Killing Christmas

"For any of us who have kids, and I have three little girls all around the same age, it's just unbelievable what's taken place. We're all trying to get through it."
"I just remember a girl that was smiling from ear to ear and I recall her sitting on Santa's knee."
"They're hurting right now [child's parents] big time, as I think all of us are who know the little girl."
Shane Pospisil, co-manager, Paul band

"They called him Boss. He would sing powow, he would sing at most of the funerals and wakes around here."
"He was one of those kids who always wanted to go partying. When he would get drunk, he would black out."
Band member asking for anonymity

"It's so devastating. I have no words for it. It killed our Christmas."
Child's great-grandmother

"Everyone should be there for our little ones. When you're in a community like this, you're all family. We have to find healing, we have to find understanding."
Elder Kirby Bird

On Saturday the Paul Band First Nation west of Edmonton called in an emergency. And medical crews responded to pick up a six-year-old girl with blunt trauma injuries. A child who had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, left naked in the snow in the woods, to be discovered by family members out searching for "several hours", to find the child close to death.

Air ambulance rushed her to Edmonton's Stollery Children's Hospital to attend to the "very serious injuries she sustained during the attack". Still unconscious, but the hope is that the little girl will recover. The child's parents are devastated and remain by her bedside. Native elders have appeared at the hospital as well, praying for her.

And on Monday, a 21-year-old local man was charged with kidnapping, sexual assault and attempted murder. His name James Clifford Paul, arrested on the Alexis First Nation, about 40 kilometres northeast of the Paul Band First Nation. Remanded in custody until January 7 for his first court appearance in Stony Plain.

"The arrest came about so quickly because local citizens picked up the phone and called investigators with the information they needed", explained Superintendent Gary Steinke with the RCMP Serious Crimes Unit. The arrested man has some history of criminal activity; scheduled to appear in court in Cochrane on an assault charge and in Glenevis a small hamlet, on a charge of assault and mischief to property.

The man and the girl knew one another. "The relationship to the family is still under investigation", advised Superintendent Steinke. The child's great-grandmother also said that the man accused is known to the child, a member of Paul Band. The entire band, said the great-grandmother, is supporting each other. She saw the girl once in a while, but the little girl was being cared for by another family on the reserve.

Yet another of the many horrific instances that destroy the lives of girls and women on First Nations band reserves where violence is prevalent, and women are victimized incessantly. And where family dysfunction finds children not living with their parents who for one reason or another seem incapable of caring for them.

And the question once again looms: when are these communities going to take possession of their social dysfunction? Not that such horrible events don't happen elsewhere, because they most certainly do. But First Nations peoples are too swift to point to White discrimination as the source of all that ails First Nations.