What is a 'halal mortgage'? Does it make housing more accessible?
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
Journalist Angela Sterritt decided to add her own story into an investigative book she was writing.
The decision, she said, was not taken lightly.
As a member of the Gitxsan Nation in B.C., Sterritt's own story of her upbringing emulates some of the themes she details in her new book, "Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls," which focuses on missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.
As an award-winning journalist, Sterritt says her initial reaction was to keep her own story out of the book.
"One of the things my agents and my publisher constantly said was to 'put yourself in a story because this will help people to build compassion,'" Sterritt told CTV's Your Morning on Tuesday. "It's one thing to say, 'She lived (single-room occupancy housing), she navigated the streets, she navigated those difficult waters.' But it's another thing to shine a light on the entire picture from my point of view."
The book starts off with the names of dozens of missing and murdered Indigenous women, their killer (if known) and where they are from.
For Sterritt, the beginning of the book allows the reader to understand how many stories of Indigenous women there are.
"I think we need to honour Indigenous women and girls in all the complexity in all the full dimensional ways that they exist in this life," Sterritt said. "Often, we hear (about a) dead Indigenous teenager… (Not) who she was in her life? What nation was she from? What were her hobbies? Who were her family?"
By sharing the intimate details of the women's and girls' personal lives, Sterritt says she hopes it will showcase who they were as people, and the lack of media attention given to these types of stories.
One of the people Sterritt interviewed for the book is Gladys Radek, an aunt of Tamara Chipman, who has been missing since 2005. Chipman is believed to have disappeared from an area known as the Highway of Tears, which links Prince George and Prince Rupert in B.C.
In the book, Sterritt details Radek's fight for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Indigenous women, and her drive for more attention on the issue.
"She marched to Ottawa a number of times to raise awareness," Sterritt said of Radek. "When I talked to her right before this book was published… she looked at me and said, 'Angela, we've been fighting for this for many, many years.' But the main point she wanted to raise with me was that finally this has been called a genocide."
To hear the full interview click the video at the top of this article.
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
A recent report sheds light on Canadians living abroad--estimated at around four million people in 2016—and the public policies that impact them.
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
Polish President Andrzej Duda says while no decision has been made around whether Poland will host nuclear weapons as part of an expansion of the NATO alliance’s nuclear sharing program, his country is willing and prepared to do so.
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer said Saturday that the onetime movie mogul has been hospitalized for a battery of tests after his return to New York City following an appeals court ruling nullifying his 2020 rape conviction.
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
A number of LGBQT+2s groups in Central Alberta are pushing back against a request from the Red Deer South UCP constituency to reinstate MLA Jennifer Johnson into the UCP caucus.
Mookie Betts went 3 for 5, including a triple and an RBI single, as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 4-2 on Saturday.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”