PADDLING TO RECONCILIATION
Officer joins Pootoogook’s daughter
Ten months ago, a police prosecutor told Sgt. Chris Hrnchiar he would be “forever labelled” by the “insulting and racist” comments he made online after the drowning death of Annie Pootoogook.
Wednesday morning, the veteran Ottawa police sergeant took up a paddle and climbed into a canoe with Pootoogook’s daughter, Napachie, 4, and Napachie’s biological cousin Ellie, 8, another step in Hrnchiar’s journey of healing and reconciliation.
“I did not imagine this at all. Never in my wildest dreams,” says Veldon Coburn, Napachie and Ellie’s adoptive dad, as he readied to paddle with Hrnchiar and other police officers and Indigenous youth in the annual Friendship Flotilla canoe journey down the Rideau Canal. It was Coburn who saw Hrnchiar’s online comments in a Citizen story and raised the alarm with Mayor Jim Watson and police Chief Charles Bordeleau.
“It means so much. When she (Napachie) grows up, she’s going to go on the internet and look up whatever information she can about her origins. If that one comment stick outs, then I’m glad that Chris will be a part of the family and she’ll know him as the very warm, loving person that he is. Someone who embraces them and cherishes them.”
Originally from Cape Dorset, Annie Pootoogook was an accomplished artist who earned an international reputation for her drawings, which showed a raw, unflinching view of life in the Arctic. In 2006 she won the $50,000 Sobey Art Award. But she also struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. She came south to Ottawa in 2007 and lived in shelters or on the street, panhandling for change and selling her drawings for just a few dollars to passersby.
On Sept. 19, 2016, her body was pulled from the Rideau River near Bordeleau Park. She was 46.
Using his personal Facebook account, Hrnchiar posted two comments on a Citizen story:
“Because much of the Aboriginal population in Canada is just satisfied being alcohol or drug abusers, living in poor conditions etc ..... they have to have the will to change, it’s not society’s fault,” he wrote.
“And of course this has nothing to do with missing and murdered Aboriginal women ..... it’s not a murder case ..... it’s (sic) could be a suicide, accidental, she got drunk and fell in the river and drowned who knows ..... typically many Aboriginals have very short lifespans, talent or not.”
Hrnchiar, a 30-year police veteran, was charged and pleaded guilty to two counts of discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act. He was demoted to the rank of constable for three months and ordered to take multicultural sensitivity training. He publicly apologized.
But the police discipline ordered was just the beginning of Hrnchiar’s education. He began to read about Inuit culture and politics. He visited Indigenous groups and met with community leaders.
“I was upset. I was distressed that it had caused people hurt,” Hrnchiar said Wednesday. “I’m an emotional person and I’ve always been a sensitive person. It made me think twice. What caused me to say that? What am I biased against that caused me to say that?
“I wanted to make it better. I wanted to understand things that would make me a better person.”
Hrnchiar says he “didn’t think twice” about the comments when he posted them and was shocked to see the backlash that followed.
“Your bias drives certain comments and impressions you have about people and groups,” he said. “Based on your own life, you may never hear any criticism. Then when you do, it makes you think. The more I learned about native people and Indigenous people and their struggles it made me think, I really don’t know as much as I should as a Canadian citizen. We don’t have a very good history on a lot of those things.
“My discipline was only for a certain number of months. But for me, I knew this was going to be a life-changing thing. It was going to make me a different person.”
Hrnchiar, a forensic crime scene specialist, had a chance to put that into practice this summer when Ottawa police were called upon to investigate an RCMP officer after a 25-year-old Inuk man was shot and wounded by the officer in Igloolik, Nunavut. It was Hrnchiar’s first trip to the Arctic.
“Just seeing the North and engaging with the community, it really taught me a lot in a short period of time,” he said.
“What I’ve learned is that we as Canadians ... have a lot of misconceptions about what Indigenous people went through. I was shocked to hear about things, not just the residential school system, but at one time they had a pass system on Canadian reserves. I never knew about that. I was like, what? This is Canada? You had to get a pass to leave the reserve? That’s crazy. That’s a dark part of our history. It caused a lot of trauma and that’s a generational thing that can be passed down. It may take generations to heal that — that mental and physical anguish.”
Coburn, himself an Algonquin man, said he was disturbed to have seen Hrnchiar’s hurtful comments about Pootoogook.
“It was from someone in a position of authority,” he said. “Police have a history of strained relationships with Indigenous people all across Canada.”
But he’s impressed with Hrnchiar’s efforts to reconcile.
“We talk. He has a lot of curiosity and that’s taken him in his own direction. It’s voracious. He tells me about the books he’s reading. Who he’s gone to visit. He told me that once he got reading about Indigenous, particularly Inuit cultural readings, history and politics, it just took a life of its own.
“It’s nice to be there with someone with not only an open heart, but an open mind.”
The event drew about 50 participants, who paddled from Dow’s Lake Pavilion to the Ottawa Locks, portaged their canoes down to the Ottawa River, then journeyed upstream for a feast on Victoria Island.
For Flotilla organizer Lynda Kitchikeesic Juden, Hrnchiar’s presence exemplifies the spirit of the day.
“It just feels like healing and we all needed to heal,” she said. “Look at Chris himself. He’s practically an ambassador for the Inuit community right in the police service. Good has come from bad and I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”
The more I learned about native people and Indigenous people and their struggles, it made me think, I really don’t know as much as I should as a Canadian citizen.