppressed the fact that love and peace and just coming together as community actually works, it actually heals people," she said.
For those looking to educate themselves and further help after the remains of 215 children were found buried near a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., Harbour said Canadians’ efforts need to go beyond praying and putting shoes down.
"Find your community. Uncle Neil says it best: 'Go wake up the sleeping elders.' They're here to teach you, reach out, find your residential school survivors," Harbour said.
--
If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
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.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
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.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.