Urban Vancouver

Morningstar Mercredi

By ANDREW HANON

Edmonton Sun

May 45, 2008

The brown house where Morningstar Mercredi spent countless nights cowering in her secret hiding spot still stands near the corner of 107 Avenue and 96 Street.

Last year, the 44-year-old returned to the place where her now-deceased stepfather repeatedly terrorized and abused her. She had heard the owner planned to tear it down and wanted to make a special request before the machines moved in.

"I asked him if I could go in first with a sledgehammer," Mercredi recalls, a smile spreading across her face. "He said he'd do me one better. When the time comes, I get to ride on the machine when it knocks the place over. 'Whatever it takes to deal with your demons,' he said.' "

A few weeks ago, Mercredi checked in with him to make sure the offer still stands. She can hardly wait.

The story of the house and the hole in the wall where she and her siblings would hide from their stepfather is in her memoir, Morningstar: A Warrior's Tale, published by Coteau Books.

For anyone who grew up in a stable home, it's a gut-wrenching glimpse into an entirely different world: A hellish parallel universe where children can't even trust the people who are supposed to protect and nurture them.

In a matter-of-fact tone, Mercredi tells of growing up where abuse, neglect and addiction were the norms of behaviour, where nearly all the kids she knew had to fend for themselves.

Her alcoholic mother was in no condition to care for her children, her stepfather preyed on her and her transient father only periodically appeared in her life. The only remotely stable adults in Mercredi's life were her grandparents.

By the time she was in her mid-teens, Mercredi was an alcoholic and drug addict who allowed herself to be passed around northern work camps, exchanging sex and domestic labour for food and shelter.

When she finally encountered a normally functioning family willing to accept her into the fold, kindness and trust had become so alien to her that she didn't even know how to behave.

The tragic state of her existence was driven home one night in a bar when an otherwise polite young man let slip that he fully expected the evening to end in sex simply because she was a native woman.

"The impact on my spirit was profound," Mercredi says quietly.

Now 22 years clean and sober, she's a published author and playwright, an actress and social activist. She's setting up an office in the AndNow Centre, a collection of spiritual healing and self-help professionals on 107 Avenue, where she'll work on her first novel.

STRAITJACKET

Mercredi wrote her memoir, in part, to show how child abuse can have lifelong consequences and to help people understand the psychological and emotional straitjacket abused children can be bound in.

"I wanted to show how someone can arrive on the streets, or in addiction," she says.

But even more importantly, she says, she wanted to give victims a message of hope, that they can overcome the rage and self-hatred that keeps them mired in misery.

"The point of the book isn't about blaming," she says. "It's not about being a victim. It's about overcoming trauma, honouring the warrior within and learning to live a healthy lifestyle."

Mercredi fixes a steely gaze and adds, "Believe me, I'm no f...ing victim."

Mercredi will deliver her message of triumph this week at the National Indigenous Sexual Abuse conference at the Kingsway Ramada Inn.

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved

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Morningstar Mercredi Launches Book

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By NICKI THOMAS, SUN MEDIA

May 11, 2008

While most families prepared for Mother's Day, the loved ones of slain and missing aboriginal women and their supporters marched through Edmonton's downtown.

About 200 people came out for the second annual Stolen Sisters Awareness Walk, with the hope of drawing attention to the disproportionate number of native women that are victimized across Canada.

Organizer April-Eve Wiberg said that despite accounting for only 2.7% of the Canadian population, 500 aboriginal women have been murdered or gone missing in the last 20 years.

"It's alarming to us because we know the statistics and we know that not enough people do. We're doing our best to get that information out there," she said.

In attendance at the march were the families of Rachel Quinney and Nina Courtepatte, both young aboriginal women slain in the Edmonton area in recent years.

"There was so many moments of raw emotion. People were genuinely emotional about what's going on and what's gone on," said Wiberg.

"Seeing the families - the Quinneys and (Courtepatte's mother) Peacha (Atkinson)- the fact that they have enough strength to come out and support us, it's just overwhelming."

