Whitehorse Daily Star

Accused granted bail with many conditions

A 25-year old Carmacks man accused of first-degree murder was granted bail Tuesday.

By Gord Fortin on July 11, 2018

A 25-year old Carmacks man accused of first-degree murder was granted bail Tuesday.

Yukon Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower read out his reasons for approving bail for Mario Reuben Skookum, but the proceedings are subject to a publication ban.

Skookum’s lawyer, Bibhas Vase, had made the case for bail last week.

Skookum stands charged alongside Tyler Skookum, 27, in the death of Wilfred “Dickie” Charlie, 57, in Carmacks.

Charlie was reported missing on June 19, 2017. His body was found the following July 5 in the Yukon River near Fort Selkirk.

The autopsy revealed this is a case of homicide.

Gower imposed several bail conditions on Skookum. These conditions include:

• report to a bail supervisor upon release;

• reside at the Yukon Adult Resource Centre, if accepted;

• abide by a curfew;

• abstain from drinking alcohol;

• not attend any establishment that sells or serves alcohol;

• participate in all programs as per his bail supervisor;

• remain in the Yukon;

• possess no weapons;

• stay out of Carmacks unless he has the bail supervisor’s permission to go there or a court date; and

• have no contact with several witnesses.

Skookum must also carry a copy of his recognizance with him at all times.

There is no money attached to his bail arrangements.

Gower clarified his curfew stipulations.

If he’s accepted for residence, Skookum must be at the Yukon Adult Resource Centre from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., but the timeframe could be changed.

If the centre wants to set different curfew times, those would supersede Gower’s.

Comments (24)

Up 0 Down 0

Doug Ryder on Jul 18, 2018 at 6:00 pm

@ Bandit - You have provided a mathematical justification for the overrepresentation of Aboriginal persons in our jails and prisons contrary to the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgement in R v Gladue 1999 reaffirmed in R v Ipeelee 2012 on the issue of systemic discrimination - “Just Sayin”.

In a subsequent post you compare Mario to Alfred Chief. Your intent by implication is clear and perhaps reckless possibly suggesting a lack of understanding of the issue of discrimination, bias, prejudice and/or racism. You end your post with what can justly be referred to as sarcasm; “I am sure Mario will be much better behaved while residing at the YARC”.

All this occurs in the context of an article about a person known to be aboriginal and who is currently accused before the Courts. Alfred Chief is also known to be Aboriginal and there are multiple comments in this forum regarding; Gladue, Land Claims, Residential Schools, Gladue Kangaroos, leftist... reconciliation, the usual apologists and minimizers along with one individual, who, if capable of reading or sustained concentration, suggests that there should be less information countering the racial bias indicated in this forum.

Shut up. We do not want to know. We are comfortable with the illusion of our own narratives. I understand that Yukon College facilitates an excellent course on First Nations history. Take some time to develop a true understanding of the issues before you post your contempt. Set aside your pitchforks and torches whether they be figurative, literal or both. You are needed!

Up 2 Down 0

Bandit on Jul 17, 2018 at 12:38 pm

@ Doug Ryder
I want to be very clear myself. Not once in my post did I say Mario would breach his conditions, nor did I identify him as belonging to a specific race? Not once did I say Mario should be responsible for Alfred Chief Jrs actions, you inferred that. Mario is responsible for his own actions, not of his co-accused or anyone else. As for the assumption I am racially profiling I take offence to that. It seems to me only one of us is playing the race card.

Up 2 Down 6

Doug Ryder on Jul 16, 2018 at 10:54 pm

@ Bandit - Are you racially profiling? Marion should be accountable for the actions of Alfred Chief?

I want to be clear here because you seem to be engaging in the bad faith conduct of racism - All aboriginal persons are the same? He’s aboriginal so he is going to violate his conditions - commit another crime?

Up 2 Down 3

Doug Ryder on Jul 16, 2018 at 10:10 pm

@ Shorten your post - The video below may be a good message for you to hear.
The danger of a single story (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | TEDGlobal 2009)

https://ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tedspread

Up 0 Down 7

Doug Ryder on Jul 16, 2018 at 9:51 pm

@ Shorten your posts -

I wonder if the irony is lost on you? Shhh... Be quiet. This is exactly where the back and forth should be. In the public realm. Be informed and be heard. Do so with deliberation and equanimity. Essentially the root of all our problems is the unwillingness to listen to others and to understand the other. We prefer the narrative of our own illusions... They give us comfort... Something to embrace, to clutch at in the face of the unknown, the unfamiliar. It is a ubiquitous human trapping and the only shame arising from it should be the shame of hiding in it.

