In case you missed it, watch the recording of our event, “A National Crisis: Reckoning with the RCMP,” from May 29, 2025.
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @rcmp_national_reckoning.
On May 29, 2025 this panel was held in Toronto, Ontario at Toronto Metropolitan University. Organized by the National RCMP Research Council, the panel featured three speakers – hereditary Wet’suwet’en chief Na’Moks, Monia Mazigh, and El Jones – moderated by host Brandi Morin, with brief introductory remarks by Dr. Shiri Pasternak, associate professor of criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University and an organizer of the event.
Bios:
Brandi Morin, an acclaimed Cree/Iroquois/French journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, Canada, who has spent nearly 15 years amplifying Indigenous voices through her work with major outlets around the world such as National Geographic, BBC, Al Jazeera English, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times. Her exceptional journalism has earned numerous prestigious awards, including the 2019 Human Rights Reporting award from the Canadian Association of Journalists, and a 2022 Edward Murrow Award for her series on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Dene Ze’ Na’Moks, Wetsuwet’en Hereditary Chief, has spoken at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City and Geneva to deliver a message from his people about the role the RCMP are playing on his land in the context of resource development. He has traveled throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas delivering the message that the RCMP are enacting warfare against his people and violating their inherent Indigenous laws and rights to the land.
Monia Mazigh is an academic and author of three novels and a memoir. She was catapulted onto the public stage in 2002 when her husband, Maher Arar, was deported to Syria and held without charges for over a year. Her memoir, Hope and Despair, documents the ordeal. Her novels have all won multiple orders. Monia was born in Tunisia, earned a PhD in finance from McGill University, and is an adjunct professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
El Jones has been at the forefront of producing cutting edge research and policy analysis on the RCMP in Nova Scotia. She co-led and authored the ground-breaking report, Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward for HRM, which recommended major reforms for the dual RCMP-HRM policing system in Halifax. She was also an expert witness for the Mass Casualty Commission in Nova Scotia on the RCMP. She has also been involved in general advocacy for years through community organizations in support of families impacted by RCMP violence and criminalization.
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Join us on Thursday, May 29, 2025, at Toronto Metropolitan University (LIB-72) for an evening of conversation with three critical thinkers and community leaders who are defining this moment of struggle within histories of state repression. Please note: this is not an official RCMP site. We are a group of activists, researchers, and academics who share concerns about the mythologization of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and its present day problems.
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @rcmp_national_reckoning.
FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @rcmp_national_reckoning.
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