‘Repair my house, which is falling into ruin’: The legacy of Father Guna at St. Lawrence

Photos by Jeanette Kimball                        

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” it is written in Ecclesiastes. And so it is that on this day, the Feast of the Epiphany, Father Guna Pothula, the pastor who has shepherded St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church here in Thompson, Manitoba since July 2012, making him the longest-serving clergy here, said his last Sunday mass and said goodbye to parishioners before departing home to India this week to be closer to his ageing mother, and begin a new mission. Godspeed, Father Guna.

The presence of the Catholic Church in the Thompson area dates back to 1958 when visiting priests from Thicket Portage, Pikwitonei, Wabowden and The Pas attended Thompson to celebrate mass at least once a month. At first masses were celebrated in a private home on Poplar Crescent. Later masses before a church was built were celebrated at Juniper School, the Inco camp, the Midwest Drilling Camp, the Patrick Harrison Camp, and at the Strand Theatre. The rectory and the present-day parish hall (which served as the first church) were built in 1960, while the new adjacent church on the Cree Road site opened six years later.

Churches have a season where they, too, must be rebuilt and repaired, both physically and spiritually. As Father Guna departs, St. Lawrence ends such a season of renovation and renewal to the church and parish hall, which has taken almost a decade and cost about a million dollars to complete. While his spiritual legacy as pastor and confessor is written privately on the hearts and souls of parishioners, past and present, his public legacy will be the rebuilding of St. Lawrence, a process planning began for in 2013, the year after his arrival, and concluded with the reopening of the church last June and the parish hall today. No small achievement during a global pandemic that has stretched on now for three years.

“I wasn’t going to leave until the renovations were complete,” Father Guna said today, “The roof was leaking when I arrived and it was raining in God’s house.” He noted the generosity of St, Lawrence parishioners, who “never grumbled” about years of monthly “second offertory collections” to make the roof repairs, along with donations in time and money from Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961, a Catholic fraternal benefit organization chartered locally with 59 members on May 6, 1967, the 31st council in Manitoba to receive its charter. Among the other funding sources was grant money from the Thompson Community Foundation, as both the church and hall serve larger public needs beyond Thompson’s Catholic community, and insurance proceeds to renovate the parish hall.

Rebuild. Fix where needed. This is our Catholic way. In 1205, Francis was  praying in front of a crucifix at the abandoned San Damiano chapel near Assisi. There he had a vision in which God said, “Francis, repair my house, which is falling into ruin.” Francis listened, looked around at the crumbling chapel, and then sold some of his possessions in order to help rebuild it. He was canonized as a saint just two years after his death, on July 16, 1228, by Pope Gregory IX. Today, we know him as Saint Francis of Assisi.

More than 800 years later, another St. Francis – St. Francis de Sales – would be integral here on the other side of the world in rebuilding God’s church in a place that stands at the centre of Canada – north to south, east to west – St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in Thompson, Manitoba.  

Francis de Sales was born in France and lived at the time of the Protestant Reformation, becoming Bishop of Geneva. He had lots of exposure to Calvinism and predestination and was noted for his diplomacy in the volatile, heated religious climate of the day in Switzerland. He’s honoured as one of the doctors of the Catholic Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales was founded by Father Peter Marie Mermier from Vouray in the parish of Chaumont en Genevois and the Diocese of Annecy in the Savoy region of France in October 1838 for parish mission, foreign mission and youth education. They are also known as the Fransalians. Pope Pius XI proclaimed St. Francis de Sales in 1923 as the patron saint of writers and journalists.

After more than 11 months without a parish priest, in July 2012 two priests from India, Father Guna, and Father Subash Joseph – both members of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, also known as the Fransalians, travelling two by two – arrived, and would be soon tasked, as Francis of Assisi was, with repairing God’s house both physically and spiritually here in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas, a vast land, which takes in some 430,000 square kilometres and stretches across the northern parts of three provinces – Saskatchewan, Manitoba and a small portion of Northwestern Ontario, and whose past includes Indian residential schools, while our present and future calls to us to bear witness in acknowledging and speaking often painful truths in the ongoing work of reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples here on the traditional treaty territory and homeland of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, who have existed here since time immemorial, as well as later becoming home to other Indigenous peoples, including Métis.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas, in Thompson in particular, is on the cutting edge of a trend that is likely to dominate the missions field in the Canadian North for perhaps the remainder of the 21st century: The re-evangelization by those once colonized, as priests from countries the church in Canada sent missionaries to in the 19th and early 20th centuries, now send their missionaries here as vocations to the priesthood in the western world have been nowhere near the necessary replacement rate since shortly after the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965.

A very different story in terms of vocations to the priesthood, however, has played out in places like Africa, parts of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, and other areas of what are sometimes referred to as the “Global South.” There, vocations have boomed over the last 50 some years; hence the arrival of Father Guna and Father Joseph in Thompson in 2012.

Father Guna, from the village of Chennamanayunikota in Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India in the Archdiocese of Kurnool, was ordained on Feb. 10, 2007 by Bishop Paul Maipan of the Diocese of Khammam. He attended ATPM High School in Gunter in Andhra Pradesh until he joined the seminary at the age 16 in 1996. Seminarians remain in seminary for 12 years if they decide to pursue their full studies and call to ordination, Father Guna said, although some decide to leave the seminary along the way, discovering holy orders is not their calling.

After ordination, Father Guna was appointed as the assistant pastor of Nunna, in the Diocese of Vijayawada from June 2007 to May 2008. He was then appointed to the Fransalian Vidya Jyothi, Nidadavole as the procurator and was asked to teach the seminarians from June 2008 to May 2010. He also held appointments at the St. Francis de Sales High School in the town of Pamidi in the Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, teaching and serving as the administrator and procurator of the school.