If we cannot make the effort to engage in the discussion here where the psychological distance provides one with the safety to explore these larger issues then how can one cope in the tangle of psychological closeness?

Why would you attempt to assert your dominance over my willingness to express myself? What is threatening for you in what I am saying?

You speak to a larger social issue wherein the idea of deliberate and responsible thought is seen as irresponsible. Asserting in its place the favour for quick solutions. This ideal has failed society and is in large measure the basis for the phenomena of assimilation and colonization - progress of the modern idyll through the force of the dominant ideology, now, in 140 characters or less. A world of application without intelligence... Vacuous civility... Algorithmic titillations...

We need to learn to listen to people so we can escape the black hole of self-absorption in the self-affirming echo chamber of “me”. Your perception is deceiving you!

Up 11 Down 4

Shorten your posts if you want readers on Jul 16, 2018 at 4:26 pm

Does anyone else read the comments that are practically a novel? I don't.

No one wants to read that much and the back and forth should be played out elsewhere.

Up 3 Down 8

Doug Ryder on Jul 15, 2018 at 10:30 pm

@ My opinion - I sincerely believe that you believe that Dave is right in his belief. However, you would both be off the mark by a Yukon country mile. Read:

1) Yukon has spent 2.5M settling sexual assault cases, since 2000
2) Drugs at 4 months. Sexual abuse as a child. And a lifetime of dealing with pain.
3) Why is the Yukon government quietly settling lawsuits alleging sex abuse by a former school principal?
4) Yukon women’s group not surprised by high rate of sexual assault cases dismissed as unfounded.
5) On and on ad nauseum...

Sounds like the ‘old boys club’ [sic] is alive and well in the Yukon.
It is an accepted fact that 90% of sexual assaults go unreported.

The northern Territories, Yukon included, report higher rates of sexual assault and violent assault than the Canadian national average. Perhaps it’s all them tourists passing through?

Sometimes the way some of you get talking about sex and sexual assault makes me feel like I have to protect my leg at all times! Then there is the violence - Everyone including the courts tends to sweep the issues under the rug - teaching them to do it again because the consequences do not have any consequence for those convicted - ooh, you’re going to give me a warm, dry place to stay with TV, social time, education and training, programming, 3 meals per day and canteen - beats poverty any day of the winter at least... Perhaps the summer too!

Then there are those who are not detected... What do they learn? Being Caucasian has its privileges?

So, Dave et al. - It is not about sowing discontent. The discontent had been here all along dulled by a sense of what some refer to as an Aboriginal fatalism. Where do you complain if no one is listening wonder victim and offender alike...

Now it is about reconciliation and restoration.

Up 12 Down 2

Bandit on Jul 15, 2018 at 3:19 pm

@ Doug Ryder
Apparently Alfred Chief Jr didn’t read well either. He wasn’t supposed to go to Watson Lake but he did and he killed a DISABLED elder by beating him to death. I am sure Mario will be much better behaved while residing at the YARC

Up 3 Down 10

Doug Ryder on Jul 14, 2018 at 9:26 pm

@ My Opinion - Did you read the article? He is not allowed to go back to his community and that is why the Judge released him to stay at the Adult Resource Centre in Whitehorse.
Your assertion, if I follow your logic, is that the justice system should make decisions based on sentiment and feeling rather than fact - perhaps, a Facebook page and a like button?
You do really need to crack a book, read an article or two, and get outside the confines of your own opinion. It appears to be a trap of self-confirmation bias.

First Nation individuals have been and continue to be treated adversely by the justice system because of their “skin colour” [sic]. They are less likely than whites to get bail, have higher conviction rates subsequently, and have tended to get longer sentences. However, to be more precise it has more to do with ideological differences than it does skin colour. Socioeconomic stuff.

Their marginalization leads to lives lived in high risk contexts; poverty, child abuse [physical/sexually/neglect], substance abuse, substance abuse disorders, spousal assault, sexual assault, violence, and suicide to name a few. Then there are the chronic disease and mortality rates.

For - Record straightening et al.

From: Youth tackle school’s painful history
When the last vestiges of the Chooutla School are cleared away, no one will mourn its loss.

By Sidney Cohen on July 7, 2017 - Whitehorse Star
“A lot of our family members are affected by it,” added Tyrone Atlin, a trainee whose father is a former student.
“He doesn’t talk about it,” said Atlin. “Breaks down when he does.”

