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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014
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Rallying for justice, love By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
NOT Silent
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
Nearly 50 people walked across Houston to remember and honour the many missing and murdered aboriginal women. Among them was Beverley Jacobs, an advocate for aboriginal women’s rights who is widely known for her speech in Parliament in summer 2008 after the Residential School Apology. See page 15 for more.
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Nearly 50 people took to the streets to walk in honour of the missing and murdered aboriginal women. The rally featured guest speaker Beverley Jacobs, a Mohawk lawyer from the Six Nations reserve in Ontario who is widely known for her speech to Parliament in summer 2008 after the Residential School Apology. Jacobs is also a former President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) and was the lead researcher for Amnesty International’s 2004 Stolen Sisters Report. Speaking to the Houston demonstrators gathered outside of the Houston Chamber of Commerce last Friday, Jacobs spoke of her speech to Parliament in 2008.
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“It’s the communities that are going to make the change.” - Beverley Jacobs
“One of my responses was ‘what are you going to do about it? You can apologize and an abuser can apologize over and over and over again. But if they’re still kicking you, then it’s not a real apology. It’s when we see that actions are following their words,” she said. But Jacobs doesn’t believe the government will bring change. See RALLY on Page 15
Phenomenal turn out for Houston WinterFest events By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
A smashing success, Family Day WinterFest had 1,500 people participating in the events. “We had a phenomenal turn out for Houston,” said Dawn Potvin, Co-chair of the Houston ACT
(Action Changes Things) Committee, who oversaw and organized the event. “The community support was definitely there…They just far surpassed any of my expectations. “The participant level for every event was outstanding. “[It was great] to
“WinterFest had 1,500 participants.”
see the number of people who came out, even though it was so cold,” she said.
W W W. G L A C I E RTO Y O TA . C A
Te m p e r a t u r e s stayed close to -25 degrees Celsius during the whole week of WinterFest, and
that was the only major challenge of the event, Potvin said. Weather caused some venues to change and cancelled the snowmobile rides planned for Saturday afternoon. “The weather was the only stressful thing and there’s
W W W. G L A C I E RTO Y O TA . C A
nothing you can do about that, so we just had to stop worrying about it and just roll ahead. “The cold weather was the only challenge because everybody else just organized the events so well. “Once things started going, every-
thing just went off perfectly. “Each organization participated fully and they were just phenomenal, they took care of it and each event went off without a hitch,” Potvin said. See ACT on Page 8
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