Emotional testimony at inquiry
MENTAL-HEALTH WORKERS KEPT BUSY BY TESTIMONY AT MMIW INQUIRY
As disturbing stories emerge at the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, it’s Melodie Casella’s job to ensure that testifying about trauma doesn’t simply create more.
“Our mandate is a no-harm approach,” Casella, health manager for the inquiry, said Wednesday on the second day of hearings in Edmonton. “It’s families first.” Casella runs an extensive mental-health network for the inquiry’s western swing. That network embraces witnesses long before they tell their stories to the inquiry’s commissioners.
She said it is delicate work. Just because some members of a victimized family have chosen to speak, that doesn’t mean all relatives want to.
“We don’t make direct contact with families. If we were to make those direct calls, it could cause trauma on a family member,” she said.
“We don’t want to make any families feel pressured to come here when some family members would state, ‘I don’t want to go down that road.’”
Casella speaks from experience. A member of her own family was murdered.
“There are family members in my own family who don’t want to go and share their truth. They say, ‘It’s been a long time and I just want to move forward in my life.’”
For those who do choose to speak and ask for help getting through the experience, Casella makes sure they have support from local Indigenous groups and looks after them when they get to the inquiry.
Nobody is left alone. Casella said workers help witnesses try to build on the strength that got them this far.
Inquiry hearings are emotionally gruelling. Tears and anger are frequent.
To deal with the emotions, a team of six elders stand by. Mental-health workers, identified by purple shirts, sit in the audience to offer support to anyone needing it.
The Liberals sent MP Emmanuel Dubourg to Miami earlier this year to combat that misinformation, and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday he’s also being sent back the U.S. to continue the work.
Briefing notes prepared by officials at Global Affairs earlier this year said Haitian government officials also believe some of those entering Canada were actually just transiting through the U.S. from Brazil.
The briefing notes describing the factors driving asylum seekers were obtained by the Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. They also suggest the influx of Haitians wasn’t connected to any current developments in Haiti, where notwithstanding rampant poverty and poor health conditions, the overall security and stability situation remains “calm and steady.”
Rodriguez and other government officials have said so far, there’s no sign of a mass migration of Central Americans.