Yesterday, one other community marched in solidarity with Edmonton - the Blue Mountain Nation in New Mexico, who found out about the march through the Canadian Native Friendship Centre's website.

Wiberg said native women in the United States and Mexico are falling prey to violence the same way they are in Canada.

She said she hopes that in the future, the Stolen Sisters walk will be held in communities across North America.

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.

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By DANIEL MACISAAC, SUN MEDIA

May 11, 2008

"Bad mothers and reckless women."

That isn't how Marissa Tordoff views aboriginal women, but after analysing the media's portrayal of aboriginal women who are also victims of crime - including murdered Edmonton teen Nina Courtepatte and her family - Tordoff, a second-year University of Alberta law student, concluded that's how many journalists and much of the public do.

IDENTIFYING IRRELEVANCE

"When you start to actually identify irrelevance in some of the articles, you can see how the stereotypes are propagated," she said.

"The entire act of murder had nothing to do with her parents or anything that had occurred in her home - so, I had to look at things with a critical eye and just ask what is the point in some of these articles.

"The allegations of abuse had never been proven - and yet there was mention of them anyway."

Tordoff's observations are included in a recent report titled Bad Mothers and Reckless Women: The Use of Negative Stereotypes to Excuse Societal Injustice.

She completed the study for a course called Aboriginal Peoples and the Law.

In her conclusion, Tordoff, 28, also points to a victimization of aboriginal women that began in colonial times, the subsequent entrenchment of that bias against them and a "blame the victim" attitude that allows people to remain indifferent to aboriginal issues and to the plight of aboriginal women.

For Muriel Stanley Venne, president of the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women - which suggested the focus of Tordoff's study - the findings confirm her suspicions and observations.

'GIVES SOME LEGITIMACY'

"We've been saying it for some time," she said.

"But to have it actually analysed and studied gives some legitimacy to the whole issue of the discrimination and prejudice that exists."

And Venne pointed out how even the ongoing use of the term "high-risk lifestyle" to describe some of Edmonton's missing women can reveal a certain bias.

"When you say a woman lives a high-risk lifestyle, then you're blaming her for being murdered," she said.

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.

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Written by FRANK PEEBLES
Citizen staff

Thursday, 08 May 2008

Treeplanters are getting the message as they gear up for the bush this year to look out for Nicole Hoar and do not hitchhike.
The Highway of Tears series of murders and missing persons is in the spotlight at IRL, a main forestry and mining supplier.
Store owner Tony Romeyn has set up a hospitality table with free muffins, drinks and other refreshments for the incoming army of treeplanters, and brochures about Hoar, perhaps the most famous treeplanter of all, are front and centre.
"We're telling them, look, you're off-road, you're in the bush, you're in those backcountry areas, so keep your eyes open for something," Romeyn said. "You never know what you might find, and she was a treeplanter, too."
Hoar had just finished her planting contract and was heading to Smithers to surprise her sister at a music festival when she disappeared. She was last seen at Highway 16 West and Gauthier Road on June 21, 2002. Since her colleagues at Celtic Reforestation knew she was done her work and her sister wasn't aware she was coming, there was a considerable lag time before anyone realized she was gone.
"It has been widely publicized. I know people in Newfoundland who are aware of it," said treeplanter Ian Stone. "It is good to see it publicized. Back in Newfoundland you feel safer hitchhiking or taking rides, but here it's different. It's not safe."
His brother Neil is also a treeplanter and he agreed that the brochures are important.
"There are so many new people who come treeplanting every year, it's good to see because you have to make them all aware. I warn the girls working on the blocks all the time about steering clear of hitchhiking," said Neil.
Celtic Reforestation shop manager Dan Ouellette is especially grateful for the warning materials. He knew Hoar and was part of the initial search that ranged from Prince George to Smithers and several other places.
"I was part of the search; so was the whole company," Ouellette said. "We shut down the company and the owner provided a lot of supplies and all of us. It was the biggest search in the whole of Canada -- 25,000 square kilometres -- and it is still a mystery."
He was impressed by the level of publicity and personal contributions that came to their aid, although it bothers him that the Highway of Tears had been claiming victims for years and for some reason Nicole's case rallied society. At least, he said, the issue is now national and in the public's eye and that is still real today, he said.
"Here at the office we changed our policies about how we operate between spring and summer plants," Ouellette explained. "We have a lot of workers from outside the province, outside the community. We decided the foreman has to know what those people's plans are and movements are in those times so we don't have a repeat of that event. You can't tell people what to do, where to go, but just have some communication."