The Chooutla School opened in 1911, and children there experienced the brutalities ubiquitous to the residential school system.
These included starvation, “unregulated corporal punishment,” and poor living conditions that enabled the outbreaks of diseases such as measles.

One former student, Angela Sidney, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that “we couldn’t even talk to our brothers! We got punished if we did. And we weren’t supposed to talk Indian, Tlingit.”
Sidney said her sister died at the school. The little girl would be one of more than half a dozen students who died while attending the school, according to the TRC.“

@ My opinion - but hey, let us trust your opinion as it seems to be well informed.
My apologies to, My opinion for the length of this post. I realize that not everyone has the same cognitive resources and it will take some a lot longer to read than others. However, ignorance is never the answer unless of course you are a lawyer... Then it can be helpful. Please help society, get informed.

Up 3 Down 7

Doug Ryder on Jul 14, 2018 at 5:50 pm

@ Record straightening - I appreciate the conversational tone in your post. You may be correct in your assertion with respect to a Yukon application of that particular statistic. However, it is one in which applies to an assumed class of people more generally as in, “cultural genocide”, at the national level. This is well documented. Forced poverty through policy and legislation is another way to kill without any direct application of force.

Many First Nation children in and from the Yukon were sexually abused. The same for Nunavut and NWT.
All of the policies and legislation related to the governance of the First Peoples were directed at erasing everything that gave them their identity as First Peoples. To “kill” the Indian in the child. That was the objective.

Up 13 Down 1

My Opinion on Jul 14, 2018 at 4:17 pm

By the way Doug, Dave is correct. I have been here for fifty years and before all this Land Claims stuff and Lawyers everyone was fine. We never even considered who was different. So keep sewing the seeds of discontent and division, that should work right?

Up 13 Down 0

Miles Klondike on Jul 14, 2018 at 2:13 pm

There was a Canadian holocaust (sp?) but it's an excuse for too many and the court system is failing us.
And the schools are failing us. Why not have courses every year that tell children alcohol and drugs are bad and if you hurt or kill someone you usually go to jail.

The bail conditions will likely be broken in this case because the court system treats people like children when some people should be treated harshly justifiably when they are violent and kill someone.

Just wait, we will see bail and then court appearances as bail is broken and if a conviction occurs an apology. Seems like a program designed to be nice to offenders and allow them to reoffend over and over again.

Up 17 Down 1

My Opinion on Jul 14, 2018 at 12:11 pm

@Doug
For crying out loud man, keep it to 2 Million key strokes. You must have a REALLY hard time with Twitter.
Yelling louder and longer doesn't make it right.

He is charged with committing a crime and is being treated differently because of his skin colour and that is just wrong. If there are social problems that are causing the over representation in that community then turning criminals back into that community will only create a cycle of destruction. Lets address the real problems.

I am sure his community does not want him back.

Up 2 Down 13

Doug Ryder on Jul 14, 2018 at 12:02 am

Dave look, it’s a holocaust! No it’s not, said Dave. The people sat in silent reflection... If Dave did not see it then it must not have happened.
Wow, it must hurt something awful. To feel vilified. I am sorry that you are feeling put upon. But this really is not about you and your faux indignance is both cheap and low. I am not sure why you had to personalize the issue.

Personalizing is an example of fallacious reasoning.
Although University textbooks may cover these issues that were buried by previous generations my perspective arises out of personal experience, as witness, and from the public record preceding current day textbooks. But continue to slag the younger generations. Is that not just another prejudice to engage in? Millennial bashing? Gen X bashing? Baby Boomer bashing?

Why can’t people just engage in a discussion of the ideas?
While I do not assume that you are actually a holocaust denier, the parody is a logical consequence of your assertion. Young children use such reasoning which usually disappears during the maturation process with the development of moral reasoning. People begin to understand in their preteen years and on through adolescence into early adulthood that they are not the centre of all things and that others have their own thoughts, feelings and experiences - they begin to develop a theory of mind.

But anyway, just to clarify; the holocaust did happen. The cultural genocide that has been advanced on First Nations is now a matter of fact. Many legal and academic scholars have likened this cultural genocide to a holocaust. Just so you know, Amnesty International has intervened in this crisis.
But hey, you keep on believing that nothing happened. It will be your little secret...

