One in Three Women

“Canada’s dirty little secret, 2008”

Kate Harries, Today correspondent

TORONTO – Bernie Williams calls it Canada’s dirty little secret – the racist violence that targets aboriginal women, along with the institutional indifference that allows the crimes to go undetected and unpunished.

Her mother and two of her sisters were killed in separate incidents in the 1970s in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and no one was ever charged. Williams, now a frontline worker in the notorious Skid Row area, never knew her mother or sisters, having been raised in foster homes and residential school.

But they are in her thoughts as she completes a 3,106.9-mile, coast-to-coast journey to draw attention to missing and murdered aboriginal women, one of 14 members of the Walk4Justice that was scheduled to reach Parliament Hill in Ottawa Sept. 15.

“It’s been an emotional, hard journey because we’ve come up against racism,” Williams said. The walkers have been followed and subjected to racial slurs. “I thought Vancouver was bad,” she added , “but I tell you, Toronto has got to be the worst.”

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