Southern Chiefs Organizationi wants Minister of Justice to Investigate Website's as Vehicle for Racism, Ignorance and Hatred

For about a year SCO has been casually monitoring news blogs of some of the major news organizations in the province. During the last few weeks the issue or nasty, ignorant, hurtful and racist comments again arose and we are demanding that action be taken.

The incident that created concern this last week was the CBC Manitoba website where stories related to the death of a child in a house fire and subsequent comments by the Chief of the Sandy Bay First Nation were exploited by bloggers who stated a wide range of ugly comments that were very hurtful to First Nations people who contacted us.

The posting of these comments has happened before on the CBC site. Sometimes the very worst of comments have been removed the same day they are posted; others which are marginally less offensive are allowed to remain for months. The truth, however, remains that the CBC website is providing a vehicle for the expression of hatred, intolerance and ignorancethrough the perpetuation of stereotypes. CBC has provided a forum that allows for the expression of hatred. What happened last week was a direct result of the deliberate and ongoing policy of CBC.

It should be stressed that complaints abut blogging relate only to CBC decision makers and that these policies are not a reflection of other aspects of CBC news. In fact, CBC provides some of the best quality journalism being practiced.

The Southern Chiefs' Organization is asking for the following measures to be taken:

1. The provincial Department of Justice to ensure there is an investigation of CBC Manitoba blog site to determine whether there has been a pattern of activity that qualifies as enabling the expression of hatred. Findings should also be passed on to relevant federal agencies responsible for communications.

2. Governments should also examine the issue of blogging in general - not just that of CBC - to determine what measures can be taken to prevent the expression of racial hatred.

3. Readers, listeners and viewers of CBC, both in Manitoba and across the country, should let the Corporation know that its blog site practices are intolerable. Many of the viewers, listeners and readers have very strong social consciences and we believe they would support SCO's call for change.

4. In addition, we are calling for an increased emphasis on forms of education to enable all Canadians, both children and adults, to learn more about both the history and current living conditions of Indigenous people. Two of the conclusions that can be made from the blogging situation are: (1) there is still a tremendous amount of ignorance relating to First Nations people, and (2) blogs contribute to the perpetuation of ignorance and therefore there is a need to counter this misinformation. SCO will be willing to work with both federal and provincial governments in this regard.

We have supplied some of the copies of the some of the CBC items taken from the CBC blog sites. Some of the stuff is just graffiti - hateful comments made under the anonymous cloak of a pseudonym or alias. SCO does not have the resources to monitor the CBC websites on an ongoing basis so the examples listed below are taken from a small sample of stories that gathered the attention of SCO or people who commented to SCO at the time of the postings.

Here are some of the examples of postings we collected from CBC Manitoba and CBC.ca

· July 2008, headline: Man charged after fatal Point Douglas stabbing

Posting: "The suspect charged with stabbing the resident multiple times in the upper body (brutal) is described as a man from Fisher River, Manitoba. Isn't there an Indian reservation up there? I wonder if the suspect is a Swede or Icelander? Probably not. No I don't think the problem can be blamed on city bars. The despicable and animalistic behavior has more to do with the nature of the individuals who come from Fisher River to party in Point Douglas."

· May 29, 2008, headline: Manitoba First Nations protest for share of pipeline profits

Posting: "If the bands are hoping to cash in on this pipeline, why not give them shovels while they are hanging out there, they can start digging trenches for the pipe. Oh wait that would be work."

· November 2008, headline: Quebec First Nations angered by development plans

Posting: "I know why first nations oppose any development...there might be some jobs involved. God forbid anyone might actually have to work for their money."

· December, 2008, headline: Sask. First Nations not impressed with consultation policy

Posting: "From my experience that noble Cree culture you refer to consists of shaking a rattle of chicken bones and jumping up and down in front of a campfire with a dead animal on your head. For a reality check maybe just park outside any Regina liquor store on welfare payday. You will probably get stabbed."

Posting: "You can hide in the seat lodge all day, while the world continues to change."

· January, 2009, headline: Peguis land deal stalls, too few votes cast

Posting: "new idea, have another vote give them all a gallon of wine to come out and vote and that will get them out of bed."

Posting: "Give them more money. They will have it spend in a couple of days on new trucks, beer and lotto Bingo and they will come back crying that we did not give them enough money."

Posting: "Yep, give em each $1,000, then a couple of enterprising students can set up a liquor store to raise funds for education. Should be able to reap, lets see, 4000 times 1000 in the first three months. The community can use the infrastructure grant to build a brand new, detox center, They should be able to staff it for the first 6 months until all the funds mysteriously disappear. That should provide another 6 months of clients for the students, and another round of patients. The Dept. of Indian Affairs can step back in and run the centre, provide free handouts to the rest and everything is back to normal."