Up 12 Down 0

Record straightening on Jul 13, 2018 at 9:08 pm

@Doug: Your #2 fact here doesn't hold water for the Yukon anyway. We grew up and played with the residential school children here. My sister and I shared our new CCM bicycle with the kids at lot #19 residential school run by the Baptists. I played my first hockey road trip as a 6yr old minor at the Choochutla mission outside of Carcross. If any one person had died, that would have been a real big deal and it just didn't happen here. Ask those that lived it and they will tell you. Other abuses we just didn't know about because these kids didn't complain they just got angry. All kids were treated differently than today, much so. I am not condoning anything about these schools but they were not all the same except for being fundamentally wrong in the first place.

Up 4 Down 8

Doug Ryder on Jul 12, 2018 at 10:50 pm

@ Bandit et al. - The Gladue decision by the Supreme Court of Canada was reasoned in light of the overrepresentation of First Nation individuals in our jails and in our prisons. Setting aside the concerns with your logic/math the overrepresentation of Indigenous persons in the justice system is the direct result of both implicit and explicit systemic discrimination sometimes referred to as white privilege. However, one should beware the lure of perception. This really is an elitist game for the benefit of lawyers, judges, and other forms of equally pernicious politicos.

Check out, R v Skookum, 2015 YKTC 54, on CanLii to see how Clown Services bungled the sexual assault conviction - on purpose? Really, forgot to test the evidence. Lol. Got played with a guilty plea? Gladue factors were live and considered at sentencing in this case as well. There are similar other bungling across the country. Because of the tendency for First Nation individuals to plead guilty to get the court process over and done with the sexual assault conviction may be a wrongful conviction. This is an inherent danger in the court process.

If they are released on conviction with a condition of probation that requires them to attend programming and assessment - good luck! The system has convinced them that they really did nothing wrong but it is really good of you to have pled guilty to save time and resources - good for you, you gracious martyr you - you get credit in the form of mitigating circumstances with a commensurate discount on actual time served. Congratulations.

Interestingly, the Whitehorse Star published an opinion piece on February 6, 2015 titled - Is the System Condoning Attacks and Confinement.

The answer is a resounding, YES! Several things happen during the transformation of the court process that would leave the so-called reasonably informed person stunned and consequently diminish, perhaps shake, the public’s confidence in the administration of justice. But sometimes the administration of justice might provide a homecoming light so that the public may have confidence that justice is on the right path.

The current case before the court may, to the reasonably informed individual, represent a homecoming - The court is on the right path?!?!

Human behaviour is complex. Perhaps one of the greatest errors whether intentionally or unintentionally built into the system and the biases of the various agents in the court is the absolute lack of understanding of human behaviour. Knowledge and understanding are often eschewed from the courtroom on the pretence of Judicial Independence coupled with an elitist hubris staring long down the nose... See the Legacy of Philip Moses [Google].

Anyways - Back to the article cited above. This also centred around the Gladue decision. The article informs that many First Nation people have had hard lives, attended Residential School and are productive and contributing members to society who have not committed violent crimes.

There are several sections of the article that deserve direct quotation:

“What kind of message is the justice system trying to send to society? That it is OK to brutally attack and unlawfully confine people because the sentence you will receive will be just a conditional sentence and/or probation?”

“It is time the criminal justice system quit making excuses for First Nation offenders and start making them accountable for their criminal actions.”

“It is humiliating and embarrassing when the Gladue decision is mentioned in court cases, especially when this decision does not go far enough to address the needs of the victim. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT THE VICTIM IN THE GLADUE DECISION WAS ALSO FIRST NATION.” [Emphasis added]

The opinion piece was reportedly unsigned due to concerns of retaliation - Not so ironically a Gladue factor itself.

So, here we have a self-perpetuating system wherein it may be a proper perspective to hold that Gladue factors are a system of rewards and punishments for individuals fulfilling their “duties” [sic] within that system. Keep the fear and the chaos going without providing any real relief for the offenders and especially the victims. This is the pathology of the system.

Read the Legacy of Philip Moses and see if you can spot the true pathogens responsible for impaired, societal-level, health.

In the current trend victims are the cost of doing business. They should keep their legs, close their pants up and ultimately fight back - harder? Better? Or like many others - hide, keep a low profile and do not report the assault to the police or you will get a beating!

Up 11 Down 2

Dave on Jul 12, 2018 at 5:21 pm

Rod, as Doug pointed out you are not following today’s politically correct and government approved thought process in regards to this matter. In future please adjust your thinking accordingly to fit approved guidelines.
Unfortunately however for the Doug’s of this world, some of us actually were here then and lived in Yukon during this period and we know first hand what did / didn’t happen in these matters, especially regarding the 60s. We don't have to ