Pretending in Prison

Summary

The Copernic Affair | Canadaland Investigates: Episode Summary - "Pretending in Prison"

Release Date: May 21, 2024
Host/Author: Canadaland
Title: Pretending in Prison

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Introduction: Indigenous Overrepresentation in Canadian Prisons

The episode "Pretending in Prison" delves into a critical and often overlooked issue within the Canadian justice system: the alarming overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in federal prisons. Highlighting recent headlines, the hosts Robert Jago and Angel Ellis set the stage by underscoring that one third of Canada's prisoners are Indigenous. As Jago reads from The Guardian and CBC reports, in some prisons, Indigenous inmates make up as much as 50% of the population (00:01), a statistic that underscores systemic racial disparities.

Incentives for Indigenous Identity in Prisons

The Canadian government has implemented various programs aimed at addressing the high incarceration rates among Indigenous populations. These initiatives include:

• Cultural Programs: Hiring Indigenous elders to coach inmates, introducing traditional foods, and conducting spiritual rites.
• Separate Units: Establishing Indigenous-specific sections within prisons, such as lodges or the Pathways program, which offer private rooms and enhanced visitation rights.
• Rehabilitation Focus: Emphasizing rehabilitation through culturally sensitive programs designed to break the cycle of institutional racism (04:23).

However, these well-intentioned programs have inadvertently created incentives for non-Indigenous inmates to falsely claim Indigenous identity—a phenomenon the hosts refer to as "Pretendians."

The Emergence of "Pretendians" in Prisons

The term "Pretendians" describes non-Indigenous individuals who adopt Indigenous identities to exploit the benefits of these specialized programs. The episode introduces Casper Ouimet, a former Hells Angels member from Quebec, as a primary case study.

Case Study: Casper Ouimet

Casper Ouimet, a significant figure in the Hells Angels biker gang, was deeply involved in Quebec's violent biker wars during the 1990s—a conflict that resulted in over 160 deaths. Arrested in 2010, Ouimet faced numerous charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, for which he eventually pleaded guilty and received a 15-year sentence (06:02).

Upon entering prison, Ouimet declared himself Indigenous during the intake process. This declaration granted him access to the Indigenous wing of the prison, allowing him to participate in cultural activities, such as cooking bannock and holding traditional ceremonies (07:06). Isabelle Hachet of La Presse discovered that Ouimet's Indigenous claims were superficial at best, tracing his Indigenous ancestry back 13 generations to the era of Nouvelle France—a clear indicator of his non-Indigenous heritage (08:39).

Angel Ellis humorously questions the motive behind Ouimet's claim, suggesting multiple possibilities: a genuine spiritual awakening, a strategic move to gain favor for early release, or even a delusional belief in transformative cultural practices (10:33, 11:55).

Impact on Genuine Indigenous Inmates

The presence of Pretendians like Ouimet has profound negative effects on genuine Indigenous inmates. The episode features Norman LaRue, a member of the Tkamloops First Nation serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. LaRue recounts how prison staff allegedly encouraged non-Indigenous inmates to claim Indigenous identity to meet quotas and access benefits meant for Indigenous prisoners (14:20).

Conflict and Intimidation

Real Indigenous inmates often find themselves at odds with Pretendians, leading to tensions and violence. LaRue describes incidents where guards side with Pretendians, dismissing genuine claims and embroiling real Indigenous inmates in conflicts. This environment perpetuates stereotypes and undermines the integrity of Indigenous programs (15:31).

Case of Norman LaRue

Norman LaRue's experience exemplifies the severe repercussions faced by genuine Indigenous inmates. After painting a mural commemorating the discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children's remains at a former residential school—a deeply traumatic revelation—LaRue faced intense hostility from guards and Pretendians alike. His complaints about mistreatment led to his forced transfer to a high-security prison, where he was ultimately stabbed multiple times, resulting in permanent facial paralysis (19:09, 23:35).

Systemic Failures in Verification

A critical issue highlighted in the episode is the lack of verification for Indigenous status within the Canadian prison system. When inmates declare themselves Indigenous, authorities do not require proof, such as a tribal enrollment number or official documentation. This open-ended identification allows both inmates and even Correctional Service Canada staff to falsely claim Indigenous identity without consequence (26:04).

