Rebecca Walberg

Last week, a Saskatchewan aboriginal man pled guilty to neglect causing the deaths of his toddlers when he took them out in -50 winds almost naked and they froze to death.  Although he claimed at the time to have been too drunk to dress them, he managed to dress himself in more adequate clothing, and also to get himself to safety while his daughters were dying of exposure.  Right now, two Manitoba natives are on trial for the murder of a 5 year old girl.  Phoenix Sinclair, the woman’s daughter, was treated with a level of sadism and cruelty that is reminiscent of the worst of Abu Ghraib, by her own mother and her mother’s live-in boyfriend.  There are recriminations flying all around about who is to blame for what, but so far nobody is talking very much about the profound dysfunction that lies at the root of both of these criminal cases, as well as the pervasive child abuse, substance abuse, mental illness and teen suicide that plague First Nations: the collapse of the family.  My column on this topic, paired with two other takes on it, is in today’s Winnipeg Free Press.