Father Guna’s paternal grandfather was Hindu before converting to Catholicism and he still has many Hindu relatives.

Father Joseph, at his request, in 2015 was transferred to the also repair-challenged Church of St. Gertrude in Pelican Narrows, Saskatchewan, located 120 kilometres northwest of Flin Flon; 388 kilometres northeast of Prince Albert and 525 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, and the Church of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Sandy Bay, at road’s end for the gravel winding road, 72 kilometres north of Pelican Narrows.

And, as the seasons once again change, Father Joseph now returns here to St. Lawrence, as pastor.

Goodbye, and our eternal thanks, Father Guna. Welcome, home, Father Joseph. Our fishing rods await your return!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gostrArMqM

John Barker has been a member of  the Parish of St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in Thompson, Manitoba since July 2007 and a member of Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 since April 2013.

You can also follow me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/jwbarker22

 

Debating nomenclature: Premier-designate or premier-elect – or neither? – Plus who’s who in Order of Precedence for Manitoba

On May 3, the Province of Manitoba will have its first change in political party in power as Her Majesty’s Government here since Oct. 5, 1999, when former NDP premier Gary Doer took office. So the arrival of premier-designate Brian Pallister, whose Progressive Conservatives won 40 of the 57 seats in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in the April 19 provincial general election – tying a record for most seats set way back in 1915 when Premier Tobias Crawford Norris’ Liberals also won 40 seats in the Aug. 6 election in a legislature with 47 seats – is a pretty big deal as these things go.

Actually, for those wont to split hairs, Pallister is not really the premier-designate or premier-elect, some strict constitutional constructionists might argue. It’s just a convenient shorthand journalists in particular use to describe the leader-in-waiting-who-would-be premier (that’s my way-too-long-term). Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, and a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, whose work focuses on defence policy and the Westminster system, notably on the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, explained it this way last May in the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy’s digital edition of the magazine Policy Options Politiques: “What should we call the leader of a party who we expect will be appointed premier or prime minister but who doesn’t hold the office yet? … Unfortunately, premier-elect doesn’t make sense, constitutionally speaking, because first ministers aren’t elected.

“Voters elect representatives who sit in legislatures, not first ministers or governments. Nor do legislatures elect first ministers. Premiers and prime ministers are appointed by the Crown. Of course, those appointments are made based on the first minister’s ability to hold the confidence of legislature, but it’s an appointed office nonetheless.

“Premier-elect inaccurately describes how the first minister will come into office.

“The next term that’s used is “premier-designate.” I’m not a fan of this title, since there’s no actual office of premier-designate and I think is needlessly confuses things. That said, the term has been used internally within Canadian executives for administrative purposes for nearly a century, and vice-regal secretariats across the country have decided that it should now be used publicly.

“However, premier-designate is meant to describe a particular circumstance. A party leader is premier-designate only after the Crown has invited them to form a government.

“It’s equally important to note that, after this invitation has been issued, the incumbent premier is still premier. The premier-designate is merely preparing to be appointed premier and to advise the Crown on who should be appointed to ministerial offices.

“The premier-designate only becomes premier after the incumbent premier resigns and the Crown formally appoints the premier-designate as the premier.”

Lagassé concludes, “Unfortunately, there’s no good short hand term that accurately reflects our constitutional realities. As boring as it is, it’s best to simply refer to them as the leader of party X who is expected to be appointed premier or prime minister.” Aside from how the matter of how we should refer to the leader-in-waiting-who-would-be premier, there is also the issue of who’s who in the Order of Precedence for Manitoba even after we begin calling him Premier Brian Pallister sometime on Tuesday. The Order of Precedence for Manitoba is determined by the Federal-Provincial Relations branch within the Manitoba Department of Finance.

A sequential hierarchy, the Order of Precedence for Manitoba is not necessarily an indication of functional importance, if that isn’t too indelicate a way of putting it, but rather an indication of ceremonial or historical relevance, with some overlap, as might be expected, between the functional and the historical and ceremonial. Premier Pallister will be number two on the list, preceded only by Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon, the wife of Gary Filmon, the last Tory premier of Manitoba until the election of Pallister earlier this month.

Manitoba joined Confederation as the fifth province – appropriately enough smack in the middle of 10, time-wise, as well as geographically – on July 15, 1870. The Manitoba Act, which created the Province of Manitoba, was passed by the Parliament of Canada, and received royal assent on May 12, 1870. Manitoba’s official flag, the Red Ensign, bearing the provincial coat of arms, was given royal approval by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in October 1965, and officially dedicated and unfurled for the first time on May 12, 1966. In 1986, May 12 was designated as Manitoba Day.

Manitoba has been the home of some of the most important, often colourful and eclectic, and at times controversial who’s who of Canadian history. Almost any such list would include Métis leader Louis Riel, considered by many to be the “Founding Father” of Manitoba; Nellie McClung, the controversial feminist author, social activist and politician; writers Gabrielle Roy and Margaret Laurence; J.S. Woodsworth, Methodist minister, community activist and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) politician; Los Angeles-born Stanley Knowles, United Church minister, social gospel movement activist, CCF politician and parliamentarian; Progressive Conservative premier and senator Duff Roblin; former governor general and NDP premier Ed Schreyer; Doer, also Canada’s former ambassador to the United States, as well as a former premier; newspaper editor John Wesley Dafoe; journalist E. Cora Hind; and Canwest’s Izzy Asper.