Isabelle Hachet's investigation reveals that even prison staff members have been falsely claiming Indigenous status to secure reserved posts and benefits, further exacerbating the problem (16:14). The absence of stringent verification measures means that the system is vulnerable to abuse, undermining genuine efforts to support Indigenous rehabilitation.

Broader Implications: Stereotypes and Public Perception

The episode discusses how the rise of Pretendians inflates statistics showing a disproportionate number of Indigenous inmates. With Indigenous representation in prisons skyrocketing, the public may develop skewed perceptions, viewing Indigenous peoples as predominantly criminal. The hosts argue that these statistics misrepresent reality, as they do not account for the systemic manipulation through fraudulent claims (28:25).

Robert Jago poignantly states, “They should say half the people in prison identify as wanting access to nicer beds, better meals, access to sweat lodges, and your own private room.” This reframing emphasizes that the inflated numbers are a direct result of exploitation by Pretendians seeking to benefit from Indigenous programs rather than reflecting genuine Indigenous overrepresentation (29:22).

Consequences for Systemic Reform

The systemic issue of Pretendians undermines the very programs designed to aid Indigenous rehabilitation. By allowing fraudulent claims, the prison system:

• Dilutes Support: Resources intended for genuine Indigenous inmates are siphoned away, reducing the effectiveness of rehabilitation efforts.
• Fuels Stereotypes: Misleading statistics reinforce harmful stereotypes about Indigenous peoples, complicating broader societal efforts to address racial disparities.
• Breeds Distrust: Genuine Indigenous inmates lose trust in the system, fearing misidentification and subsequent retribution, as evidenced by LaRue’s ordeal (30:23, 31:31).

Conclusion: The Need for Genuine Solutions

"Pretending in Prison" concludes by emphasizing that systemic abuse and lack of verification in Indigenous programs not only harm real Indigenous inmates but also perpetuate damaging societal stereotypes. The episode calls for reforms in the verification process to ensure that benefits are accessible only to those who are truly Indigenous, thereby preserving the integrity of rehabilitation efforts and combating systemic racism.

Angel Ellis succinctly captures the essence of the episode: “If you don't listen to native people and if you don't center our governments and our communities, when you define our identity and you come up with solutions, then you end up making the problem worse.”

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Robert Jago [00:42]: "Today's show is about a white guy from the Hells Angels biker gang who found his spirit animal in lockup. He's just one of many Pretendians in prison."

• Isabelle Hachet [05:34]: "Everybody who wants to get some benefits, most of them want to be granted early parole."

• Angel Ellis [07:06]: "Holy shit. I mean, is this Canada at all? Like that is? That is not the concept that I have of Canada."

• Norman LaRue [14:57]: "Staff are telling inmates coming through to state that they identify as Aboriginal or they live the Aboriginal lifestyle so that they can get in there and so that they can put them there."

• Robert Jago [25:42]: "If he fell into crime, it must have been because of his feeling of injustice in the face of mistreatment of his ancestors by the Canadian authority."

• Angel Ellis [28:50]: "They think that natives are terrifying and that they're all criminals and that they shouldn't be trusted and that, oh Lord, I don't want them in my neighborhood."

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Final Thoughts

"Pretending in Prison" is a compelling exploration of how systemic vulnerabilities within the Canadian prison system allow for the exploitation of Indigenous identity, leading to significant harm for genuine Indigenous inmates and perpetuating societal stereotypes. The episode calls for urgent reforms to ensure that Indigenous support programs serve their intended purpose without being undermined by fraudulent claims.

Transcript

[Robert Jago]

Canadaland funded by you, Angel. I want to read you a few recent headlines. This one's from the Guardian. National travesty report shows one third of Canada's prisoners are Indigenous. This is from the cbc. Over. Representation of indigenous people in federal prisons reaches disturbing historic high. In some prisons, as many as half of all prisoners are indigenous.

[Angel Ellis]

I'm kind of excited that we're going to dig into this today because it's a real problem in America too. For such a small sliver of the overall population, we represent an enormous part of that incarcerated population.

[Robert Jago]

Today we're gonna look at one case in particular. You know how some people find Jesus in prison? Today's show is about a white guy from the Hells Angels biker gang who found his spirit animal in lockup. He's just one of many Pretendians in prison. My name is Robert Jago and I'm a freelance writer from the Kwantlen First Nation and Nooksack Indian tribe.

