Deaf Métis student says emailed apology from Manitoba minister isnt good enough

Thirty years after finishing high school and raising six children, Deborah Owczar found herself graduating college with a certificate in child and youth care. She said the trauma informed program instilled a sense of pride in her as an Indigenous woman who grew up in foster care. It was also accessible as a deaf person who speaks American Sign Language, or ASL. “So many people who are not deaf or hard of hearing, they don’t understand what we’re going through. They don’t understand our day-to-day life,” she says. Owczar recently celebrated her hard work at a graduation ceremony for Indigenous women with her daughter Stephanie Jebb, who is also deaf. The ceremony was hosted by the province of Manitoba and hosted by Nahanni Fontaine, the Minister for Gender Equality. “At first it was beautiful. It was a lovely event. We arrived. It was colorful. It felt joyful,” Jebb says. But things turned sour only seconds after Fontaine’s speech finished. Owczar and Jebb say Fontaine, who is also the Minister for Accessibility, told the ASL interpreter who was on stage with her during the speech that she had to leave. “It felt completely in contradiction to what she had just said,” Jebb says. “We were inspired. We were watching. She had this beautiful speech, and then you could tell when she walked and was talking to the interpreter, we didn’t know what she was saying, but the vibe clearly changed, right? “And then the Interpreter moved and it was, like, oh, okay, so this is an event to celebrate the people who can hear, not us, right? We’re in the way.” Following the speech and in front of reporters and cameras, Fontaine told her press secretary about her frustration with the interpreter. “I was thrown off. It wasn’t great but because the woman – she shouldn’t have been on the stage,” Fontaine says. “I couldn’t see anybody on this side. And all I could she was her…” ‘Frantic hand movements?” her press secretary is heard saying. “Yes! I’m like f@ck why did I have her on the stage? Jesus, I’m like ‘you need to leave.’” Accessibility Minister Nahanni Fontaine has issued public and private apologies. Photo: APTN. Owczar says when she first saw the video, her heart sank. “I opened it and I saw and my jaw just dropped. The emotions just came from everywhere,” she says. “I was angry. Pissed off. And at the same time I was trying to remain calm and control myself and think my way through. I didn’t know what to do.” Owczar says those comments hurt even more because she’s the one who had to organize for an interpreter to be at the event in the first place. She says she repeatedly asked the provincial government to hire one weeks before the event but didn’t receive a response. Red River College ended up providing the service so deaf and hard of hearing attendees could be fully included in the celebration. “Indigenous people, we face racism, discrimination,barriers every day. Deaf people experience audism and discrimination every day. Being both, you have more discrimination, and as a woman as well, and so there’s just this intersectionality and these layers of these various experiences,” Jebb says. While Fontaine issued a public apology – she also sent private apologies to those affected. Owczar says the emailed apology from Fontaine’s office falls short. “What I want is learning,” she says. “A mistake has been made, but can you really make the effort to learn from this, to learn about who we are, to learn from our community, from us as people, and as Manitobans?” Continue Reading