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Yesterday was the third lecture of Concordia University’s Community Lecture Series on HIV/AIDS.

As Doris Peltier delivered her moving story, the audience sat still, absorbing every word of it.

Back in 2002, this Aboriginal woman from the Wikwemikong Unceded First Nations reserve in Ontario was diagnosed with AIDS. 

After a difficult childhood of losses and abuse, she decided that she wouldn’t let the disease overcome her.

Ever since she received her diagnosis, she has been working as an activist for the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network at the local, national and international level. 

She has been giving conferences to share her experience and give hope to those suffering from the same disease.

“I did not want to just be another statistic, I decided to step out and start speaking about it, and disclose my HIV status publicly because we NEED to talk about it.”

As an activist, Doris Peltier is also involved in research with the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network.

Statistics show that Aboriginal women represent 48.8 percent of the HIV infection rate in the community, while youth represent around 32 percent.

For the most part, this epidemic comes from the colonization of the Aboriginal communities by the Europeans back in 1492.

At the time, Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and forced to attend residential schools in an attempt to assimilate them and turn them into westerners.

All of this caused severe disorganization in indigenous societies and disrupted their traditional social structures, alliances and kinship ties.

What Doris Peltier also focuses on are ways of decolonizing the Aboriginal communities in order for them to finally heal, mostly through healing circles.

“Part of the decolonizing is about telling our stories, it validates our experience and it helps to make sense of the past, it’s about releasing something, it’s about removing layer upon layer, and once you begin removing those layers, you began to discover some strengths that might have been covered up by those layers.”

For Peltier, speaking is part of her healing process, and it is part of accepting the disease and becoming the woman she is today.

She insisted on the importance of talking about HIV and AIDS, because healing won’t work in isolation.

“For me, what happened when I was diagnosed was for the very first time I was able to say NO. I experienced childhood sexual abuse, and as a child, you know, you’re frightened, it shuts you down and you’re not able to say no, but for the first time I was able to say no when I got my AIDS diagnosis, no more, no more!”

For many years, Aboriginal women lived with self-esteem issues that made them vulnerable to HIV and AIDS.

The title of this conference was an aboriginal word that meant “the essence of who we are is beautiful”.

And after sitting through the moving and inspiring speech that Peltier delivered, I knew that she was right.

Audrey Folliot, CJLO News

Challenged by the loss of one of Canada’s greatest political leaders, the New Democratic Party of Canada still has a leader to elect. Nathan Cullen, Niki Ashton, Peggy Nash, Brian Topp and Martin Singh were all at Concordia’s Oscar Peterson Hall on Wednesday night for an unofficial debate.

Topp says getting Quebec voters on board is crucial for his party:

“So one of the key priorities of the next leader, certainly mine if I’m elected leader is gonna be to keep building the party here in Quebec theres no doubt about that. Including showing up to events like this.”

But much of the talk surrounding the event was who did not show up. Thomas Mulcair decided to attend a campaign event of his own in Montreal’s east end. Paul Dewar and Romeo Saganash also didn’t go.

For the candidates there, much of the time was spent hating on Prime Minister Stephen Harper with Nathan Cullen leading the charge.

“We have to find ways to work with those other progressive Canadians that are out there, so that Stephen Harper can’t get those vote splits, can’t narrowly win a majority and continue to destroy this country. We can’t. We don’t have the time. If 8 months has been terrible with this guy imagine 8 years.”

Speaking to a crowd of mostly students, candidates were critical of the Quebec Liberal government’s proposed tuition hikes for students in the province. Niki Ashton is the youngest candidate at twenty-nine years old. She says young people shouldn’t have to pay higher tuition for the older generations mistakes.

“We’re gonna be told increasingly as young people that we gotta tighten our belts, we gotta take cuts, we gotta deal with an increasingly unaffordable, increasingly expensive future. Well that’s just not on. ”

She also said she wants to bring Quebec on par with the rest of Canada for tuition, not the other way around.

“Quebec has been a model in terms of affordability. And to see that model be attacked is just wrong.”

The NDP leadership race so far has been criticized for being flat in terms of disagreements. On limiting credit card fees, instituting proportional representation and fighting the keystone pipeline they also saw eye to eye. A two state solution in the Arab/Israeli conflict was also popular among candidates. Concordia University is known for involving itself in that conflict. Listen to the crowd roar when the question was posed:

“Would you vote in favour of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations?”

Without being asked it, many of the candidates answered one of the biggest questions of the leadership campaign. Can they speak French? Topp said this about his advantage as a fluently bilingual Montrealer.

“I think it’s very hard to imagine being leader of the Federal NDP official opposition of the Government of Canada with 58 Quebec MPs and not be bilingual.”

The next official debate is this Sunday in Halifax and all eight candidates are expected to be there, even Mulcair. The leadership convention takes place on March 24^th.

Read by: Katie McGroarty

Stories by: Esther Viragh, Joel Balsam, Sabrina Daniel, Luciana Gravotta and Dominique Daoust

Produced by: Carlo Spiridigliozzi

After their major defeat during the last federal elections, the Liberal Party is finally gaining momentum.

While the Conservatives and the NDP are still leading, the Abacus poll shows the Liberals are catching up with 21 per cent support from voters.

With Bob Rae as interim leader, they are constantly in the public eye, getting both coverage and support. The Angus Reid poll showed Bob Rae’s personal popularity increasing from 20 per cent in August to 28 per cent of respondents having a favorable opinion of him.

Although it is still unclear whether Mr. Rae wants the leadership post, which will be given sometime in the spring of 2013, his increasing popularity might become crucial to the Party’s success.