Add filmmaker Guy Maddin; spymaster Sir William Stephenson; cable TV pioneer and philanthropist Randall Moffat; and Olympic speed skater Cindy Klassen, to that list too.

In addition, to the important and famous, there are also the quirky and unique things that make Manitoba, well, Manitoba. Things like the nine “disorganized” municipalities of Armstrong; Birch River; Chatfield; Fisher Branch; Kreuzberg; Piney; Sprague; Stuartburn; and Woodlea, now absorbed into Rural Municipalities (RM’s). When the Depression arrived in the 1930s, municipalities were faced with a sudden drop in tax receipts and many were forced to accept administration from the provincial government. Nine municipalities, located in the Interlake and southeast corner, allowed their government to lapse completely and have never reappeared in their old form. Even rarer than “ghost towns,” these former municipalities are, in effect, “ghost” municipalities, notes the Manitoba Historical Society.

So what makes the Order of Precedence of Manitoba so important? Well, for one thing it, it is useful for determining where dignitaries are seated at formal official dinners hosted by the Keystone Province in the capital of Winnipeg – or by analogy up here in Thompson – figuring out which table should go first and whose at the front of the line at a St. Lawrence Parish Hall social, Kokanee, or rye and Coke, or both in hand, for a midnight lunch of kielbasa, rye bread, Old Dutch barbecue potato chips, dill pickles and cheese.

So yeah, kind of important.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, the Order Precedence of Manitoba, after Her Honour, and the premier, whose official title by the way is “president of the executive council of Manitoba,” better known as the premier and his cabinet:

• Chief Justice Richard J.F. Chartier of the Manitoba Court of Appeal;
• Former lieutenant-governors of Manitoba or surviving spouses in order of seniority in taking office;
• Former  presidents of the executive council of Manitoba in order of seniority in taking office;
• Members of the Privy Council of Canada resident in Manitoba by order of seniority of taking the oath of office;
• Members of the executive council of the Province of Manitoba in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench Glenn Joyal;
• The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba;
• The puisne judges of the Manitoba Court of Appeal and of the Court of Queen’s Bench in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• The Leader of the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba;
• The Archbishop of St. Boniface, Albert LeGatt;
• The Bishop of Rupert’s Land; Donald Phillips;
• The Archbishop of Winnipeg, Richard Gagnon;
• The Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church;
• The Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church:
• The President of the Manitoba Conference of the United Church of Canada;
• The chair of the Manitoba Conference of the Presbyterian Church in Canada;
• The Chair of other representatives persons of the following denominations as indicated below and whose person will be signified to the clerk of the executive council from time to time: Lutheran Church; Jewish Rabbi; The Mennonite Faith; The Baptist Church; The Salvation Army; The Pastors Evangelical Fellowship;
• Members of the House of Commons resident in Manitoba by order of seniority in taking office;
• Members of the legislative assembly of Manitoba in relative order of seniority in taking office;
• Provincial court judges in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Magistrates in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Members of the local consular corps in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Mayors, reeves and elected local government administrators in relative order of date of taking office.

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Ry Moran, director of the new National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NRCTR), will be at UCN in Thompson March 11 for a ‘community engagement session’

Ry Moran, director of the new National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NRCTR), based at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, will be in Thompson March 11 for the launch of the centre’s community engagement sessions in Lecture Theatre Room 302A at the University College of the North’s new Thompson campus at 55 UCN Dr., adjacent to the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC).

More community engagement sessions are scheduled for The Pas on March 12; Iqaluit on March 19; Vancouver on March 25; Prince George. B.C. on March 26; Montreal on March 31; Saskatoon on April 16; Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia on April 21; Edmonton on May 5 and Toronto on May 15.

Moran will meet with survivors of Indian residential schools here in Thompson Wednesday between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and inter-generational survivors between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.  Health supports will be available on site and refreshments and a light supper will be provided.

Moran wants to learn what Northern Manitoba survivors’ “hopes and dreams” are for the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Establishing a national research centre and archive to forever preserve the truths of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools was one of the most important responsibilities given to the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As part of its legal mandate, the responsibility is spelled out in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, signed in 2007 by representatives of survivors, aboriginal groups, including the Assembly of First Nations (AFM) and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the federal government and the churches.

In order to carry out the national research centre and archive part of its mandate, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission convened an international gathering of experts on aboriginal community control, and on national and international principles, protocols and best practices for indigenous and human rights archiving.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has a 10-person staff and is located in Chancellor’s Hall at 177 Dysart Rd. on the University of Manitoba’s Winnipeg campus. It will work in co-operation with a wide network of partners across Canada and is set to officially open this summer. Current partner organizations include the University College of the North; University of British Columbia; Lakehead University;University of Winnipeg; Red River College; Université de Saint-Boniface; St John College; St Paul’s College;Legacy of Hope Foundation; National Association of Friendship Centre’s; Canadian Museum for Human Rights; Archives Manitoba; Manitoba Museum; Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources and the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will operate within the academic and administrative structure of the University of Manitoba with Moran reporting administratively to the office of vice-president (research and international), as he manages the day-to-day operations of the centre.

The centre was established in a June 21, 2013 National Aboriginal Day agreement between the university and the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will wind up its six-year mandate in June. The centre’s archives will hold millions of documents collected by the commission including nearly 7,000 video-and audio-recorded statements from survivors, inter-generational survivors, and others affected by the schools and their legacy; millions of archival documents and photographs from more than 20 departments of the Government of Canada and nearly 100 Canadian church entities archives; works of art, artifacts and other expressions of reconciliation presented at Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission events; and research collected and prepared by the commission. Justice Murray Sinclair, who chairs the three-member commission, has said the research centre is an important part of the commission’s legacy.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is guided by a seven-member governing circle, who have two-year terms. The current members are Eugene Arcand; Andrew Carrier; Catherine Cook; Grand Chief Edward John; Gregory Juliano; Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux; and Jennifer Watkins.

The governing circle ensures Indigenous control over the materials held by the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. It provides guidance on the centre’s policies, priorities, and activities, on ceremonies and protocols, on methods and sources to expanding the center’s holdings and resources and on prospective partners.

Three members of the governing circle represent survivors, their families or ancestors (one First Nation, one Inuit and one Métis), two represent the University of Manitoba, and two represent the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation partner organizations. At all times, at least four members of the governing circle must identify as aboriginal.

Moran was appointed director of the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation on Feb. 3, 2014, coming directly from the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where had served as director of statement gathering since January 2010.

Before joining the commission, Moran, who is Métis, was the founder and president of YellowTilt Productions, delivering services in a variety of areas including aboriginal language presentation and oral history. He had hosted internationally broadcast television programs, produced national cultural events, and written and produced original music for children’s television. Moran’s awards including a National Aboriginal Role Model Award, and a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Moran is a Masters of Business Administration candidate, and holds a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree from the University of Victoria.

The first Indian residential schools opened in the 1880s in western Canada and eventually, they operated in every province and territory except Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. The system was at its height in the 1920s with compulsory attendance under the Indian Act and over 80 schools in operation. Most Indian residential schools were run by entities of the Roman Catholic church, with others run by the Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and later the United churches.

Here in Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas was involved in four residential schools at Beauval, Sturgeon Landing, Guy Hill and Cross Lake. Through the Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement (CCEPIRSS), created in 2006 to oversee the undertakings of the group of 54 Catholic dioceses and religious congregations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas was obliged to provide $1 million in cash over five years, $1.6 million of in-kind services and community work over 10 years, as well as support the fundraising Canada Wide Campaign (CWC).

The archdiocese met that obligation by paying out $200,000 a year, beginning in 2007 until the $1 million was paid. The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement ended litigation facing the federal government and the four churches that ran the schools, where rampant abuse occurred, for more than a century, and which former Archbishop Sylvain Lavoie, who resigned for health reasons July 16, 2012, called, “a system that is now acknowledged as a flawed policy of colonization and assimilation.”

In a Dec. 17, 2009 pastoral letter, Lavoie wrote: ” We would encourage those from our archdiocese who attended the schools, or had family members and relatives who attended, to contribute to the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] process, so that the historical record can be accurate. Whereas over the past few years many held back from sharing positive experiences out of fear of being politically incorrect, now is the time to speak your truth so that it is heard and recorded.”

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in its current incarnation, was appointed by the federal Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper through orders-in-council on June 9, 2009.

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was originally established on June 1, 2008. Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Harry LaForme, a member of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation in Southern Ontario, was appointed by the Harper government as the first commission chair, but resigned in October 2008. Claudette Dumont-Smith, of Gatineau, Que., a native health expert, and Jane Brewin Morley, of Victoria, a lawyer and public policy adviser, were also appointed originally as commissioners, but announced in January 2009 that they would resign, too, effective June 1, 2009, leading to the entire three-person commission to be replaced by the current commissioners.

The chair, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Murray Sinclair, from near Selkirk, was Manitoba’s first aboriginal judge. Sinclair was appointed associate chief judge of the provincial court of Manitoba in March 1988 and elevated to the Court of Queen’s Bench in January 2001.

Commissioner Wilton Littlechild is a member of the Ermineskin Tribe Cree community, near Hobbema in central Alberta. He was the first Treaty First Nation person to acquire his law degree from the University of Alberta in 1976. His law firm is located on the Ermineskin reserve. He also served as a Progressive Conservative MP for the Alberta riding of Wetaskiwin from 1988 to 1993.

Commissioner Marie Wilson grew up in Sarnia in Southern Ontario. Wilson, who lives in Yellowknife, is a well-known former CBC broadcast journalist and manager, who spent most of her career in the North, and is a member of the United Church. She served as CBC’s senior manager for northern Quebec and the three northern territories of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.

A component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the commission is an independent body that oversees a process to provide former students and anyone who has been affected by the residential schools legacy, with an opportunity to share their individual experiences in a safe and culturally appropriate manner.

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is unique from other commissions around the world in that its scope is primarily focused on the experiences of children. Its focus of research spans more than 150 years, one of the longest durations ever examined.

It is also the first court-ordered truth commission to be established in Canada. As such, the court plays an ongoing role in the implementation and supervision of the commission.

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Louis Riel: 21st century hero to the Métis of Manitoba; Rogers Hometown Hockey tour set to roll into Thompson, Manitoba’s hockey hotbed

Louis Riel, the Métis leader hanged for high treason on Nov. 16, 1885 at Regina, was the driving force behind Manitoba becoming Canada’s fifth province and is thought of by many as to be the “Father of Manitoba,” the only Canadian province born in blood. Does that history matter today and what legacy has it left Manitobans? “Welcome to Winnipeg: Where Canada’s racism problem is at its worst,” Maclean’s, Canada’s national magazine, headlined its lead story Jan. 22.

Not all Manitobans, of course, share that view of Riel as victim of colonial racism by any means. But history has a way of refining our judgments and dampening or softening excessive passions. Thus, the 19th century’s traitor can be reasonably seen as the 21st century’s hero as we take a longer and more inclusive view of our collective history.

Up here in Thompson we apparently don’t have a race problem, although a regular-season hockey game last Sunday between the Thompson King Miner Midget “AA” and the Norway House North Stars was ended by officials with Thompson leading 4-2 with 8:53 left in the second period when the North Stars, who had already had a player and coach ejected, left the ice following an altercation between their goaltender and a Thompson player at the same time that a scuffle erupted in the stands, soon leading to a parade of RCMP officers in their cruisers escorting players from both teams safely out of the C.A. Nesbitt Arena at the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC), after racial slurs may or may not have been uttered whiles moms and dads scrapped in the stands with their counterparts from the opposing team. Older guys in Thompson remembered decades ago similar incidents where they said they had to be escorted out of places like Norway House or Cross Lake in similar circumstances. Seventeen-year-old King Miner right winger Lucas Hanlon apparently self-identified himself as Métis to the Winnipeg-based Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN) in making two points: he didn’t think the Feb, 8 fracas in Thompson was about race, and, in any event, there are a lot of aboriginal players on the Thompson team.

Thompson is atop of the midget AA league standings, with a 13-4-3 record for 29 points, the same as the second-place The Pas Huskies, who have played one more game than Thompson. The King Miner’s next scheduled game is tomorrow when they are due to play the Split Lake Eagles in Split Lake.

 “I am a Metis player myself,” Hanlon reportedly told APTN “We have a lot of aboriginal players on our team,” he said. “We have just as many people with aboriginal roots in our community as anywhere else.”

Hanlon said he didn’t hear any racial taunts hurled at the Norway House players. He said the Norway House fans called him “white trash.” He said racial slurs are hurled by both sides during games. “You get kind of used it from playing against those teams for so long. It happens both ways. I personally don’t because I come from both backgrounds,” he said.

A player for the Norway House North Stars team and two parents told APTN National News Feb. 10 that some “Thompson fans hurled racial epitaphs at the Norway House team.” They also said one player was confronted by three Thompson fans, two men and a woman, who used racial slurs, and claimed one Norway House player had his helmet cracked by a slash to the head.

Hanlon told APTN he “didn’t see anyone get slashed in the head with enough force to crack a helmet: that’s reassuring. However, he was very likely on to something – something that really matters to Thompson residents, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, when Hanlon said many in the “Thompson hockey community are now worried the planned Rogers Hometown Hockey tour stop scheduled for the community on March 7 and 8 may be scuttled because of the bad press stemming from the weekend’s incident.” It was announced last September that Ron MacLean, who has played straight man to Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner for years, will be here in 3½  weeks as part of the Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour, presented by Dodge and Scotiabank, for a weekend of hockey festivities and to host a pre-game show followed by a viewing party for a March 8 Calgary Flames-Ottawa Senators game that will be broadcast across the country.

The tour, which began last Oct. 11-12 in London, Ont., is criss-crossing Canada, stopping in Manitoba three times – it was in Selkirk for its second broadcast and in Brandon last Nov. 30 – before making the late-season trip to Thompson.

Other activities leading up to the weekend-capping broadcast will include meet-and-greet sessions with NHL alumni and local hockey heroes, a Hockey Night in Canada viewing party, a KidZone with hockey-themed activities, skills and drills competitions and live performances by local musicians, as well as ticket and merchandise giveaways.

MacLean will host a half-hour pre-game show live from the Sportsnet Mobile Studio in Thompson prior to the broadcast, and will also make appearances in intermission and post-game shows. Included on the broadcast will be interviews with local guests and grassroots hockey stories.

Should Thompson residents be worried about bad press press from the Thompson King Miner Midget “AA” and Norway House North Stars game Feb. 8 jinxing the arrival of the Rogers Hometown Hockey tour March 7? Probably not, even given the fact there are a couple of inconvenient stories from APTN now circulating on television and online, including, “Manitoba RCMP escorted First Nation hockey team from rink after game took racial turn” at http://aptn.ca/news/2015/02/10/manitoba-rcmp-escorted-first-nation-hockey-team-rink-game-took-racial-turn/ and “Metis player disputes race played role in Manitoba hockey fracas” at http://aptn.ca/news/2015/02/11/metis-player-disputes-race-played-role-thompson-man-hockey-fracas/

But long before APTN broke its two stories, Tuesday, 48 hours after the game was over, there already had been hundreds of comments and a number of photos on the emerging story on social media, mainly Facebook, by Sunday at 7 p.m., just hours after the melee at the hockey game. “Facebook,” as former Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News columnist Donna Wilson, who is now the general manager of Thompson’s Quality Inn & Suites on Moak Crescent, but who also still writes for the paper occasionally, has observed many times since 2010, “is how Thompson gets its news.”

RCMP also seized video of the game from veteran Thompson Shaw TV producer Paul Andersen, who tweeted in his own inimitable style, “19 years of broadcasting hockey games, I have never had my footage become ‘exhibit c’ in the court of law,#norwayhousevsthompson.”

Louis Riel Day falls this year next Monday on Feb. 16. In 2008, the NDP provincial government invited Manitoba schoolchildren to name the province’s newest statutory holiday, commencing on the third Monday in February in 2009, and 114 schools responded with suggestions: of that number a dozen suggested Louis Riel Day or some close variation.

Other suggestions included Neil Young Day, Family Get Together Day, February Fun Day, (The) Polar Pause, Duff Roblin Day (Duff’s Day), Our Parents Need a Break Day and Magical Manitoba Monday.

Riel was born at Red River Settlement on Oct. 22, 1844 and educated at St Boniface. A Roman Catholic, he studied for the priesthood at the Collège de Montréal. In 1865 he studied law with Rodolphe Laflamme, and he is believed to have worked briefly in Chicago and Saint Paul before returning to St Boniface in 1868.

Without re-telling the entire history of the Red River Rebellion, or Red River Resistance, as it is also known, here or the North-West Rebellion in Saskatchewan 15 years later, the abridged version is that in 1869, the federal government, anticipating the transfer of Red River and the North-West from the Hudson’s Bay Company to their jurisdiction, appointed William McDougall as lieutenant-governor of the new territory and sent survey crews to Red River.

The Métis, worried about the implications of the transfer and wary of Anglo-Protestant immigrants from Ontario, organized a “National Committee” of which Riel was secretary. The committee halted the surveys and prevented McDougall from entering Red River. On Nov 2, 1869, Fort Garry was seized by the committee, which invited the people of Red River, however, both English and French- speaking, to appoint delegates.

When armed resistance, led by John Christian Schultz and John Stoughton Dennis followed, the federal government postponed the transfer planned for Dec. 1, 1869. Riel issued a “Declaration of the People of Rupert’s Land and the Northwest” and on Dec. 23, 1869 became head of the “provisional government” of Red River.

Meanwhile, a force of some of those who had escaped from Riel’s men earlier, mustered by Schultz and surveyor Thomas Scott, a Protestant Presbyterian Ontario Orangeman, gathered at Portage la Prairie, but were quickly rounded up by the Métis, who imprisoned them again at Fort Garry. Riel appointed a military tribunal, presided over by his associate, Ambroise Dydine Lépine, of St. Vital, to try Scott for treason. Scott was convicted, sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of Fort Garry on March 4, 1870.

In Ontario, it was Riel, however, who was widely denounced as Scott’s “murderer” and a reward of $5,000 was offered for his arrest. In Québec he was regarded as a hero, a defender of the Roman Catholic faith and French culture in Manitoba.

Anxious to avoid a volatile political confrontation between Ontario Protestants and Quebec Catholics, never mind Manitoba’s Métis, Conservative Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald tried to persuade Riel, who had gone into voluntary exile in the United States, to remain there, even providing him with funds.

Instead, encouraged by supporters, Riel entered federal politics and won a seat in a byelection in October, 1873 and was re-elected in the general election of February 1874 and re-elected for a third time in the Provencher constituency in a September 1874 byelection. He was expelled from the House of Commons before taking his seat. Riel and Lépine were convicted of murdering Scott in October 1874 and sentenced to death, but Governor General Lord Dufferin commuted the sentences in January 1875 to two years imprisonment. A month later, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberal government granted amnesty for Riel and Lepine, on the condition that both remain in exile for five years.

Early in 1885, then living in present day Saskatchewan, Riel seized the parish church at Batoche, armed his men, and formed a provisional government and demanded the surrender of Fort Carlton. The North-West Rebellion lasted from March 26 to May 12 before Riel surrendered at the Battle of Batoche and on July 6, 1885, he was charged with high treason.

Riel was convicted, and the federal cabinet, with Macdonald again as prime minister, declined to commute the death sentence imposed by Lt.-Col. Hugh Richardson, a stipendiary magistrate of the Saskatchewan District of the North-West Territories. Riel’s body was sent to St Boniface and interred in the cemetery in front of the cathedral.

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Not running: The big story of Thompson city council and School District of Mystery Lake elections Oct. 22

Elections are very often referendums on the incumbents seeking re-election. Voters are as likely to be voting against something or someone as for anything. But not always. The real  story of the upcoming Oct. 22 municipal election in Thompson is not so much the newcomers seeking office, but the vast number of city councillors and School District of Mystery Lake (SDML) trustees who are not seeking office and will complete their terms at 11:59 a.m.Thursday, Oct. 23, including Mayor Tim Johnston, a two-term mayor and one-term councillor, first elected in 2002, and SDML chair Rob Pellizzaro, a local lawyer, who was first elected in 1998, and is the longest serving trustee on the board.

Thompson had a strong turnout for the last municpal election in 2010, with 41.1 per cent of the names on the eligible voters’ list showing up to vote. That figure equated to 3,638 Thompsonites – 3,536 with valid, accepted ballots, 26 voters who declined their ballots – led by 12 decliners at the Riverside poll – and 76 spoiled ballots. Many voters did not vote for an entire slate of eight council candidates, with the average ballot featuring only 5.8 votes for members of council.

In April 2009, council invoked Section 78 of the Municipal Act to add an eighth councillor as of the October general election, along with the mayor, for a nine-member council, reverting to the size council was until the early 1990s when they dropped a seat.

City councillors are elected at-large in Thompson.

Dating back to 1867 and the British North America Act,  which sets out our basic post-Confederation governance structures, municipalities are creature of the provinces and the most junior level in our three-tier federal, provincial and municipal governance system. Without the consent of the Province of Manitoba, there is nothing the City of Thompson or any other Manitoba municipality can do.

It  was the second-highest voter turnout in Thompson history – the record still belongs to the 1986 general election, where 42.4 per cent of registered voters showed up to re-elect then-mayor Don MacLean to a fourth term, but 2010 did finish just ahead of the 41 per cent turnout from 2006, which had been in second place.

