The murder of Indigenous teenager Tina Fontaine in 2014 shocked the nation. That year’s Canadian Human Rights Commission report cited the case as an example of systemic failure to protect the vulnerable and it motivated the creation of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry.

During the subsequent trial of Raymond Cormier for murder, for which he was found not guilty by a Winnipeg court, the Crown championed the narrative that the 52-year-old man was sexually interested in the 15-year-old girl. Testimony of his actions adhere to criteria for Sexual Interference. Localizing the crime’s rates in several municipalities, Winnipeg demonstrates a consistent increase with numbers well above the national average.

Sexual interference rates in select Canadian cities over five years. The majority show a consistent increase but Winnipeg’s 2016 rate towers above other cities as well as the national average.

A 2011 report by the Standing Committee on Human Rights – the last parliamentary report to address sexual exploitation in various forms – noted concern that low severity of sentencing did not prompt victims to report. Bill C-26, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act, addressed some of these concerns and may be  partially responsible for a 30% increase from 2015 in the reporting of sexual violations against children.

Comparing the elevated 2016 numbers by province nonetheless show a high rate in Manitoba, where one in seven Indigenous persons in Canada reside.

Sexual interference rates by province for the year 2016  highlight higher rates in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Territories. Hover for information on total incidents.

Excel calculations

In Fall 1943, the 1^st Canadian Infantry Division was working its way up the boot of Italy alongside their British and American counterparts. It was a tough, dirty scrap – the Germans were in fighting retreat, springing ambushes and laying mines. In December, the small coastal town of Ortona became the site of a bloody clash between the Canadians and an elite unit of German paratroopers.

Alexander Railton Campbell was killed just outside that small coastal town, near the Moro River. He was 33 years old, a Major in the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment, and the immediate superior of Canadian writer Farley Mowat.

He is a major character in Mowat’s war memoir, And No Birds Sang. Mowat describes Campbell as “elephantine lump of man” who had “a ferocious determination to kill as many Germans as he could.” But more than the exaggerated “Titan” of Mowat’s memoir or one of the battle’s 5,836 Canadian casualties, Campbell was a real person whose sacrifice is only fully understood through the letters he left behind.

Capt. Alexander Railton Campbell  portrait, dressed in
Hastings  & Prince Edward Regiment Uniform. Date unknown.
CWM 20100088 – 10
George Metcalf Archival Collection
Canadian War Museum

Born and raised in Perth, ON, Campbell lost his father to war at the age of seven. Harry Davies Campbell was killed on July 30, 1917 and was buried in Noeux-les-Mines, France. Sarah Jane Railton Campbell had to raise Campbell, along with his two sisters and two brothers, on her own.

That early tragedy did not stop Campbell from military involvement. He joined the Militia’s Lanark and Renfrew Regiment in 1928 before switching to the “Hasty Pete’s” in 1940.

Campbell wrote to his mother regularly during his service, often apologizing for delays or complaining of the wait – he wouldn’t see “a real-life German” until mid-1943. And although Mowat quotes him saying the “only good German… was a dead one,” little of this hatred appears in his letters. But the effects of the war on children did upset Campbell.

“Whenever I see pictures of the kids in Europe I think of Bill + Jan and I get so mad I could wring Hitler’s neck,” reads one 1940 letter mentioning his niece and nephew, whom Campbell missed.

Letter from Campbell to “Bill,” dated Dec. 27, 1941.
CWM 20100088 – 27
George Metcalf Archival Collection
Canadian War Museum

“Hey there fellow you better stop growing or I won’t know you when I come home,” he writes to Bill on Dec. 27, 1941.

The holidays were difficult for Campbell, as they undoubtedly were for many soldiers. “This is the one time of the year I really would like to ship away and come home,” reads a December 1942 letter.

In an undated 1943 letter to his mother, Campbell is excited at the prospect of some future family vacation. “I think your idea of a trip over after this war is dandy,” he writes.

Telegram notification of Alexander Campbell’s death, dated Jan. 3, 1944.
CWM 20100088 – 31
George Metcalf Archival Collection
Canadian War Museum

Official records and a glib telegram to Sarah Campbell show Campbell died on Christmas Day, 1943. Mowat’s account – itself secondhand – has him, upon witnessing the devastation of a Canadian platoon, seizing a Tommy gun, giving “an inarticulate bellow” and charging straight at the enemy.

“He could have gone no more than three or four paces before he was riddled by scores of bullets,” Mowat writes.

In the July 29, 1944 edition of the Canadian Gazette, Campbell is listed as “Mentioned in Dispatches” – a recognition for bravery. A poem he wrote, “Prayer Before Battle,” is held in commemoration by the still-surviving Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment.

But 75 years later, the legacy of Campbell and soldiers like him is uncertain.

“I think Canadians do not have a very strong sense of the Battle of Ortona or the Italian campaign,” said historian Tim Cook over the phone last week. The campaign is often overshadowed by  D-Day and Juno beach, according to Cook.

“There are very few monuments and memorials in Canada or in fact on those battlefields that draw Canadians to those sites of memory,” he said.

Campbell’s grave is at the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery, 1600 km from his father and 6900 km from home.

Document 1: And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat
Document 2: Letter to Bill, 1940