Native Women in the Canadian Prison Industrial Complex

Panel Discussion: Native Women in the Canadian Prison Industrial Complex
With guest speakers: Sheri Pranteau, Alana Boileau, and Danielle Linnen

Co-sponsored by RadLaw McGill

Although Native women make up just 4-5% of the Canadian population, they now make up more than 35% of the population of women in Canadian prisons, and the number is on the rise. The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) says that poverty-related crimes are becoming life sentences for Native women. Come discuss systemic racism in our legal system and the ways in which it feeds the problem.

Danielle Linnen first started practicing international environmental and Aboriginal law at the United Nations Environment Programme. She later joined Dionne Schulze law firm to focus her practice on Canadian Aboriginal law, mainly involving administrative, environmental and constitutional law. Danielle has also been involved in specific claims files before the Specific Claims Tribunal and represents former residential school students from several communities in Quebec.

Alana Boileau is the justice and public security coordinator for the Quebec Native Women’s association. As a Québécoise, Alana is interested in helping non Aboriginal people in the province to unlearn some of the harmful stereotypes they believe to be true about their own history. Today, Alana’s work focuses around the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women. She is currently coordinating a study to help grasp the situation in Quebec, and is also collaborating with a group of Aboriginal people working in Montreal as well as the Montreal police to create a missing and murdered Indigenous women’s protocol which will hopefully assist in ensuring that no other Indigenous family in Quebec has to experience the turmoil that too many have already gone through.

Sheri Pranteau is a 37 year old native woman, mother and partner who was convicted of Manslaughter and Robbery-Use of a firearm in 1999. She served 17 years in prison. She has been out on parole for the past 5 years. Before prison she lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She grew up in a family coping with alcoholism, abuse, and violence.

This event is part of the Centre for Gender Advocacy’s annual fall event series: Another Word for Gender: an intro to feminist organizing & action