Donald Marshall Jr. dies at age 55

Donald Marshall Jr. with his mother Caroline Marshall in 2003

Donald Marshall Jr. was wrongly imprisoned for murder at age 17 and spent 11 years in jail. He was convicted, after a three-day trial, less than six months after his arrest. Even when the Court of Appeal finally acquitted Mr. Marshall in 1983, the judgment blamed him in part, absolving the police of any responsibility, saying that Mr. Marshall had contributed in large measure to his own conviction and that there wasn't really any miscarriage of justice.

It was not until Jan. 26, 1990 that he was completely exonerated when a royal commission released its final report. The inquiry concluded that far from being guilty Marshall was the victim of racism and incompetence on the part of the police, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. “The criminal justice system failed Donald Marshall Jr. at virtually every turn from his arrest and wrongful conviction for murder in 1971 up to and even beyond his acquittal by the Court of Appeal in 1983,” the commissioners declared.

"Mr. Marshall's father was the Grand Chief of the Mi'kmaq nation, a position for which Mr. Marshall would have been a likely successor. Being wrenched as a young teen from the cocoon-like environment of his reserve, and slapped into a maximum security prison for 11 years, likely prevented him from becoming grand chief when his father died eight years ago."

Justice Denied is an excellent film about his ordeal based on a book by the same title. The CBC characterized him this way: "The name Donald Marshall is almost synonymous with 'wrongful conviction' and the fight for native justice in Canada."

He had another fight with the justice system when he was convicted of "fishing eels out of season, fishing without a license, and fishing with an illegal net. Marshall had been convicted on all three counts in Provincial Court. The conviction was upheld by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. He then took his case to the Supreme Court, arguing treaties from the 1760s gave him the right to catch fish for sale and excused him from current fisheries regulations.

The Supreme Court agreed" on September 17, 1999.

In early August 2009, Mr. Marshall was admitted to hospital in Sydney, suffering from kidney failure, probably as a consequence of the anti-rejection drugs he had been taking since his double lung transplant six years ago. He died, aged 55, at 1:30 a.m. Thursday in the intensive care unit, surrounded by relatives."

Rest in Peace Donald.

Natives who went to Day Schools want compensation

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Canadian Parliament apologized to First Nations people for the abuse they suffered at residential schools the people who went to day school (i.e. they went home for the night) were excluded.

Mr. Harper said "The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language."

The people who went to day school say they suffered the same kind of abuse and are suing the government for compensation. Gary McLean, for example, says when he was 7 years old and could not speak English, he was often punished for speaking Ojibwa. He also claims that he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a nun until he left the school in 1965.

One student says he had his mouth washed out with soap every time he spoke his own language, says Mason, who is chairman of Spirit Wind Survivors.

If the consequences of destroying people's culture were, in the words of Mr. Harper, "profoundly negative" why were those who went to day schools with the same kind of policies of ethnocide treated differently? Was the apology insincere?

There were about 70,000 aboriginal children across Canada who went home for the night. Now the survivors will sue if the government refuses to negotiate a settlement. If that turns out to be the case they are hoping that their suit will be accepted as a class action suit.

Joan Jack, the lawyer representing day school survivors, says those who went home should be treated the same as students who were kept in residence away from their families. "Whether you went to a school where you slept at night or you went home at night is not relevant to you ending up not being able to speak your language, feeling ashamed of who you are, being abused spiritually. People want to be able to feel that they belong here, that this is our country. We are the indigenous people of this country and Canada is slowly waking up to that fact." The $15 billion the lawsuit is seeking in damages is based on the ratio sought by residential school survivors in their claim, she says.

So far the Government of Canada has not responded and unless it does the Day School survivors will have to sue. Although the group doesn't have a lot of money, Mason says the fight won't stop until the federal government acknowledges the day school residents.

Problems in Attawapiskat and Kashechewan

If stimulating the economy in a fairer way was really the intention of the recent massive give-aways to corporations the Canadian federal government, for example, could help the people in Attawapiskat whose sewage system failed recently. 52 people had to be evacuated because Health Canada said it is unsafe to live in houses while basements are flooded with raw sewage. Indian Affairs has so far refused to pay for the emergency evacuation. Or build badly needed infrastructure in other First nations communities. This is not the first time the federal government refused to address problems in Attawapiskat in a timely manner.

The federal government is responsible for First Nations, a duty it has mostly shirked.

Deputy Chief Theresa Spence said: "It is very disgusting that, today, we still have to fight for basic humane living conditions. We have bed-ridden Elders and young children living in sewage contaminated homes. There are no local alternatives as we are already suffering from lack of housing and overcrowding in our community."

Six days after the contamination, the community declared a state of emergency. This prompted the July 25, 2009 evacuation of all affected. The residents are staying in a hotel in Cochrane, Ont. where they will remain for six to eight weeks while trailers are renovated in the community before the families return home. This will take three or four months before the contaminated homes can be repaired. While INAC will help pay for the renovations of the trailers, it will not contribute toward the evacuation cost.

I think the bureaucrats who made this decision should be moved into the houses contaminated with sewage and left to their own devices.

In Kashechewan, Ontario there were two major evacuations in 2005 as a result of floods. The community's problems have not really been solved in a permanent way. Originally they were even created by the Government of Canada when - in order to save money - they built the sewage lagoon UPSTREAM - from the intake pipe for the water treatment plant to produce drinking water. I don't think you need to be an expert to anticipate problems with such an arrangement.

(The previous is to a CBC page. It worked on Aug.7, 2009. However, the CBC has a bad habit of deleting some links after some time. So if it does not work anymore when you click on it please accept my apologies.)