Posting: "...Get up like the rest of us, work, pay your taxes and do the best you can and stop whining."

Posting: "Gee if 700 more people could pull themselves away from a traditional VLT machine the vote might have had a different result."

· January, 2009, headline: Fatal fire on B.C. reserve renews concern over housing conditions

Posting: "I have seen first hand reserves that receive BRAND NEW and FREE housing, and within a year they have filled the house with garbage, diaper and animal feces. People who are given property will never respect it. They should go out into the real world and work for a roof over their heads like the rest of us."

Posting: "Maybe the Government should put on a 3 week course to show them what a hammer and a nail are used for."

· February, 2009, headline: Chief threatens to sue government after deadly fire

Posting: "Native people do not have the knowledge to look after a house. Build them a teepee seeing they were better off 300 years ago"

Posting: "Why not build tipi's like the good old days before the whiteman? After all, it was colder in the good old days before global warming! Right?"

Posting: "...That way, they would live in teepees in the summer and mud and sod homes - or rough log homes in the winter. That way they would have snowmobiles, ATV's, pickup trucks or any of the toys that government supplies them with today."

Posting: "...I am so sick of this and working my butt off everyday to pay the damn taxes that support the lazy and ambitionless people who sit on their butt all bloody day long waiting for a handout!!!"

Posting: "Maybe they wouldn't have so many problems if they built living quarters instead of buying snowmobiles, 4wheelers, cigarettes and other useless item."

Posting: "Heaven forbid you do something for yourself (ei. build a house)..."

Posting: "If you want housing, get off your @ss and build the damn thing."

Posting: "We'll pay for it as soon as you compensate us for: The wheel; The horse; written language; mathematics/algebra/calculus; chemistry; physics; machining; steam power/gas power; electricity; manufacturing; gunpowder/explosives; etc., etc, etc. Otherwise kindly stop making use of any technology past the stone age (spears, dows and arrows, etc, dog propelled travois, birchbark canoes, tipis, etc.) until you have compensated all other societies that now form Canada for the contributions that you feel so free top take advantage of."

Posting: "Enough, no one reports that the house went up completely in 15 minutes due to the large amount of alcohol in the building...... Ya, we drive by and see windows and doors removed so they can use them as firewood, anyone who drives through can not say OMG. Need a new skidoo, ummm lets cut a hole in the ice and sink it.... Ummm need a new vehicle, well lets burn it or drive it into the lake..... Gee wiz, this pisses me off, no wonder we all become arrogant towards these communities....... Like all the previous comments, can I be included in having a new home to?"

(*This comment was removed following an appeal to CBC by a member of the Sandy Bay First Nation who lives in Winnipeg. Less than two days later the full thread of blogs on that story was taken down.)

· June 12, 2008, headline: Ottawa's apology sincere, say Manitoba Native leaders

Posting: "Go ahead and cry a big tear, you're not fooling any of us. And yes you can thank the taxpayers for your education otherwise you would be running around in the woods"

· June 12, 2008, headline: Manitoba offers moving apology to residential school survivors

Posting: "It required many decades of cynical propagandizing and a concentrated program of instilling false guilt in tax paying Canadians before it was possible to extort $4 Billion from the public purse and convince them an apology was in order for trying to drag Indians out of the stone age and into the modern world.

· April 28, 2008, headline: Renewed Six Nations blockade pushing residents to the brink: Caledonia mayor

Posting: "We've given them 300 years to 'come to their senses and appreciate and respect the benevolence of government. They don't like it when we give them everything... lets see what they say when we take it away."

Posting: "I wonder what First Nations would say if we blockaded their reserve for wasting billions of dollar a year, abusing the system and...etc. Oh...wait a minute, that's right, civilized people don't do that!!!... It's sad, very sad that this community refuses to leave the 18th century and enter the 21st."

It isn't uncommon for the most offensive comments to be pulled after posting as we have noticed during our observing of the sites. However, even in this regard CBC should be held at fault. The fact that an offensive remark is pulled after review by a moderator is unsatisfactory because hate-inciting remarks still get exposure for a period of time. Comments should be reviewed prior to posting. The fact that comments were pulled is evidence that they had been considered unacceptable by CBC, which means CBC is in the practice of giving unacceptable comments a viewing period.

