Tanya Kappo

Last updated
Tanya Kappo
Born
Education University of Manitoba
Known for Idle No More

Tanya Kappo (Cree) [1] [2] is an Indigenous rights activist. She is one of the four women who co-founded Idle No More and was briefly the manager of community relations for Canada's National Public Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Contents

Early life and education

Kappo is from the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 8 Territory and was raised on the Northwestern Alberta Reserve in Sturgeon Lake. [1] Her father was Harold Cardinal, author of The Red Paper. She graduated the University of Manitoba with a J.D. in 2012. [2] [3]

Activism and career

Kappo is one of the four women who co-founded the Idle No More movement in November 2012. [4] Kappo described the impetus for founding the movement as "the legislation facing First Nations, primarily Bill C-45". [3] Kappo co-edited the book The Winter We Danced: Voices From the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement. [5] [6]

Kappo was hired as the community relations for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in early 2017. [7] She resigned from the inquiry in June 2017. [8] [9] In November, 2017, Kappo emceed the symposium, Indigenous Climate Action: An Indigenous led climate change initiative. [10] In 2020 she was working as a lawyer in Alberta. [11] [12]

Electoral politics

In 2006, Kappo ran for the Liberal Party of Canada in the federal election in the riding of Peace River (Alberta). She lost to Conservative candidate Chris Warkentin. [13] [14]

2006 Canadian federal election : Peace River
PartyCandidateVotes%±%Expenditures
Conservative Chris Warkentin 27,78556.97-8.15$61,636
Independent Bill Given9,88220.26$101,905
New Democratic Susan Thompson5,42711.13+0.02$20,836
Liberal Tanya Kappo4,5739.38-9.58$4,298
Green Zane Lewis1,1022.26-2.53$0
Total valid votes48,769100.00
Total rejected ballots1130.23-0.06
Turnout48,88254.7+1.0

Personal life

Kappo has three children and lives in Edmonton. [3]

Related Research Articles

Beverley K. Jacobs CM is a Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) community representative from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, Bear Clan. An attorney, she became president of the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), serving 2004-2009, and is best known for her work in advocating for the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and seeking changes to policing and the justice system to better serve Indigenous peoples. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Windsor.

Connie Walker is a Pulitzer-prize winning Cree journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation</span>

The Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is a First Nations band government or "band", part of the Cree ethnic group, a member of the Western Cree Tribal Council, and a party to Treaty 8. The band controls three Indian reserves, the large Sturgeon Lake 154 and the smaller 154A and 154B. It is based on the shores of Sturgeon Lake, around Calais, west of Valleyview, in the M.D. of Greenview in the Peace Country of Northern Alberta. The registered population of the band is 3,064, of those 1,407 are on the band's own reserves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idle No More</span> Grassroots movement for indigenous rights

Idle No More is an ongoing protest movement, founded in December 2012 by four women: three First Nations women and one non-Native ally. It is a grassroots movement among the Indigenous peoples in Canada comprising the First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples and their non-Indigenous supporters in Canada, and to a lesser extent, internationally. It has consisted of a number of political actions worldwide, inspired in part by the liquid diet hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence and further coordinated via social media. A reaction to alleged legislative abuses of Indigenous treaty rights by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative federal government, the movement takes particular issue with the omnibus bill Bill C-45. The popular movement has included round dances in public places and blockades of rail lines.

Native American feminism or Native feminism is, at its root, understanding how gender plays an important role in indigenous communities both historically and in modern-day. As well, Native American feminism deconstructs the racial and broader stereotypes of indigenous peoples, gender, sexuality, while also focusing on decolonization and breaking down the patriarchy and pro-capitalist ideology. As a branch of the broader Indigenous feminism, it similarly prioritizes decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and the empowerment of indigenous women and girls in the context of Native American and First Nations cultural values and priorities, rather than white, mainstream ones. A central and urgent issue for Native feminists is the Missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.

#AmINext is a social media campaign launched on September 5, 2014, by Inuit Canadian Holly Jarrett, to call attention to the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. It was one of many awareness campaigns initiated by activists since 2000.

Walking With Our Sisters is a commemorative art installation of over 1,763 moccasin vamps that was created to remember and honor missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Each pair of moccasin vamps, also known as tops, represents one missing or murdered Indigenous woman from North America.

Indigenous feminism is an intersectional theory and practice of feminism that focuses on decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, and human rights for Indigenous women and their families. The focus is to empower Indigenous women in the context of Indigenous cultural values and priorities, rather than mainstream, white, patriarchal ones. In this cultural perspective, it can be compared to womanism in the African-American communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women</span> Indigenous movement and human rights crisis

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), also known as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and more broadly as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) or Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP), is a human rights crisis of violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the United States, notably those in the Indigenous peoples in Canada and Native American communities, but also amongst other Indigenous peoples such as in Australia and New Zealand, and the grassroots movement to raise awareness of MMIW through organizing marches; building databases of the missing; holding local community, city council, and tribal council meetings; and conducting domestic violence trainings and other informational sessions for police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michèle Audette</span> Canadian politician and activist

Michèle Taïna Audette is a Canadian politician and activist. She served as president of Femmes autochtones du Québec from 1998 to 2004 and again from 2010 to 2012. She was also the president of Native Women's Association of Canada from 2012 to 2014. From 2004 through 2008, she served as Associate Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Relations with Citizens and Immigration of the Quebec government, where she was in charge of the Secretariat for Women.