Born and raised in Thompson, Johnston is the son of Dr. Blain Johnston, a former city councillor who was the first regular, full-time doctor in Thompson. He graduated from R.D. Parker Collegiate in 1980. After graduating from the University of Winnipeg with a degree in administrative studies and working in Winnipeg for several years, Johnston returned to Thompson in the late 1980s, when he purchased J.B. Johnston Ventures Ltd. from his parents. A past president of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce, in 1999 and 2000, Johnston is the manager of North Central Community Futures Development Corporation, and plans to remain there and continue to live in Thompson, he has said.

Also leaving city council is its longest serving-member, Coun. Stella Locker, a registered nurse as well as real estate broker,  who chaired the city planning commission from 1967  to 1972 and chaired the industrial commission from 1982 to 1984. She was first elected to city council in 1989 and served as deputy mayor. In the last election in 2010, Locker finished on top at nearly every polling station, only finishing outside first place once – coming in third at Wapanohk in Eastwood.

Also stepping away is two-term Coun. Charlene Lafreniere, director of institutional advancement at the University College of the North (UCN) since September 2010, and previously executive director of the Thompson Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation (TNRC) and director of justice at Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO).  Lafreniere, who topped the polls in the 2006 council race, was re-elected, but with less support, in 2010.

Coun. Erin Hogan, first elected to city council in a city-wide byelection in December 2009 to replace Coun. Cory Young, was re-elected 10 months later in the October 2010 general municipal election. She is pregnant and expecting twins. During her almost five years as a councillor she served as a Manitoba board member on the  Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) national board of directors and was vice-chair of the standing committee on increasing women’s participation in municipal government. She works as a policy analyst in the aboriginal relations division of Manitoba Hydro.

The three incumbents seeking re-election as councillors are Penny Byer, first elected in 2010 also, Coun. Brad Evenson, a one-term councillor first elected four years ago, and owner of Patent Electric and former managing partner with the Wescan Electrical Company, who also served for four months in 2007 as  president of the Thompson Chamber of Commerce, and Coun Judy Kolada, the second-longest serving member of council, first elected in 1994.  She came to Manitoba from the south shore of Nova Scotia in the 1960s, following her graduation from Bridgewater Commercial College. She is a former executive director the YWCA of Thompson and before that retired from the provincial government, where she worked for the Department of Northern Affairs as a local government co-ordinator and the Department of Labour as a labour standards officer.  Byer  retired in April 2013 as Vale’s Manitoba Operations as corporate affairs co-ordinator, who moved to Thompson in 1978 to open up the CBC North Country studio and has a diploma in creative communications and certificates in marketing, public relations and journalism,

Two first-term incumbent councillors, Dennis Fenske and Luke Robinson, are seeking the mayor’s chair, meaning the loser will no longer sit on council.

Fenske, currently serving as deputy mayor, also controls DDAK Developments Inc., a family real estate development and holding company, and is a long time resident of Thompson. His parents, Len and Mary Fenske arrived in 1961 with six children planned to stay a couple of years until farming in Saskatchewan rebounded, he says on his Dennis Fenske for Mayor page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dennis-Fenske-for-Mayor/1558721681016070

A centre, who shoots left, Fenske played three seasons of Junior B hockey in British Columbia for the Victoria Cougars  from 1975 to 1978, and three more seasons between 1983 and 1986 for the University of Saskatchewan of the Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA). He returned to live in Thompson in 1988. Upon his return, he was hired by the City of Thompson as a recreation programmer for the Department of Recreation, Parks and Culture. In 1990, he was promoted to director, and served in that position until 1999. He then transferred to City Hall as the director of community development and human resources. He left the City of Thompson in the fall of 2007 for Vale where he is currently employed as engineering supervisor of support services for central engineering and the project management office.

Fenske is a widower. His wife, Don, died in May 2007 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes called Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankees’ slugger, first baseman and outfielder who died of ALS in June 1941. Both of their daughters are R.D. Parker Collegiate graduates: Allison is a lawyer and Kate a nurse. Fenske, who was out of town Sept. 19 during the ballot draw by senior election official Dave Turpie to determine position randomly on the ballot (which Fenske won over Robinson) was away to get married, Turpie said. Fenske had been engaged to Germaine Leger, of Thompson, formerly of Winnipeg, since Oct. 12, 2013. Both are half marathon long-distance runners who have competed for several years in June in the Manitoba Marathon in Winnipeg.

Luke Robinson, who was out of the gate early, announcing his mayoral run in May, won the eighth and final seat on council in the Oct. 27, 2010 election in a nail-biter of a race all night long, with challenger Jasper Robinson and Les Ellsworth staying in the mix right until the final poll. He first ran for a council a year earlier , finishing as runner-up to Hogan in the 2009 byelection. An automotive, truck and coach heavy-duty mechanic, Robinson is a Francophone, originally from Kapuskasing, in Northern Ontario. Bilingual, he was educated in French in elementary school and finished high school in English. He moved to Thompson in 1999 with his son, Randy, and has worked at Vale since 2001, where is a mechanical underground worker at Vale. He also as a daughter, Tammy, and two stepchildren, Angela and Ryan Bonner, with his partner of 12 years, Heather Bonner, who is Métis and a community liaison worker at Ma-Mow-We-Tak Friendship Centre. Robinson says his grandson, Drayden, will be multilingual, speaking, English, French and Cree.

Robinson also has a private pilot’s licence, owns an ultralight plane, has a cabin at Turnbull Lake in Leaf Rapids, and served 12 years as a volunteer firefighter, as well as serving as a school board trustee in Northern Ontario. Robinson’s City of Thompson biographical webpage http://www.thompson.ca/index.aspx?page=162 lists him as an “active union steward with USW Local 6166,” but the Thompson Labour Committee, when it met last week decided for the first time in years to endorse none of the candidates   –  incumbents or challengers  –  who  had declared their intentions almost a week before nominations closed, and who are running for mayor, city council or School District of Mystery Lake trustee. Robinson brought greetings from the City of Thompson last Nov. 23 to the USW Local 6166 annual gala banquet and dance for their activists and stewards at the Juniper Centre.

