SAINT-ALPHONSE-RODRIGUEZ, Que. — Every morning, Indigenous men at the Waseskun Healing Centre north of Montreal gather for a healing circle, where they smudge, share stories and sometimes gain spiritual guidance from elders.
The centre is the equivalent of a minimum-security prison but here, the men are called residents, rather than inmates, prisoners or offenders."There’s this idea of bad apples, of taking the rotten one and throwing it out to save the others. But at the heart of that apple, there’s a seed," Grégoire says.
It is the only federally funded healing centre east of Manitoba and is one of six in the country that is Indigenous-run. Waseskun, which has been singled out by Public Safety Canada as a success story, serves only men and has 22 spots reserved for those who were sentenced to terms of more than two years.
Over-incarceration of Indigenous people, however, is steadily becoming"worse and worse and worse," Zinger said in an interview. "There is a real problem in terms of the approach taken and it's not one we find is respectful to the principles of reconciliation, self-government and self-determination,” Zinger said.
CSC offers Indigenous prisoners an elder-led healing program called Pathways. But Stan Cudek, executive director and founder of Waseskun, says the unsafe environment in prisons can prevent people from opening up. "My whole life I’ve had ill-fitted clothes," said Steven, pointing to his camouflage hoodie with a cutout of an elk.
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