[Angel Ellis]

And I'm Angel Ellis, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation located in Otmulgee, Oklahoma. I've been a journalist for over 15 years.

[Robert Jago]

From Canadaland. This is Pretendience, a show where we talk about the frauds, fakes and phonies and the harms they cause to real native people.

[Isabelle Hachet]

We'll dance around the bonfire sing a.

[Robert Jago]

Single silly song Imagining we're braves and maidens all day long we'll paint our faces wear a headdress with great pride in this little game we play we'll let our spirits rise.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Angel Ellis]

I don't know who sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Robert Jago]

Angel. By now, I've probably looked at a thousand Britannians to prepare for this series. Do you know where you could find the single biggest concentration of Britannians? You know, where you literally can't shake a stick without hitting one?

[Angel Ellis]

I would say the arts and crafts festival in New Mexico.

[Robert Jago]

Okay, well, fair play, that might be right. But also, believe it or not, federal prison.

[Angel Ellis]

Why? Once you're in prison, what advantage do you have being a Native American? This is not something that, in my experience, has gotten you any favors.

[Robert Jago]

So that's a good question. Why would someone want to be Native in prison? Like, what is the benefit of that? Well, in Canada, the government recognizes that there's this huge surge of over incarceration of Native people in prison. And so they've created a whole bunch of different programs and incentives to try and deal with that and to try and to reduce those numbers by focusing on rehabilitation.

[Angel Ellis]

So what kind of incentives are we really talking about here?

[Robert Jago]

Amongst other things, they've hired elders who come into the prison to help coach you and teach you about culture. They've brought in traditional foods. They've set up separate units for indigenous prisoners called lodges or called the Pathways program, where if you complete the program, you might even get in these places. You have your own space, your own room, all to yourself. I've even heard of some prisons where you get extra visits with your spouse. So there are a whole bunch of material incentives to taking on a Native identity in prison. You know, I mean, these programs are there for a reason. They're meant to break the cycle of institutional racism that's filling our prisons with Natives. But like a lot of things that are supposed to be reserved for Natives, fraudsters have moved in to claim these benefits for themselves. Today I'm going to tell you the story of one guy in particular, a vicious criminal who posed as a Native so he could get through prison in relative comfort. And we'll talk about another convict, an actual indigenous prisoner who ended up getting Pushed out of his program by a pretendian. But before we talk about these specific people, I need to tell you how big a problem this whole thing is. One reporter investigated these programs and according to her sources, the majority of so called indigenous prisoners were were not actually native.

[Isabelle Hachet]

Everybody who wants to get some benefits, most of them wants to be granted early parole.

[Robert Jago]

That's reporter Isabelle Hachet. And she learned that the way you get into these indigenous programs in prison goes like this. You arrive to serve your time and then during the intake process, when they ask you, are you aboriginal? All you need to do is answer yes.

[Isabelle Hachet]

So he said yes, and he was sent immediately to the indigenous wings.

[Angel Ellis]

If I think about going to prison and I think about Ginpop versus an indigenous area, I would much rather be in that indigenous wing if I could get in there.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, I don't blame anyone for doing this either. As I mentioned, Hache spoke to many different people in Canadian prisons. And while she was doing that, she met a man named Caspar Ouimet. Casper is the pretendian we're going to focus on today. He was a major figure in the Hell's Angels. In Quebec, Ouimet was involved in what we refer to as the biker wars. Quebec's biker war raged for eight years. More than 160 people were killed. Els and Jones, Norman Casper, Ouimet, Dextortion, the gangsterism et de Blanchimond d'argent. The Angels are already the biggest and.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Most violent biker gang in the world.

[Robert Jago]

The biker wars took place in Quebec in the 1990s. They murder rival gang members, targeted shootings, things like that. It escalates to bombings, and as the Death toll passes 101 of their car bombs kills a kid who was just playing on the street. There's a crackdown and almost all the Angels are eventually rounded up.

[Angel Ellis]

Holy shit. I mean, is this Canada at all? Like that is? That is not the concept that I have of Canada.

[Robert Jago]

Like, one of the major figures in that fight was Caspar. We met Angel. Here's his wanted poster. Can you read what it says about him?

