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THANK YOU CHI MEGWETCH!
Members of
the Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations, Métis and Inuit Student Centre set
up a display at the Thistle entrance of the Library highlighting First
Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures and histories. This display marks
National Indigenous Histories Month, and Indigenous Peoples Awareness
Week.
The display includes a variety of items including
Wampum belts; a drum and rattle; beaded gloves and moccasins; seal and
rabbit pelts; various Métis sashes; Inuit embroidery and carvings, and a
variety of other tools and handcrafted items.
Members of the Brock University and wider
community are invited to a week full of learning, reflection and
crafting during Indigenous Peoples Awareness Week, hosted by the
Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations, Métis and Inuit Student Centre beginning
June 23rd. Students, staff, faculty and community members can visit brocku.universitytickets.com to see a full list of events and reserve their tickets now.
Be sure to follow Hadiya’dagénhahs First Nations, Métis and Inuit Student Centre on Instagram and Facebook to be the first to hear about events, news and updates.
America
marks 250 years of independence on the 4th of July this year, and
observances
file photo, Trace
will be wide-ranging. That includes those who are the
descendants of America’s original inhabitants.
By the time
European settlers arrived, historians estimate more than 10 million
Indigenous people inhabited the land now called America. In the
centuries that followed, battles, diseases, diminishing resources and
forced land removal led to the rapid decline of the Native population.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Native Americans
is currently under 7 million people — only 2% of the nation’s population.
As Native people continue to face land disputes and the highest poverty rate in the U.S., “Closer Look”
assembled a Native American panel to reflect on the country at 250
years and offer perspectives as the nation reaches this milestone.
Christine Nayler seen in this November 2025
photo. She was 15 when her newborn daughter was taken away from her in
1982. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sharif Hassan
By Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press| Jun 1, 2026
Christine Nayler spent only four days with her newborn daughter
after giving birth at a hospital north of Newmarket, Ont., in 1982,
before her baby was taken away from her.
Then a 15-year-old expectant mother living in Toronto, Nayler was
sent to a relative’s home north of the city to have her baby. She was
expected to return home without the child.
While she was being repeatedly told she couldn’t keep the baby,
Nayler was still hopeful that her family would change their mind.
But they didn’t.
“I always say that the day that I left the hospital without her was
my death day because I feel like I died that day,” said Nayler, who now
lives in Barrie, Ont.
“When your child is alive and she’s just taken from you for no other
reason than you’re young and you weren’t even given a chance to be a
mother, like, that changes everything that you feel about the world.”
Nayler was among hundreds of thousands of unwed mothers who were
coerced and forced to give up their children for adoptions in
post-Second World War Canada.
Decades after giving up her child, Nayler has launched a petition,
asking the federal government to acknowledge its role and apologize for
being part of the unjust system.
Her petition has garnered more than 600 signatures from across Canada
and was tabled in the House of Commons last week, giving the government
45 days to provide a written response.
“I want the government to acknowledge the harm that was done to us and the role that they played in it,” she said.
In response to questions about the petition on Saturday, the Office
of the Minister of Jobs and Families told The Canadian Press the
government is grateful to those who have shared their experiences.
“Canadians have carried this history with them and the profound and
lasting impacts that forced adoption practices have had on mothers,
adoptees, and families,” it said in a written statement, adding that the
government is committed to addressing the legacy of this issue.
“Canada recognizes that this was a systemic issue affecting people
across the country. Important legal safeguards, including Charter
protections and international human rights commitments, now help ensure
that such practices cannot occur today.”
The latest play written by southern Manitoban duo Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold is Rattle, a story rooted in the inherited legacy of the ’60s Scoop.
Based on the stories of Robert Doucette and Roberta MacKinnon —
friends and students of the playwriting pair — this play from
Brandon-based Root Sky Theatre, directed by Charlene van Buekenhout and
Cory Wojcik, opens at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film on Wednesday
night.
Rattle is the fourth product of the Racine-Lakevold playwriting partnership, following Misty Lake, Stretching Hide and 2024’s Owl Calling.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO: From left: Alissa Watson is Lina,
Dezarae Meade is Crystal and Josh Ranville is Dan in the play Rattle by
Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold.
Each play by the twosome thus far has been a heartfelt study of
issues facing Indigenous Peoples in Canada, using history as a mirror to
understand the country’s legacy of both immense harm and attempted
reconciliation.
A co-production with local collective Theatre Incarnate — Brenda McLean and Christopher Sobczak — Rattle was awarded the best full-length play award in Theatre BC’s Canadian National Playwriting Competition.
Earlier this year, Racine, a professor of native studies at Brandon University, also launched Stolen Science, a
podcast about the “largely unacknowledged contributions of Indigenous
Peoples to Western European science between 1670 and 1870,” according to
the university.
Rattle is set on a North End street in Winnipeg where
friends Bobbie (Melanie Badger) and Dan (Josh Ranville) are finding
where they belong.
Meanwhile, Bobbie’s son Jordan (Mackenzie Wojcik, Cory’s son) forges a
bond with Dan’s kid Crystal (Dezarae Meade), who hopes against hope
that she won’t have to move to the south end.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO: From left: Dezarae Meade (Crystal) and Mackenzie Wojcik (Jordan) forge a bond as the kids of members of a found family.
Dan and Bobbie met when Bobbie aged out of care, learning to relate to one another as found family.
The character of Bobbie is based on MacKinnon, who was taken away
from her biological family at the age of two. Adopted by a Mennonite
family, Bobbie is always wondering not only where she came from, but why
she was taken away, the actor explains.
“Any moments where the past is brought up it’s just too painful to confront those things,” Badger says.
Fateful interactions with the next generation and her ancestors help
Bobbie find her truth, she adds. “In that moment it’s her healing
moment, you can really feel that part of the play where she found her
place,” adds Badger, an actor whose most recent performance was in 2019,
in Theatre by the River’s The Hours That Remain.
Badger’s first performance was in Douglas Nepinak’s Crisis in Oka, Manitoba.
That play — staged at Prairie Theatre Exchange last year as part of the
second annual Kiyanaan Festival, produced by Van Buekenhout and Philip
Geller — has served as an inspiration for both Lakevold and Racine.
LEIF NORMAN PHOTO: Josh Ranville, who plays Dan in Rattle, as been acting since he was a child.
“I’d like to think of it as blood memory as an actor, that’s the
choice I made (in approaching the role of Bobbie), is that instant
connection to her mother, her memory, her roots, her place,” says
Badger, who works for the Winnipeg Foundation and Manitobah Storyboot
School, a national charity offering cultural craftmaking workshops.
The play opens Wednesday with nightly performances to Saturday beginning at 7:30 p.m. Matinees run Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
The production is sponsored by the Riverton & District Friendship
Centre and received funding from the National Sixties Scoop Healing
Foundation of Canada, along with both Canada and Manitoba arts councils.
By Trace L Hentz (blog editor) It appears that Baby Deseray was placed by the same adoption lawyer Ray Godwin and the birthmother dealt wi...
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You are not alone
To Veronica Brown
Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.
Diane Tells His Name
click photo
Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines
click to read and listen about Trace, Diane, Julie and Suzie
NO MORE STOLEN SISTERS
click image
We conclude this series & continue the conversation by naming that adoption is genocide. This naming refers to the process of genocide that breaks kinship ties through adoption & other forms of family separation & policing 🧵#NAAM2022#AdoptionIsTraumaAND#AdopteeTwitter#FFY 1/6 pic.twitter.com/46v0mWISZ1
As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.” The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.
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