Prince George Citizen
www.pgcitizen.ca

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Bob HughesThe Leader-Post
Friday, May 09, 2008

The quiet of a Saskatchewan spring afternoon gave away to the sound of cars grinding across country gravel roads. The moment they all knew would eventually come had arrived. Cop cars and trucks moved into the Little Black Bear First Nation, bringing with them a mixed sense of sadness, relief, anger and, perhaps, some despair.

The remains of the missing Amber Tara-Lynn Redman had been found buried on the reserve. Three years of pain and frustration, even a tinge of hope for a miracle, for the family of the 19-year-old were over.

The world had been looking for Amber Tara-Lynn Redman since the night she vanished after leaving a bar in Fort Qu'Appelle. Now, three years later, a closure of sorts. She has been found. And police have laid charges against the people they believe murdered her. The first man charged has a history of violent attacks on women.

By all accounts, this 19-year-old was on the threshold of living a great life. She was a beautiful young woman and those who knew her praised her personality and her intelligence. Her family wrote a poignant letter about Amber that described her in the way so many 19-year-old girls are described as being. They said she was "very special to us. Young, beautiful, intelligent, compassionate and kind, she loved and was cherished by all those around her."

And her life has been snatched away from her, and those around her, by another senseless act that ends in tragedy. There is such a feeling of emptiness when something like this happens. And it happens far too much. The feeling of sorrow mixed with emotions of hopelessness have visited Saskatchewan's native population far too many excruciatingly painful times.

There were the deaths of the two young children this year on a northern reserve when their drunken father took them out into a bitter winter night. They froze to death, and charges have been laid.

There remains the unsolved mystery of tiny Tamra Keepness, who disappeared in a night of partying from a house on Ottawa Street. The people who were in the house all say they were too drunk to remember what happened. A mere child, it is now almost four years since Tamra went missing. She has not been found. Nobody has been charged. And the investigation continues.

The loss of human life is always tragic. But when it happens to those so young and so vulnerable, to those who have so much waiting for them, then it becomes numbing. The numbers of native women and children who go missing increase every year, and the eyes of the elders on the reserves and in the cities grow weary of the tragedies they see inflicted on their people.

The problems confronting First Nations people are well documented, and they leave such a feeling of hopelessness it is astounding. Our jails are filled with native offenders. The streets are home to far too many young girls. For too many, booze and drugs are their escape from the realities of their lives.

Nobody seems to have an answer to turn it all around. Money is thrown around. Programs are started up. Governments fail miserably in confronting head-on what is happening out there in the gutters of our country. We live in good economic times, but it makes no difference to those who try to survive in the underbelly of our society.

And, so, two young children die because they are abandoned in a freezing winter night. And Tamra Keepness, innocent and harming nobody, disappears into the night. And Amber Tara-Lynn Redman is the innocent victim of somebody's rage. There are so many other tragic stories like these, it is frightening.

There is only one solution -- only one. First Nations people themselves have to accept full responsibility for what is happening to far too many of them. And instead of blaming somebody else for their troubles, they have to do something themselves. Nobody else can do it for them. It's their problem. It has to be their solution. And it has to come soon, before it is too late.

n Contact Hughes at bobhuges@sasktel.net

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April 30, 2008JOHN BURMAN AND ROB FAULKNER
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
(Apr 30, 2008)

Six Nations police have charged a former boyfriend of Tashina General, and star player for the champion Six Nations Arrows Express lacrosse team, with her death.

Police charged Kent Owen Hill, also known as Kent Squire-Hill, with second-degree murder.