[Angel Ellis]

Hold on, let me check this out. One of Quebec's 10 most wanted criminals and president of the Hells Angels. Trois reverse chapter. Arrested Nov. 1 in Montreal, he now faces 29 charges of murder, conspiracy and gangsterism. Oh, and they're also investigating him for a series of financial crimes. He's scary looking too.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, he's a terrifying dude. In 2010, Casper was arrested, and after a long trial, he pleaded guilty under reduced charges of conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The place where Casper did all that gangsterism for the Hell's Angels is a place called Trois Rivieres. The name means three rivers, and it's a city of about 140,000 people a couple of hours drive from Montreal. It's 90% white, 90% French. It is most famous for literally nothing. It's just a small, twee French city where you could buy a decent baguette foie gras and play video lotto at the local bar. So while he's living there, Marvin Casper Ouimet is living that French life. When Madame Hachet interviewed him, he said of his indigenous identity that he's, quote, unquote, always been close to nature. When she digs into his genealogy, the only native they can find is 13 generations back.

[Isabelle Hachet]

So it was back in the era of the Nouvelle France, you know, the 17th century, at the beginning of the.

[Robert Jago]

Colonization, which is to say he's a white guy.

[Angel Ellis]

He's one of the settler colonists, right? Like his family got off a boat. Someone shacked up with someone. That doesn't make you indigenous.

[Robert Jago]

Once he gets to prison, he goes through the induction process. That's where they do prison intake. You know, that's where they strip you down, give you new clothes, and ask you a whole bunch of questions to figure out where they should put you and how they should treat you. And one of the questions they ask Casper is, are you indigenous? And of course, he says yes.

[Angel Ellis]

So he's just like, yo, for the duration of my stay here at Chez Prison, I am a native. Is there anyone who says no?

[Robert Jago]

No. Actually, I have to think the guy that says no is the guy that doesn't know how the system works. But if you're in the Hell's Angels, you know, people who go to jail pretty much all the time, you know how the system works. You know that there's all these benefits in there. And so when they ask you, are you an Indian? You say yes.

[Angel Ellis]

So there's not a system in place that, like, anybody can declare themselves indigenous.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, that's right. Hashay interviewed one former actually indigenous inmate, and here's how he describes the screening process. And I quote, when you say you're indigenous at the reception, they don't ask you for your Indian card. They ask you, excuse the expression, quote, unquote, fuck all.

[Angel Ellis]

So now that Casper's indigenous, what happens to him?

[Robert Jago]

Well, I should say that we reached out to. We met, to Casper. We met and we didn't hear back. But based On Isabel Hachet's reporting from La Presse, he gets inducted as an Indian and gets sent to the Indian part of the prison. And right away he starts participating in the spiritual rites and the sweat lodges.

[Isabelle Hachet]

Celebrate each change of season. He cooks bannock, you know, the traditional Native American flatbread.

[Robert Jago]

He becomes like the bannock chef of the prison, starts sharing it out.

[Isabelle Hachet]

He opened the sacred ground that was closed for many years and he put up a sweat lodge and things like that inside.

[Robert Jago]

He got married in prison to someone from outside prison and had a traditional religious native ceremony there with the rituals and with everything. He was really, really involved in all of these programs.

[Isabelle Hachet]

He was respected in the prison because many people told me it was true. From inside the prison, he did really care about his self proclaimed identity.

[Angel Ellis]

Wait a fucking minute. Are you telling me Casper became the fry bread maker? What?

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, he leaned in like that. That dude was legit. When he went to prison and he said he wanted to become an Indian, he became an Indian.

[Angel Ellis]

Maybe he's like finding himself in company of native people, I guess.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, I could totally see how maybe he had a sacred spiritual moment and that convinced him to like go like for real at this. Or he had 10 years in prison and said, screw it, I'll just go with it. And if I go with it, then I'll convince the prison guards that I'm a model prisoner. I'll get out early.

[Angel Ellis]

Maybe he thinks that if he stays with it long enough, he'll become a shapeshifter and fly away. Fly, fly, fly.

[Robert Jago]

That is the third option so far.

[Angel Ellis]

I'm wondering what actual harm is being done. Right? What are the natives in this prison thinking about this? What are they experiencing?