Paul Andersen, long-time producer for Shaw TV in Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas, is talking to Robinson at  9 a.m. today and took to Shaw TV’s Twitter account at https://twitter.com/ShawTVThompson last night to tweet, “If you have any questions to ask him, e-mail at shawcable11@yahoo.ca.”

Over at the School District of Mystery Lake meanwhile, the big news, aside from Pellizzaro not running again after 16 years on the board, is that Ryan Land and Caroline Winship are, as  reported here Sept. 14. If you missed it earlier, you can read the story here at  https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/ryan-land-and-caroline-winship-running-for-sdml-school-board-trustee-seats/

There are 11 candidates running for the seven SDML trustees seats.

Also stepping down after one term are 75-year-old trustee Sya Gregovski  and Alexander Ashton, who had taught at University College of the North (UCN) and is the younger brother of two-term Churchill NDP MP Niki Ashton and the son of Thompson NDP MLA and minister of infrastructure and transportation Steve Ashton and Hari Dimitrakopoulou-Ashton, an economist and university lecturer in economics, management, and women’s studies, who is also a former SDML school board trustee. Alexander Ashton plans to live abroad this coming year.

Running again is veteran trustee Guido Oliveira, who works at Vale and was the top vote-getter in the Oct. 27, 2010 election; one-term trustee Vince Nowlin, who also works at Vale; Leslie Tucker,  manager of Northern Region Training and Employment Services here for Jobs and the Economy Manitoba; and Janet Brady, who was elected in a byelection Nov. 17, 2011 to replace Valerie Wilson, who resigned and moved to Winnipeg, as a School District of Mystery Lake trustee. Brady easily swept by Julyda Lagimodiere in a 458 to 230 vote cakewalk.

Brady, 60, a Montreal native, is a product of Quebec’s Roman Catholic school system in the 1960s and early 1970s, and a senior instructor at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Social Work in the Northern Bachelor of Social Work program here.

A former social worker with Awasis from 1987 to 1990, Brady returned to Thompson in 2002 to teach at the University of Manitoba.

Brady has a master’s degree in social work from Carleton University in Ottawa.

In 1999, she sought the NDP nomination for the riding of Arthur-Virden for the September general election, but lost out to fellow dipper Perry Kalynuk.

She did secure the NDP nomination, however, in the riding of Turtle Mountain where she finished second, losing to Progressive Conservative incumbent Merv Tweed, now president of OmniTRAX Canada, the Bayline railway.

Other newcomers in the SDML trustee race include Don MacDonald, Liz Lychuk, Sandra Fitzpatrick, Doug Krokosz and Clint Saulteaux.  Lychuk is the manager of child and adolescent mental health programs and mental health promotion here at the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA),.

Among the 18 city council hopefuls for eight council seats are two former mayoral candidates, Ron Matechuk, who lost to Johnston by only 208 votes, in 2010, and Colleen Smook, owner of McCreedy Campground, who lagged well behind in early balloting last time out and finished third in the mayor’s race with a total vote count of 681. Also running are Christa Herkert, after school program director at the Boys & Girls Club of Thompson, who is also a member of the Thompson Lion’s Club, Communities in Bloom and Operation Red Nose; Blake Ellis, who began his studies last week at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Social Work, where he is working towards a bachelor’s degree, but is undoubtedly better known for his previous employment roles as housing co-ordinator for the Thompson Neighbourhood Renewal Program (TNRC)  Our Home Kikinaw program; spokesperson for the former Burntwood Regional Health Authority (BRHA); and as a long-time reporter and later editor with the Thompson Citizen and Nickel Belt News, primarily when the Wright family owned it, but also for six months in 2007 after GVIC Communications Corp. of Vancouver’s Glacier Media Group bought it as part of their Prairie Newspaper Group. Ellis, who has lived here for 17 years and is from the farm country of southwestern Ontario originally, has two children and has also been involved in  Thompson Youth Bowling Council, Thompson Tumblers, Hope North Flag Football and Thompson Junior Soccer.

Also running are Julyda Lagimodiere, minister of justice and vice-president of the Manitoba Metis Federation here, who ran against Brady in the school board byelection in 2011, and also worked previously as the learners assistance centre co-ordinator at University College of the North’s Thompson campus from 1987 to 2012; Paullette Simkins, executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Thompson and the Thompson Homeless Shelter; Erika McCarthy, owner of McCarthy Mobile Technology, who recently returned to Thompson after a 10-year hiatus living elsewhere and for a time contemplated running for mayor right out of the gate; Malanie Bercier Cutler; Dave Erickson, a plumber who owns Thompson Plumbing & Heating on Centennial Drive East; Rob Chuckrey; Audrey Dufour, originally from Dolbeau-Mistassini  in the Lac-Saint-Jean region of northern Quebec, who has worked as a substitute teacher for the SDML since 2012; Dennis Foley, a service writer at McKay GM but  best known these days as a mud bog impessario with the  Northern Manitoba Off Road Association , Kathy Valentino; Lydia Blais co-ordinator for Boys & Girls Club of Thompson’s inter-agency Youth At Risk North (YARN), and Duncan Wong, of Baffin Crescent, owner of Wong’s Asian Bistro in Southwood Plaza.