Former CTV anchor Lisa LaFlamme to cover Queen’s death from London for CityNews

My grandfather, Ben W. Kert, had a women’s dress shop along Queen Street in Sault Ste. Marie where a number of Jewish men, many of them “Greenies” from the old country, owned and operated women’s haberdasheries with variable success.

Ben had come from Quebec via Northern Manitoba and Fort Frances, a singular man whose French was as good as his English and whose great heart filled my childhood with glory.

Unlike the other Jewish store owners, Ben W. was born in Trois-Rivières, the only male child who survived with five or six sisters born ahead of him.

Legend has it that my grandfather’s arrival and survival were celebrated with the nickname Sonny. When he left home at 15 (rumour claims his stepmother threw him out) and arrived in Montreal, his first employer would not accept the nickname, so my grandfather invented Ben W. on the spot. The W. never stood for anything. When he died, my mother discovered that his first name was actually Harry.

On Monday in Ottawa, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called for the Indian Act to be abolished. Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was open to working with First Nations to reform or repeal this law, calling it racist.

The act was created in 1876 and still controls Indian status, reserve lands and band governance. It’s understandable why many people want a better relationship.

But repealing a law and building a new relationship are not the same. What would replace the act’s protections? Who decides? How do governments ensure removing federal authority gives First Nations power while the Crown keeps its promises?

Manitoba has faced these questions before. In 1971, First Nations created a document called Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, in response to then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s white paper on assimilation. More than 45 years later, elders and knowledge keepers met at Turtle Lodge, north of Winnipeg, to continue the conversation. Manitobans Dave Courchene Sr. and his son, Dave Courchene Jr., are generational links to the broader movement, and their story should be part of this discussion.