[Robert Jago]

Well, I spoke to one and that's coming up next. I'm guessing that most of the Canadians listening to this right now already listen to Canadaland. The Americans. I'm not so sure. For over 10 years, Canadaland has been publishing weekly episodes that look critically at the media, break news stories, and bring listeners like you. Prospectus from across Canada that you won't find anywhere else. Angel, since you started working on the show, have you been listening? Have you been catching up in all things across the medicine line?

[Angel Ellis]

People are always telling me that you Canadians are nice, polite, boring folks. But I've been listening to some news stories and holy cow, the stereotypes are wrong. You guys are wild. I've heard stories about medical cover ups, election interference, right wing trolls, racism, messed up policing, and something called a pokeroo. Anyway, you guys are like the US but with less guns and a younger, better looking president or leader, whatever you call him. I've learned a lot.

[Robert Jago]

Yep, Canadians are just as awful and outrageous and messed up as Americans are. They just hide it better.

[Angel Ellis]

I'm learning that.

[Robert Jago]

Robert, you can listen to and follow Canadaland anywhere. You get your podcasts.

[Jeff Turner]

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[Robert Jago]

I talked to a real Native person in prison in Canada. His name is Norman Larue and he's from the Tkamloops First Nation in BC. He was convicted of first degree murder in 2013 and is sentenced to life, a sentence. He's currently serving at Kent Maxim security prison about 100 km east of Vancouver. He believes the prison staff is actively encouraging non Native people to claim Indigenous status.

[Norman LaRue]

Staff are telling inmates coming through to state that they identify as Aboriginal or they live the Aboriginal lifestyle or the Indigenous lifestyle so that they can get in there and so that they can put them there. They were wanting to fill beds with non Indigenous people to meet some kind of quota. Like I'm seeing these as that should be for our people being manipulated and given to people that, you know, would even make fun of, you know, our culture, our way of life.

[Angel Ellis]

So they're just intentionally filling up these Indigenous areas with non Indigenous people.

[Robert Jago]

That is what a lot of people are saying. That's what Madame Hachet from the press heard in her investigation, that they don't care how they fill the beds, they just need to fill it to meet their quota to prove that they're actually following through and ameliorating conditions for Native people.

[Angel Ellis]

So are they actually creating better conditions for Native people?

[Robert Jago]

No. Norman Larouse said that there's often conflict and fighting between the real Native population and the Pretendians.

[Norman LaRue]

If there's an argument going on, say, between a native and a white guy, Bill automatically go to blaming the native guy, saying the native guy started it and only the native guy gets locked up where the white guy, he just gets told, oh, go sit down. So these guards, when they say that we're the ones that start things, we're the ones that do things, you know, it's like, are you kidding me? And it's very disgusting. That a place that's set up for our people, you know, where we're being portrayed in a way where we're the issue, we're the problem.

[Angel Ellis]

Isn't there any sort of system to report people who are frauding their identities?

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, that's complex. Norman tried to call some people out and of course the guards sided with the white prisoners because guess what, they're also pretendians. Isabelle Hachet from LA Press found that many people who work for Corrections Canada are also falsely claiming to be indigenous.

[Isabelle Hachet]

It's not only the inmates. The people who work for Correctional Service Canada, they just have to fill a form themselves and they claim they are the indigenous to get some word, some posts that are reserved for the indigenous peoples. It's much more larger problem than just the inmate people.

[Robert Jago]

Not only is prison considered comfier for the inmates within the indigenous programs, but it's easier for the guards too. These are considered to be plum posts. Those jobs are supposed to be filled by indigenous guards who will understand the culture and who will ensure that prisons don't just keep recreating this power dynamic of white authority. And that's not all. The program is also supposed to have native elders who visit the prisoners and guide them and conduct traditional ceremonies. These are paid jobs. Well paid actually. And according to Hache's reporting, fakers took these jobs too. She uncovered a fake elder who seemed to have learned everything he knew about being native from the Internet. It got so ridiculous that prisoners named him Chief Google. And one of the prisoners Hashi interviewed described him there in the prison, in this indigenous space, at a table teaching a bunch of other fake natives how to make dream catchers with some pink dollar store feathers.

