We will not be silenced: Sisters say theyre lifting a court-imposed publication ban to protect others

For nearly four years, a court-ordered publication ban kept Haileigh and Arianna Cardinal’s story of sexual assault at the hands of their stepfather shrouded in censorship. Intended as a legal protection for the two sisters from the remote Gwich’in community of Tsiigehtchic, Northwest Territories, the ban instead, they say, imposed harm, silencing them, while their abuser moved freely on bail. “The publication ban was a restriction to us. It was placed for us, but we didn’t want it because it was protecting him more than it was us,” said Arianna Cardinal, 14. “It was his shield and not ours.” Alexander Lloyd Edwin Gordon, 34, was arrested in April 2022, held in custody for a few days and then released on bail until July 2025. Alison Cardinal, his former spouse, told APTN News her family was made aware of the publication ban shortly after he was arrested. She said that the family did not feel safe over the three years and that they could not speak freely of what had happened to them. The family continued to live under the publication pan throughout the court processes including a preliminary hearing, a week-long trial, closing arguments a few months later, a guilty verdict and the victim impact statement. In the end, Gordon was convicted of two counts of sexual assault and sentenced on Nov. 14, to four years in prison. After remand credit, he is slated to serve 46 months. The publication ban was lifted on the same day. ‘We couldn’t warn others’  ‘We didn’t want any other child going through this again,’ says Haileigh. Photo courtesy of the family. It’s common practice in cases pertaining to sexual assault for the courts to issue a publication ban as a way to protect a victim’s identities. The Cardinal family said it had the opposite effect, and made them feel powerless while their abuser moved freely in new relationships. “We didn’t want any other child going through this again and we wanted people to know how he really was,” Haileigh said. Their mother, Alison Cardinal, told APTN how difficult it was to see social media posts accusing her of siding with her children’s abuser, while Gordon told girlfriends, some of whom had young daughters, that the sisters had fabricated their allegations. “We couldn’t speak out. We couldn’t warn others. We couldn’t tell our story,” Alison said. “People thought my silence meant I was protecting him and they didn’t understand what a publication ban was.” ‘I am an Indigenous child who will not be silenced’  ‘I grew paranoid,” says Arianna. ‘I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t hug my own grandpa without feeling icky.’ Photo courtesy of the family. In her victim impact statement, Haileigh framed her request to lift the publication ban as an act of Indigenous resistance against generations of imposed silence. “This is my story and I want the freedom to share it in my own words on my own terms,” she read. “For a long time, I felt like my voice was taken from me. I had to stay quiet and worry about what I could and couldn’t say, which feels a lot like residential school where the generations before me were silenced. “I am an Indigenous child who will not be silenced.” The sisters were pre-teens at the time of the offences. They said the aftermath has impacted every area of their lives. Both Arianna and Haileigh detailed the pervasive nature of trauma and the long-lasting impacts on their mental, physical, social, spiritual and emotional well-being. “I grew paranoid,” Arianna said, “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t hug my own grandpa without feeling icky.” Haileigh said the abuse was intertwined with years of manipulation and emotional control. “I had to learn about gaslighting at a super young age,” she said. “I didn’t even know what to call what was happening to us.” Arianna articulated a crucial distinction, the importance of framing her family as survivors not victims. “I’m not just healing from SA (sexual assault),” she said, “I’m healing from who he was, from what he did, from what I saw. I thought he was being a dad.” As of 2019, Statistics Canada lists the N.W.T. as having the second highest rate of police-reported intimate partner and family violence in Canada. And we know that not everyone reports these incidents to the police. The North consistently poses high numbers of police-reported intimate partner and family violence. According to the Status of Women Council of the N.W.T., in 2020 the rate of sexual assault in the territory was 7.3 times the national rate. But the Cardinal family is far from a statistic. In speaking with APTN, they wanted to focus on their healing journey, one that has been deeply personal. The family worked closely with a community counsellor and attended dene ceremonies at the Arctic Indigenous Wellness Camp in Yellowknife. The daughters took what they called that grounding force from the on-the-land ceremonies into the courtroom, in a historic moment that saw their traditional counsellor drum for them. “When she started drumming, everything goes quiet,” Arianna said. “You feel like your ancestors are with you.” A mother’s strength in the face of manipulation Alison Cardinal says the family was made aware of the publication ban shortly after Gordon was arrested. Photo courtesy of the family. The sisters are fiercely adamant that the public should reserve judgement in matters of family and domestic violence and ask that more people educate themselves on the manipulative contract tactics wielded by abusers. “People don’t get it,” Arianna said. “They said, ‘Why didn’t she just leave?’ You can’t just leave an abusive relationship. He kept coming back like a fricking cockroach.” Alison described how Gordon kept her in survival mode and created constant crises, financial chaos, emergencies and repairs to keep her overwhelmed and distracted. “He had me where he wanted me,” she said. “My counselor told me he was distracting me so I wouldn’t see what was going on.” Arianna and Haileigh said they have both appreciated how supportive their mother was as they asked for the publication ban to be lifted. Defying victimhood with hopeful outlook for future The Cardinal sisters look to the future with ambitious goals. Haileigh plans to attend university for nursing or teaching, hoping to eventually “travel all around the world” and holding back laughter as she says “become a super wise Elder.” Arianna aims to become a lawyer and fight in the courtroom to “give people justice.” She said her story doesn’t end here as she also hopes to write a memoir. “I want to make something that tells my side and my experience, and I want it to be sold in the north.” For the Cardinal family, revoking the publication ban was a public testament of strength in the inexorable voices of Survivors, and critical to their healing, ensuring their abuser’s freedom will always be conditional on the truth. “When he comes out he’s not a free man. It’s known,” Arianna said. “We want it to be seen as he went to jail for this.” As first reported by CKLB Radio, NWT Supreme Court Chief Justice Shannon Smallwood’s ruling, Gordon will also be subject to orders that prevent him from being close to children and to hold a job or  volunteer position that would place him in a position of trust. The sentence also comes with the mandatory requirement that Gordon provides a DNA sample for the national Sex Offender Information Registration. Continue Reading