Hill, 20, was arrested in a North Bay motel. He lives on the reserve but until recently attended Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, N.Y.

Six Nations Police Deputy Chief Rocki Smith said Hill and General were friends who also had a romantic relationship at some point.

General's remains were discovered Friday in a shallow grave north of an area on the reserve called Little Buffalo. Police said today she died of strangulation.

Smith said the heavily wooded site was near Hill's residence, on property owned by his father.

General, who was about four months pregnant when she disappeared, was last seen Jan. 22.

Her disappearance sparked an investigation on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, with aerial searches and police dogs.

Arrows head coach Regy Thorpe told The Spectator last night that the team's "thoughts and prayers are first and foremost with the family of Tashina General at this time."

"This shocking tragedy has rolled through the Arrows family, the General family and the Hill family like a shock wave," Thorpe said.

He described Hill as "a wonderful young man on and off the field. I've known him for years."

Efforts to contact General's family for comment were not successful.

Investigators followed up hundreds of tips and reported sightings of the missing woman, who was 21 years old.

An OPP police dog discovered her remains around noon Friday in a field near Chiefswood Road and Indian Townline.

Tests determined that the body was General's, and that the cause of death was "external neck compression."

Smith said the case is the first murder to occur on Six Nations in about 20 years, and it has been devastating to the community. He said Six Nations Police are getting "tremendous help" from Ontario Provincial Police.

Smith said Hill appeared in Brantford court yesterday.

Six Nations police say they will continue to collect evidence. There are no other suspects or accomplices being sought, according to police.

General's funeral was held at the Lower Cayuga longhouse on Six Nations yesterday at 11 a.m., at about the same time as Hill appeared in court for remand .

jburman@thespec.com

905-526-2469

rfaulkner@thespec.com

905-526-2468

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The Province
Thursday, May 08, 2008

Highway of Tears, a documentary film on the dozens of women who have gone missing or been murdered along Highway 16 in northern B.C. over the past four decades, premieres tonight at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University.

Most of the 44 women who have died or disappeared are aboriginal.

Director Sharmeen OBaid Chinoy's film examines the possibility of a serial killer or killers on the loose.

The film airs at 7 p.m. at 515 West Hastings, Room 1700.

It will be preceded by a half-hour discussion, and a forum will follow the screening, featuring Beverley Jacobs of the Native Women's Association of Canada, Gladys Radek of Walk for Justice and Don Wright of Amnesty International.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Highway of Tears
www.highwayoftears.ca
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Crown counsel accepts guilty plea for manslaughter because victim was a paid escort Mia ThomasBurnaby Now
Wednesday, May 07, 2008

She was a loved sister and a sister-in-law, a friend to anyone who needed her.

But Tammy Murray was also a paid escort, and her family is convinced that's why Crown counsel is going to accept a guilty plea for manslaughter in her death rather than go ahead with a murder trial.

"The only thing that made sense to me is because of what she did for a living," said Tanya Murray, Tammy's sister, on Monday afternoon.

"She's a second-class citizen. If she'd been a teacher or anything else, ... she'd have been treated better.

"For me, it feels this is happening because of what she did."

Michael McLeod, Tanya Murray's husband, said the Crown counsel on the case essentially admitted this.

"She told me, 'I'm concerned how a jury will interpret what she did for a living,'" McLeod said.

Police arrested Aaron John Hickey on Sept. 19, the same day that Murray's body was found in a Grange Street apartment.

He was charged with second-degree murder and scheduled to appear in B.C. provincial court in Vancouver on Monday for the first day of a preliminary hearing.

In a preliminary hearing, lawyers for the Crown present their case before a judge, who determines if there's enough evidence to proceed to trial.

But, on the weekend, Murray and McLeod got a phone call that it wouldn't be going ahead and Crown was planning to accept a guilty plea to manslaughter.

"I flipped out. I couldn't believe it," Murray said. "All the evidence that they have is enough (for a murder charge).

"He didn't just stab her once and kill her. He beat and stabbed her numerous times, ... in the back."