[Angel Ellis]

I knew the dream catchers were going to creep into this. I fucking knew it. There should be like an extra mark against you for doing Elder Pretendian. That's rude.

[Robert Jago]

So imagine what happens to you when you, an indigenous prisoner, stand up to a pretendian. You know, you're looking at this spectacle of Chief Google with the pink feathers making some dream catchers, and you start complaining that they're a pretendian. But the person you complain to is also a pretendian. What happens to you then?

[Angel Ellis]

So their best bet if you're a native in prison, is to keep your mouth shut, hear no, speak no, see no evil, and hope you get the fuck out of there as soon as you can.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, it kind of makes me rethink the story about Casper. We Met and about how ideal a prisoner he actually was.

[Angel Ellis]

It's kind of like psychological warfare on the natives in the jail, and they can't get away from it.

[Robert Jago]

Mm. Yeah. You know, even when they're not a pretention. Speaking to the guards, the prison admit any of it is dangerous for bona fide native people. With Norman LaRue, his situation escalated a lot there. And this was over the different reaction that real Native people had and non Native people had about the discovery at Kamloops. The developing story out of British Columbia. A first nation says the remains of more than 200 children have been located buried on the site of a former residential school.

[Angel Ellis]

And they say that those missing children were as young as three years old. And that to their knowledge, these deaths were undocumented. Up until this point, I was there from 71 to 75, and I could hear my friends and that crying.

[Robert Jago]

Getting dragged. Dragged downstairs, whatever. Here again is Norman LaRue.

[Norman LaRue]

When my wife and I learned about the 215 and everything, it hit our family pretty hard because my family is from the Kumlas Indian band, and my family is the hereditary chief lineage there. So when we learned about that, we also know of a couple family members that went missing around that time. Our family believes we now know where they probably are.

[Robert Jago]

So Norman LaRue is no different than any other Native person across the country at that time. He's overcome by the shock of this news, and being from Decemlops, it hits even harder. And he comes from a family of artists, so his first reaction is to paint a mural. The mural has a picture of the school on one side in the center and a teddy bear on one side and 215 written on it. It's one of, like, a million similar murals you've seen across this country from other Native people as some kind of, like, marker reaction to it. Here's where the big problem happened for LaRue.

[Norman LaRue]

And I would be hearing remarks from guards, you know, when they're walking by, looking at what I'm painting. Things like residential school stuff. Again. Why don't your people just get over it? Residential school? Yeah. Just a bunch of crybabies, right? Things like this, you know, things that, you know, shouldn't be said, you know, to guys, especially when they're on, like, supposed to be what, you know, is safe from stuff like that. I guess you could say.

[Angel Ellis]

That'S the kind of situation that, like, is a tinderbox. It's just a tinderbox of emotions. And it sucks to be the person who can't say anything or do anything or express yourself, Especially when you're learning of something so heavy and so traumatic.

[Robert Jago]

That trauma in particular revealed what these units in prison are like for Indians and for Pretendians. It exposed this conflict between them, and that's what it did for Norman. His mural was approved by the warden. He had permission to put it up, but the guards and the white Pretendions in the unit, they opposed it. So this conflict with the guards worsens into intimidation, and Norman LaRue files a complaint about his treatment. The other guards pressure him to withdraw it, and he files a complaint about that, too. Ultimately, one night with no notice, Norman LaRue was forcibly transferred out of the native unit and into a Maxim Security prison miles away. When he gets to the new prison, though, Norman isn't too put in another indigenous program. He hasn't put another indigenous section. He's put in a dangerous unit with a bunch of angry white guys. And here's how his wife, Jenny LaRue, describes it going down.

[Jenny LaRue]

He was moved from the indigenous unit in that transfer to Kent Max, where he had his phone card turned off entirely. So that means he wasn't able to speak with lawyers. He wasn't able to talk to me or anybody else. About one month after that transfer, he was placed on a mental health unit where he felt unsafe, and it was actually considered the most dangerous unit at Kent. And while he was there, he pleaded with them to get him off that unit, and they didn't. Shortly after that, he was stabbed multiple times, and he had to be airlifted to Royal Columbian Hospital. And so he was stabbed in the head, neck, chest, and back.

[Robert Jago]

So La Rue made it through that ordeal. He's okay, but half his face is paralyzed.

