Jukasa News Update – Wednesday, September 1, 2021
The upcoming federal election is on September 20. For Six Nations residents and residents of Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation there will be a poll located at the Gathering Place by the Grand at 2593 Chiefswood Road.
In order to participate, residents need to register to vote at elections.ca If you don’t get an opportunity to register before Election Day you can still vote, as long as you bring proof of address and identification with you to the poll in your district.
All voting in Canada is done according to residential status, so Six Nations band members and Mississaugas band members who live off the territory can not participate in voting on Six Nations, but should instead vote where they normally reside.
Six Nations resident and federal candidate for the People’s Party of Canada in Brantford-Brant Cole Squire was prohibited from participating in the all-candidates debate on Tuesday morning after he declined to disclose his vaccine status prior to the event.
The debate, hosted by the Brantford Chamber of Commerce along with Rogers and Brant One News, was held inside the One Market building in the city’s downtown core. Candidates were informed that in order to participate they had to provide proof of vaccination or if they were not able to provide proof of having received a COVID vaccine, that they would undergo a Rapid Antigen Screening test that would have to be negative, prior to the event.
Squire refused to disclose his personal medical information as a prerequisite for participating in the debate and as a result was shut out.
Squire held a press conference outside One Market Tuesday morning and said the BRCC told him he would also not be permitted to participate in the debate virtually, but that he could send a two minute pre-recorded video in lieu of being allowed to participate.
In a statement Squire said he could not abandon his principles in order to participate in the event.
Squire has been very vocal against mandatory or imposed vaccination in his campaigning. The People’s Party of Canada will be hosting a Freedom March on September 11 in Brantford.
Hundreds of motorcycle riders from across Ontario came together in unity with Six Nations in a ride from Brantford to Niagara on the Lake on Sunday to raise money for the Save the Evidence campaign.
The ride, organized by Redrum Motorcycle Club, was also intended to honour residential school survivors.
The Save the Evidence campaign aims to raise enough money to restore the former Mohawk Institute Residential School.
Hundreds of riders turned out in orange shirts, the colour associated with support for residential school survivors.
A local foundation has raised $21,500 for the Chanie Wenjack fund in a symbolic honouring of the 215 Indigenous children whose remains were found in a hidden grave at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in May.
The cheque was presented at the Chiefswood Museum on Six Nations last Thursday in keeping with the museum’s slogan “where cultures meet” – one of the founding principles of the Chanie Wenjack Fund.
The Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack fund was established by the late Tragically Hip frontman to help educate Canadians about the horrors of residential schools. The fund became Downie’s legacy in his final years as he fought a terminal brain tumour, with a goal of encouraging reconciliation between Indigenous people and settlers and building a better Canada.
The fund was named after a 12-year-old Indigenous boy, Chanie Wenjack, froze to death during a 600 km journey trying to escape the Kenora Residential School in 1966.
- Previous Jukasa News Update – Tuesday, August 31, 2021
- Next Jukasa News Update – Thursday, September 2, 2021
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