She wants the man who killed her sister to face a jury of his peers who'll hear all the evidence against him.

"It's not right to not have somebody go through the court system," Murray said.

"He's guilty no matter what. For him to go through the process, it's important."

McLeod agrees.

"He's guilty of manslaughter or murder," he said. "They're the same act, the difference is in the intent.

"We need to go through the preliminary hearing and get the information out there and let the judge decide (whether there should be a murder trial)."

Cpl. Dale Carr is the spokesperson for the integrated homicide investigation team.

He said the detectives who investigated the case felt Hickey could be tried for murder.

"That was our opinion, that the evidence we had forwarded to Crown supported a second-degree murder charge," he said, adding they understood the story doesn't always end there.

"Crown has to continually re-assess a case. ... Whatever their rationale was, we support it."

"It was surprising," Carr noted of the change to a manslaughter plea, "but it is what it is."

McLeod said this is a story that B.C. has seen recently and shouldn't be in a hurry to repeat.

"Have we not learned anything from the Pickton trial about our justice system not paying attention to the vulnerable members of our society?" he asked.

"She deserved more than this. She was a human being."

Nor was McLeod impressed that Crown counsel didn't tell them about the change in plans.

They got the call from someone else - whom they won't name in order to protect them - who felt they should know what was going on.

"I felt very betrayed with the manner in which it happened," he said, accusing Crown counsel of trying to sneak the changes past them.

"They tried to back-door it. We weren't involved in the decision. I felt very betrayed and violated by what happened, more for my wife. This is her sister.

"If we hadn't gotten that call from someone, we would never have known about this. We would have read about it in the papers tomorrow with everyone else."

McLeod said there's a double standard at play.

"She didn't rate as high as you or I would if there were similar circumstances," he said.

"They thought they could get it by the family as a done deal. We'd all be upset about it, but it would be too late."

Murray said the Crown lawyer told them that she was relying on their Victim Services contact to pass the information along - except their contact hadn't been told about the change either.

"She's lying to me. (I asked her), 'Why are you trying to keep me out of this?'" Murray said.

McLeod remembers last Sept. 19 clearly, hearing on the car radio that police had found a woman's body in a Grange Street apartment - the same building where his sister-in-law lived.

"I just knew it was her, I knew it," McLeod said.

He went there and was the first family member on the scene.

Tammy Murray's lifestyle and personality had attracted people who would do her more harm than good, taking advantage of her generosity.

"Tammy, despite her problems, she would do anything for someone who needed help," McLeod said.

"(She'd) surround herself with all these parasitic people, and that's what would drag her down."

McLeod said he didn't approve of how his sister-in-law earned her living, but those who loved her were powerless.

"I tried to help her. ... I wish to God she had listened to some of the things I told her. We wouldn't be having this conversation today."

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Jana PrudenCanwest News Service
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
CREDIT: HandoutAmber Redman.

LITTLE BLACK BEAR FIRST NATION, Sask. - Eight years ago, a judge said Albert Patrick Bellegarde had caused two women "as traumatic an experience as anyone can imagine or dream in a nightmare."

Today he is accused of inflicting even greater pain.

Bellegarde, 29, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Amber Tara-Lynn Redman.

The charge comes three years after Redman disappeared from outside a bar in Fort Qu'Appelle, about 70 kilometres northeast of Regina, where she had been out with some friends.

Bellegarde is to make his first court appearance Wednesday morning.

A second suspect has been arrested, but no charges had been laid Tuesday.

The 31-year-old man is also from the Little Black Bear First Nation, about 140 kilometres northeast of Regina, but his name had not been released by police.

In May 2000, Bellegarde shot at a 50-year-old woman while stealing her van, hitting the woman in the face with several shotgun pellets.

At the time of the shooting, he had been awaiting sentence for a serious sexual assault, during which he beat, threatened, raped and sodomized a woman with whom he had been drinking. Bellegarde received four years in prison for the offences.