[Angel Ellis]

I'm just kind of shook up about that because, like, there's just this man who's processing this extreme amount of grief and confirmation of the horrors that he probably knew. He's of this place, he's of this people. He wants to paint. The only thing he can really do to express himself. And they're like, oh, you want to paint? Fuck you for having feelings. Let's go put you in a place that might kill you. See if you can survive. This asshole is kind of how he was treated.

[Robert Jago]

Here we are a couple years later. Guess where Leroux is now.

[Angel Ellis]

Where is he?

[Robert Jago]

He's in prison for life. Maxim Security Prison. He's not in the indigenous unit. He's just locked up there with the same people that stabbed him. And last I heard, his family can't even reach him. But remember Casper we met?

[Angel Ellis]

Yes. I cannot forget Casper.

[Robert Jago]

He's now at a halfway house. He's been released from prison.

[Angel Ellis]

I just want to, like, kind of scream in frustration. 29 charges of murder is walking around in the world right now, and a guy who should have been in this program is fucking still worried about being shanked.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, that's the size of it. It's not just we met. It's systemic. It really is systemic. He was sent away with some other Hells Angels who also declared themselves to be Indigenous and who played Indian. They got parole even earlier than we met. When it came time for their parole hearings, they exploited their fake identities as Indians to help them get out of prison quicker. Here's Isabel Hachet recalling how their lawyers leveraged it at the parole hearings.

[Isabelle Hachet]

If he fell into crime, it must have been because of his feeling of injustice in the face of mistreatment of his ancestors by the Canadian authority. So it was one of the reasons maybe, that he was granted parole. They took into consideration the Indigenous social background of those criminal bikers, the AS Angels.

[Angel Ellis]

Oh, my God. Is that a white person who was only a criminal because of systemic racism?

[Robert Jago]

Is that what they're fucking saying against his Indigenous ancestors? Yes, that. That is what they're saying.

[Angel Ellis]

I feel like the prison system has a lot to answer for. Like, why don't they ask for, I don't know, a card, a citizenship card or something?

[Robert Jago]

That is a really good question. So I reached out to the newly appointed Deputy Commissioner for Indigenous Corrections at Corrections Canada, and I asked her this question, like, why don't we gatekeep like this? Why don't we check their status? How many pretendions are there in prison? How many actual status cards have they seen? This is the reply I got back from her office. CSC Corrections Canada does not track the number of Indigenous offenders with status, I.e. with the sacred card versus those without self identification is based on an offender's expression of their identity. There is no expectation of proof. If an inmate identifies as Indigenous, he or she is considered Indigenous.

[Angel Ellis]

I just can't wrap my mind around how administratively a solution is as simple as a little bit of words on a form like, give us your tribal enrollment number and bam, you have solid data. This goes away.

[Robert Jago]

They're not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. The Supreme Court ordered them to create all of these programs to help Native people, to help solve this problem. But instead of solving the problem by leaving it so open and creating all these incentives, they've Magnified the problem. They're like feeding the problem for everything they do to make the prison term cushier or softer or shorter for native prisoners. By not gatekeeping in any way, they're just incentivizing more people to claim to be native so that they can access these benefits. And then the number goes up even more. It's a whole system that's encouraging abuse. Okay, angel, so that's how pretendians in prison hurt real natives in prison. But they also harm indigenous people everywhere by adding fake substance to the stereotype that Indians are all super crimey. Let's talk about the numbers. By all accounts, there are a lot of natives in prison in Canada. According to recent statistics, the native population in federal prisons is in fact skyrocketing. One recent news report says that while Native people are 5% of the total population of Canada, we're now a third of all male prisoners. And in women's prisons, natives are a whopping 50% of the inmates. This is a huge increase over the last 10 years at the same time that the non native population in prison is actually decreasing.

[Angel Ellis]

But it's not that there's no white peoples in prison. There's still gangster ass white people in prison. They're just pretending to be native to get some extra outside time.

[Robert Jago]

It makes you wonder, doesn't it, if maybe what's happening is they're going from one box to another.

[Angel Ellis]

And it scares me.

[Robert Jago]

Think about a non native person like listening in and hearing these numbers, just hearing these numbers. Without that context, what are they gonna think about native people?

