(Image of the Cranbrook, B.C., Royal Canadian Legion branch newsletter. On the right, the first newsletter version including the joke. On the left, the reissued version with a publisher’s explanation on why the joke was removed.)
By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
A British Columbia branch of the Royal Canadian Legion pulled their most recent newsletter after publishing a joke about the murder of two “Indians.”
The Cranbrook, B.C., branch of the Royal Canadian Legion printed 40 copies of their August newsletter before pulling the issue and replacing the joke with a “Publisher’s Comment” explaining why the text was removed in an updated version. The explanation did not include an apology.
The branch has also been ordered by superiors to cease publishing jokes and cartoons in its newsletter.
Shirley Green, 77, said she was outraged when she read the joke on page 5 of the newsletter and immediately contacted branch president Edith LeClair, 63, to express her dismay.
“When I phoned the president Edith LeClair, my voice was just shaking, I was so upset to think the legion could put have printed a joke that disrespected and dishonoured thousands of Aboriginal soldiers and Metis and Inuit,” said Green, who is of Metis and Ktunaxa heritage. “I don’t feel that I have gotten a proper response, I don’t think this has been handled properly and I do hope the branch of the Legion in Cranbrook gets some education on what constitutes racism.”
LeClair, however, was defensive about the joke, which involved two hunters, one from Alberta and one from Saskatchewan, who separately gun down an “Indian.”
LeClair said the matter had been dealt with “internally” and that the newsletter’s publisher simply printed a joke someone had sent him.
“Obviously people can’t take a joke,” said LeClair. “I am 63 years-old and as far as I am concerned a joke is a joke.
Mike Landry, the publisher, wrote in the updated newsletter that he was not “racist, sexist or a bigot” and that the joke was pulled after a complaint from one reader.
“My great-grandmother on my mother’s side was an American Native Indian born in North Dakota. My grandparents on my dad’s side are French Canadian born in Quebec. His great-grandfather is of Irish decent and was Cajun,” wrote Landry. “This makes me a bald, native, French, Irish Catholic, nudist Canadian with a warped sense of humour.”
Landry wrote that he would no longer publish content that offended readers.
The joke begins with the two hunters in northern Saskatchewan when “an Indian runs across the field.”
The Saskatchewan hunter aims and shoots the “Indian” dead. The Alberta hunter expresses shock, but the Saskatchewan hunter tells him it’s legal in Saskatchewan.
Later, the Alberta hunter buys beer and puts it on the roof of his truck when “an Indian runs by, grabs the beer and runs away.” The Alberta hunter then pulls out a pistol and shoots the person dead.
He’s later arrested by an RCMP officer who tells him that it’s illegal to use “bait” when shooting “Indians” in Saskatchewan.
Inga Kruse, executive director of the Legion’s B.C. and Yukon Command, said the Cranbrook branch had been ordered to no longer publish jokes and cartoons in their newsletter which will now only carry legion content. Kruse said the branch has also been told to implement a “peer review process” for all content published in the newsletter.
Kruse said letters of apology had also been sent to Green and her daughter Joyce Green, a University of Regina professor, in response to their letters of complaint.
“We consider the Cranbrook newsletter issue an error within the branch and have worked with them to quickly and thoroughly resolve it,” said Kruse, in an emailed statement. “We are however taking further action to notify all of our branches that they need to exercise diligence in monitoring volunteers who work on publications for their branches.”
In a previous interview, however, Kruse said the matter was not worthy of media attention.
“I don’t think it’s big news. It was a mistake that somebody made,” she said. “There is going to be a lot of people hurt if that is considered news.”
Shirley Green said she had to raise the issue out of respect for all her Indigenous family members who served in the Canadian Forces.
“This was something I felt I had to do even though I knew I would come in for criticism,” she said. “There are some things you just have to do. There is no choice, you either stand up and do the right thing or you have to live with it for the rest of your life.”
Green is currently planning on compiling a book to honour all First Nation, Metis and Inuit veterans.
Lord Sweet Jesus
I am around the same age and I have found our generation to be the one to very judgmental and often many with racist attitudes that have been so ingrained in oneself that they are blind to it, I think some non-native people have a multi generational attitude the upside to this is I see many of the generations after mine being able to think with their heads to see what racism is about and to break down some of those barriers with a new refreshing view of all people of other colors than white. I want to recognize the positive side of the new generations who will not harbour “racism” in any sense.
Good for you Shirley Green
This Legion branch president is a joke, but I’m not laughing. Also, since when is “Saskatchewanite” a word? Once again, ignorance breeds intolerance.
She may be 63, but she needs to grow up.