Long before RCMP officers rolled onto the Little Black Bear First Nation on Monday afternoon, people in the area had been hearing rumours the missing young woman was buried somewhere on the reserve.

Mary Grey said she first started hearing the rumours about a month after Redman disappeared nearly three years ago.

"I thought they just had to have enough evidence to charge somebody first, that maybe that's what was taking long was getting evidence," she said. "I thought (a suspect) would get caught one of these days."

From his home on the neighbouring Star Blanket reserve, Noel Starblanket said he, too, heard that the missing woman's body was hidden somewhere on Little Black Bear.

"We call it 'the moccasin telegraph.' The people know more than what the police can actually find out in their investigations," he said.

"In other words, it takes the police longer. Of course, it's understandable because they have to gather factual evidence as opposed to rumour and gossip and stuff like that, but in a lot of cases what we know in the community bears out."

The RCMP moved into Little Black Bear on Monday, arresting Bellegarde and later confirmed they had located remains believed to belong to the missing teen.

Police spent Tuesday searching a house, identified by neighbours as Bellegarde's, and a wooded area on the reserve.

House No. 350 is a shabby, beige, two-storey structure about 55 kilometres away from Trapper's Bar, where Redman was last seen early on the morning of July 15, 2005.

Tinfoil covers some of the windows, and four decrepit cars and a truck sit abandoned in the yard near piles of tires.

The house and treed yard were surrounded by yellow police tape Tuesday, and investigators combed through a treed area beside the structure.

The remains were found at a second site, a forested area just more than five kilometres away from the house.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Brian Jones said a tent set up at the scene was being used by Ernest Walker, an anthropologist from Saskatoon.

Redman's family released a statement Tuesday, remembering her as a "beautiful, intelligent, compassionate and kind woman."

"Since she first disappeared three years ago, she has never been forgotten. Today we may have stopped looking for her. Though, now we know that she's with her father," the statement said. "She will always be remembered in our hearts. She will be dearly missed. The beauty of her spirit will forever shine."

The First Nation Council of Little Black Bear released a statement saying the community was "shocked and saddened" by the news that Redman's remains had been located, and expressed their sympathies to the family.

The statement said the band will hold ceremonies to consecrate the ground where the remains where found.

© Regina Leader-Post 2008 Enter your Email


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Homelessness: our city's shameSun columnist Daphne Bramham and reporter Randy Shore have put together a five-part series looking at homelessness in Metro Vancouver Daphne Bramham, Randy ShoreVancouver Sun
Friday, April 18, 2008
CREDIT: IAN SMITH/Vancouver SunRecently laid off from her job, Dorothy Kerr, 50, with her cat Kahlua. She is paying about $1150 per month rent and wonders what she is going to do.CREDIT: Bill Keay/Vancouver SunFlorentine Peiters (this is a pseudonym) is 81. Her husband kicked her out of her home about one year ago

Multimedia

Narrated slideshow: Daphne Bramham and Randy Shore reflect on the people they met for this series

Podcast: Download the above slideshow in a Quicktime and iTunes compatible format (m4a, 4.4 MB).

Stories

Check in daily as we add the stories running in this feature

SATURDAY, April 19

Sheltered homeless: our forgotten seniors

Homeless crisis grows while Canada prospers

TUESDAY, April 22

Young, lonely and far from home: how our troubled youth are dealing with life on the outskirts of society.

A short slide to the mean streets: Many people live only a few missed paycheques from disaster

Misconceptions about the homeless: Many of the kids living on the streets are intelligent high school grads who shun drug use

WEDNESDAY, April 23

A roller-coaster life of illness and poverty: Lisa Sloan was 46 years old and struggling with bipolar disorder when she first found herself homeless for the first time.

Homeless no more: He's been dealt some poor hands in an up-and-down life, butRichard Smith was lucky enough to land a subsidized apartment

Related: Study contradicts welfare claims -- Almost none of 45 people tracked between 2004-2006 were better off

THURSDAY, April 24

A city of Vancouver employee for most of the past 25 years, Dorothy Kerr was just 13 days away from being homeless.