[Angel Ellis]

Oh my God. They think that natives are terrifying and that they're all criminals and that they shouldn't be trusted and that, oh Lord, I don't want them in my neighborhood. Let's make our little town more white. You know, that's kind of the impression I get.

[Robert Jago]

I mean that is the impression that you, you hear if you go into social media. If you look at the comments to.

[Angel Ellis]

Those stories, maybe natives aren't as dangerous as they seem. But government reports are out telling the world most of the criminals that we have are native. And that's a ball faced lie.

[Robert Jago]

I think those statistics shouldn't say that half the prisons are native. They should say half the people in prison identify as wanting access to nicer beds, better meats, access to sweat lodges and your own private room. That's really what those numbers are saying.

[Angel Ellis]

I got a theory.

[Robert Jago]

Yes ma'am.

[Angel Ellis]

So if I'm in charge of keeping this prison in regs and this program that's designed for indigenous people is actually successful, Wouldn't you, as the person in charge of this prison, be incentivized then to put people there to order to create more peace and harmony in the prison system? It's like even the prison guards and prison staff are benefiting from this native program that's reducing their violence. It's getting people through quicker. It's like maybe the whole fucking prison should be like this and it not just be a hellscape.

[Robert Jago]

Yeah, I mean, that is a really smart point. Maybe this is how if you treat people like this, they do better.

[Angel Ellis]

So since Casper's gotten out for good behavior and he's gone through the Experience Express indigenous lane of prison, what's he up to now?

[Robert Jago]

So, reportedly, the gangsters are back gangstering. There's a whole new chapter of the biker wars. A sweeping police crackdown on organized crime in Quebec has led to more than 30 arrests in the last week, and more are expected. Three men with links to the Hells Angels were kidnapped and tortured. Police insist they're not working with or supporting the Hells. They say it just happens that in these. These cases, it's people linked to the Hell's Angels who are the victims, reportedly from sources on both sides of the law. Since being released, Casper we met is positioning himself as the number two in the Hells Angels under their new boss, Marty Robert. And he's going to be bringing strategy and quote, unquote muscle.

[Angel Ellis]

So whatever meditations he was doing while he was making these dream catchers must not have taken effect. And it seems. Seems like Casper's back to gangstering again.

[Robert Jago]

I mean, what does this all mean? This means that if you don't listen to native people and if you don't center our governments and our communities, when you define our identity and you come up with solutions, then you end up making the problem worse. And that's our show for today.

[Angel Ellis]

I'm Angel Ellis.

[Robert Jago]

And I'm Robert Chago.

[Angel Ellis]

Next time on Pretendians, you're going to.

[Robert Jago]

Tell the story of a different kind of Pretendian one from your neck of the woods. And instead of donning a feathered headdress, this guy put on a red MAGA cap. It's the story of Kevin Stitt, the pretending governor of Oklahoma. My six children with blonde hair and blue eyes. They all have their Indian card.

[Angel Ellis]

Today's episode was researched and written by.

[Robert Jago]

Robert Jago and hosted by me and Angel Ellis. Our executive producer and editor is Jesse Brown.

[Angel Ellis]

Additional production from Caleb Thompson.

[Robert Jago]

Julie Shapiro is our contributing editor.

[Angel Ellis]

Canadaland's Editor in chief is Karen Pulesi. We want to make it super easy for you to become a Canadaland supporter for a limited time for just $2 a month. You'll get our next episode right now and you'll get bonus episodes and every episode of this show early and ad free.

[Robert Jago]

Just go to canadaland.com join or click the link in your show notes. You can listen ad free and early on Amazon music included with Prime.

[Angel Ellis]

Thanks for listening.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's gonna get personal.

[Angel Ellis]

I don't know who sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

[Ryan Reynolds]

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

[H]

Hi, this is Freddie Wong from Dungeons and Daddies and this episode is sponsored by Rocket Money off Houston. We have a problem, and that's too many subscriptions that I don't know about because I like to put my credit card number into sites just for the sheer thrill of it. That's the fundamental problem of the Internet and money, and Rocket Money is here to solve that. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills. You can see all those subscriptions that you've accrued over a lifetime of putting your credit card in on the Internet in one place. If you don't want them, just cancel them with a few taps. Rocket Money can help with that. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com cancelsubs. That's rocketmoney.com cancelsubs, not submarines.

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