Website content should be read by someone with CBC prior to posting. It has been our observation as well that some belligerent bloggers pounce on almost any story dealing with a First Nations or Indigenous issue and use it as an excuse to rant against or ridicule Indigenousl people. Remarks made often bear no relevance to the story posted by CBC. For instance a tragic fire on a First Nation quickly turns into rants against First Nations rights. It becomes a case of different stories, same vitriol. One non-Native blogger, reacting to the thread Chief threatens to sue government after deadly fire, wrote: "Each and every time I read posts on native issues, I can't help but feel terribly ill at the hateful things expressed by Canadians everywhere. It is disgusting, vile and squarely based on hate... I am truly sorry that, time after time, when a story on natives catches your attention, you must be subjected to pure hatred. This is wrong, no matter how it is spun. I If it pains me I can only assume that you feel it tenfold."

Indeed, many of the comments are shameful and as one blogger wrote Jan. 25: "The saddest part of these posting is that the most ignorant bigoted comments are the one that are most recommended." (according to the blog site popularity listings).

Blog sites are poisoning the atmosphere for Aboriginal people. In addition to encouraging hatred, these sites are full of misinformation. People who probably have never been on a First Nation can make all kinds of false claims about what they saw, because there is no fact-checking. These blogs become a rolling snowball of ignorance.

CBC has a lot of prestige and because of that its website should be - and probably is - the place to go when people living in foreign lands want to check news about Canada. But what kind of impression would they get? Maybe they would believe many of the bloggers and adopt the ugly stereotypes presented by bloggers, or else they react as one thoughtful blogger stated last week: "I am simply dumfounded at how much racism there is in Canada. People all over the world see these comments and I hope they do... They (Canadians) sure do not deserve the good reputation they have internationally, when tripe like this is considered normal).

The accumulation of comments is what concerns us the most. The question isn't so much whether a specific comment crosses some legal line - although some do - but the cumulative effect of these comments. What is being provided is a forum where ignorance and hatred will fester.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that CBC is violating its own policy on website blogging. The website states: "Please note that comments are pre-moderated/reviewed and published according to our submission guidelines."

Here is a listing of a portion of those rules:

What is and isn't acceptable:

1. Please keep your submissions relevant to the topic

2. Be civil

Always avoid:

2. Racist, sexist and offensive language

3. Personal attacks and defamatory statements

7. Insensitive comments regarding the death or injury of private individuals, especially children

8. Posting your message in all CAPS (This makes it difficult to read and in online speak is considered yelling)

The sampling of postings listed here indicates that CBC violates its own rules. Comments are far from civil and are offensive. Note, how Point 7 is violated by this posting, written by some one using the blog name TheTruthHurts, who directed comments at the family of Matthew Dumas, the Aboriginal teenager who was shot by police in 2005. "Boo hoo, my son pulled a weapon on a police officer, moved toward them in a threatening manner and paid for it. I'm failing to see the problem here." Another posting said: "...I am glad this dirt bag is dead, he was a criminal ... not a law a biding citizen like the rest of us. I hope he DOES NOT rest in piece but rot for all eternity." Remember, Matthew Dumas was a teenage living in Winnipeg who was killed and still has family and friends here. He was never convicted of anything beyond minor delinquent crime.

CBC doesn't have to spend time brainstorming on how to come up with a new policy. It merely has to conform to the policy it has already set. In an opinion piece last year the editor of The Drum, an Aboriginal newspaper, noted that the CBC's policy at the time stated that submissions must not promote racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm against any group or individual. He then concluded: "Does the content of the CBC promote racism and bigotry and hatred? Against the people of Peguis and Indigenous people in general? I would, yes it does."

Both the individual postings as well as the threads of posting on some stories convey a message of hatred and contribute to the creation of a stereotype. SCO is contacting Manitoba Justice Minister Dave Chomiak on this issue.

SCO looked through some of the information on the situation that led to David Ahenakew being charged with a hate crime earlier this decade. Ahenakew's comments, although ugly, largely referred to historical events. The CBC blog site comments refer to the events of today.

The charges against Ahenakew were largely the result of comments he made to a news reporter following a speech. It was a one-time thing. CBC, meanwhile, has been allowing racist comments to be posted again and again. What has occurred goes beyond just having a bad day or a momentary lapse in judgment. It has become a deliberate practice. There is no doubt that the postings - both individual comments and the strings of commentary on some issues - amounts to incitement of hatred.

In concluding, at some point in the future we may launch a case in court or appeal to a Human Rights Commission, but for now we are appealing to the provincial Department of Justice, CBC patrons and CBC management.

We are also asking other media corporations to watch carefully over their blogging practices. We would also like to state our appreciation for corporations and outlets that have chosen to not allow irresponsible blogging.