Sometimes hard work is still not enough: A renter for almost 25 years faces almost overwhelming obstacles finding a new place to live

FRIDAY, April 25

One family's battle against homelessness: A Vancouver woman's fight to keep her brother off the streets.

Related: TV story sparks viewer support

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Bringing the lost home

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How 1 Man puts the missing pieces togethe

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From drugs and sex to a life of hope
Lora GrindlayThe Province
Monday, April 21, 2008
CREDIT: Jason Payne, The Province'We need to realize that a human life is valuable, no matter what state it is in,' says Trisha Baptie, recipient of a 2008 Courage to Come Back Award in the social-adversity category.

Every Monday until May 5, The Province will profile this year's recipients of the Courage to Come Back Awards. It's the 10th year the Coast Mental Health Foundation has honoured those who have inspired others by their ability to overcome great obstacles. The six recipients will be honoured at a gala dinner May 8 at the downtown Hyatt Hotel. Today's profile is of Trisha Baptie, recipient in the social-adversity category.

Trisha Baptie walked away from prostitution in 2001, for her kids.

"I never wanted my daughter to think that that was what she was created to do," said Baptie, 34.

"I started seeing that perhaps my world was not the norm, that perhaps my world wasn't the best for my kids, that I could hope for something bigger."

Before stepping off her Downtown Eastside corner for the last time, Baptie's hopes for her kids were firmly planted on the street.

"My highest aspirations for my son was to become one of the best-known pimps around, because he could command respect, he would have money, and he would be safe," recalled Baptie.

"I always thought that if I hoped bigger for them they would feel like they failed, because they would never achieve it. They have a single mom. All my kids are bi-racial. We live on the poverty line. I know I'm an alcoholic."

Seven years later, her daughter is graduating from high school, her 13-year-old son wants to be a pediatric nurse and another son has started kindergarten.

"They have something that I didn't have. I guess it's hope," she said. "They are totally different from where I was."

Baptie's recovery from drugs, prostitution and violence began with a smile. The Union Gospel Mission outreach worker who handed her a hot chocolate one night in 2000 would change her life.

"She's got this smile. I was just captivated by her," said Baptie.

That night they talked for two hours. "In her smile, in the way she talked to me, she somehow seemed to say, 'What you are is OK. You are important, you are human and I'm happy to be here talking to you.'"

The friendship grew and through it Baptie agreed to leave the street nine months later.

Baptie is open, honest and funny about her life. Her childhood in a "fairly stereotypical, middle-class, alcoholic, beat-the-kids-and-wife household" did nothing to prepare her for life or motherhood.

She was apprehended at 12 because of her violent outbursts. She was angry after seeing her mom repeatedly flee and then return to her abusive husband.

At 12, Baptie began going from foster care to group homes and had no role model for the behaviour she would need to live, work and survive on her own.

She entered rehab at 15, where she met the father of her first child. At 19, she moved in with a cocaine dealer and had a son.

She no longer drinks or does drugs and says her recovery was a process rather than an abrupt stop.

"It's a progression of longer and longer between the screwups. I'm years between screwups," she said.

Baptie's journey became newsworthy last year when she wrote about the Robert Pickton murder trial for Orato.com as a citizen journalist.

She was writing about the horrific murders of some of the women she used to know, while other media wrote about her.

She is involved in her church, has worked through counselling with her kids, to deal with their troubled past, and has ended up with friends of a "calibre like nothing I had ever known."

"I didn't get this award on my own. I got this because of everyone who sacrificed and put themselves aside to lift me up," she said. "I just want to honour them."

Surprisingly, she has emerged into a new life that is "consumed with work as an abolitionist."

She is a vocal and devoted campaigner against prostitution.

She hopes to see Canada follow Sweden in criminalizing the buying of sex and decriminalizing the women's side of prostitution.

"Let's arrest the johns. Let's do education campaigns much like we do with domestic violence. It's not OK to buy a woman," she said.

"We need to realize that a human life is valuable, no matter what state it is in."

lgrindlay@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2008
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