The CCIR Launches!
 |
The launch of the Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting (CCIR) last Saturday, featuring CBC Investigative Producer and CCIR Advisory board member, Susanne Reber was a success.
Reber was speaking at the Skydragon Centre, in downtown Hamilton, about her book, ‘Starlight Tour: The Last Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild’, and on the future of investigative reporting in Canada.
‘Starlight Tour’, the term used to describe the police practice of dropping Native men and women outside of Canadian prairie cities and towns, alleged by First Nations, is the real life account of the last night of Neil Stonechild, a seventeen-year-old First Nations man who froze to death one frigid night on the outskirts of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1990. Authors Reber and Rob Renaud weave Stonechild’s story with that of Neil’s mother, Stella Stonechild, and lawyer, Donald Worme* as they pursue Neil’s death before the courts, along with the various police and news investigations that followed. Stonechild’s death would ultimately result in a public inquiry. The findings of which were recently upheld by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in a challenge brought by former Saskatoon Police Constables, Larry Hartwig and Brad Senger.
In a poll of its readers the online magazine The Tyee named ‘Starlight Tour’ a book that defined us as Canadians.
The event was the first public event to mark the existence of the CCIR – and also the launch of the website. CCIR Members in attendance that night included Associates Bruce Livesey, and Susanna Kelley, Board members Kevin Thomas and Alex Roslin, as well as many family, friends, and supporters of independent in-depth reporting who came and gave generously.(Including the Mohawk College Journalism students who shot the nights events.) Thanks again to everyone involved.
Bilbo Poynter,
Executive Director, CCIR
*Disclosure: Donald Worme is a member of the Board of Directors of the CCIR, and Executive Director, Bilbo Poynter was a researcher on the book.