Chelsea Vowel, who often writes as âpihtawikosisân, is a Métis writer, professor, and lawyer from near Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, whose work focuses on language, gender identity, and cultural resurgence. She has been published in the Huffington Post, The National Post, and The Globe and Mail. Co-host of the podcast Métis in Space and runner of the IndigenousXca Twitter account, Vowel has been noted as a "prominent and respected Métis blogger" and "one of the most visible of [the] new generation" of Métis intellectuals.

Pig Girl, first produced in November 2013 and then published in November 2015, is a play by Colleen Murphy that draws upon the events of the 2007 Pickton case surrounding the murders of Indigenous women by Port Coquitlam pig farmer Robert Pickton. The play tells the stories of the fictionalized characters Dying Girl, Killer, Sister, and Police Officer in order to illuminate the Canadian issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Pig Girl was awarded both a Carol Bolt Award and a Governor General's Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women</span> Public Inquiry in Canada 2016-2019

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was a Canadian public inquiry from 2016 to 2019 that studied the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo is a climate justice and Indigenous rights advocate from the Lubicon Cree community of Little Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. Growing up with firsthand experience of the effects of oil and gas drilling on local communities, she began advocating for an end to resource extraction in Indigenous territories but shifted focus to supporting a renewable energy transition after a ruptured pipeline spilled approximately 4.5 million litres of oil near Little Buffalo in 2011.

Robyn Bourgeois is a mixed-race Cree activist, academic, author, and educator. She currently resides in Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe, and Huron-Wendat territory in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">REDress Project</span> Public art installation

The REDress Project by Jaime Black is a public art installation that was created in response to the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) epidemic in Canada and the United States. The on-going project began in 2010 and commemorates missing and murdered indigenous women from the First Nations, Inuit, Métis (FNIM), and Native American communities by hanging empty red dresses in a range of environments. The project has also inspired other artists to use red to draw attention to the issue of MMIW, and prompted the creation of Red Dress Day.

Ryan McMahon is an Anishinaabe comedian, podcaster, and writer from the Couchiching First Nation. McMahon was born in Fort Frances, Ontario, the oldest of three siblings. McMahon was the first in his family to graduate from high school. He graduated from the Second City Training Center.

Carol Rose GoldenEagle is a writer and broadcaster, from Saskatchewan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Loretta Saunders</span> Murder case that spanned the Canadian Maritimes.

Loretta Saunders was an Inuk woman who lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was a St. Mary's University criminology student writing an honors thesis on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada. Saunders was last seen on February 13, 2014. She was reported missing on February 17, and her body was found on February 26 near Salisbury, New Brunswick.

Birth alerts are a practice in Canada, in which a social or health care worker notifies the staff of a hospital if they have concerns for the safety of an expected child based on their parents' history. This can include past instances of poverty, domestic violence, drug usage, and history with child welfare. Birth alerts are typically issued without the parents' consent, and often result in apprehension and placement of the child into foster care after birth.

References

  1. 1 2 Fong, Petti (2013-01-12). "Idle No More: Tanya Kappo had first epiphany as a native in derelict residential school". thestar.com. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  2. 1 2 "Tanya Kappo [J.D. 2012]". University of Manitoba. 2015. Archived from the original on 2016-04-10. Retrieved 2023-06-09.
  3. 1 2 3 "Jan 2013: Full interview: In conversation with Tanya Kappo". Winnipeg Free Press. 2013-01-25. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  4. Postmedia News (2012-12-21). "'We believe our future is at stake,' Idle-No-More movement founder Tanya Kappo says". National Post. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  5. Sanyal, Aparna (2014-06-27). "The Winter We Danced reveals the full depth and breadth of Idle No More". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  6. Semple, Angela (2015). "Review Essay: On Idle No More". Transmotion. 1 (2). doi:10.22024/UniKent/03/tm.198.
  7. Still, Michael (2017-03-04). "Find out the latest developments in the MMIW national inquiry". The Signal. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  8. Porter, Jody (2017-06-14). "Tanya Kappo resigns from MMIWG national inquiry staff". CBC. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  9. APTN National News (2017-06-14). "Tanya Kappo resigns from missing and murdered inquiry". APTN News. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  10. Copley, John (2017-12-20). "Climate Change Symposium: Solutions will require human intervention". Alberta Native News. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  11. Sayers, Naomi (2020-03-20). "Indigenous needs during pandemic demand culturally competent response". The Lawyer's Daily. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  12. King, Hayden; Kappo, Tanya (2016-04-14). "If we want to end indigenous suffering, we must end colonization" . Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  13. "Grande Prairie NEWS 2006". discoverthepeacecountry.com. 2006. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  14. "Voter Information Service - Past results - Peace River (Alberta)". www.elections.ca. Retrieved 2020-08-10.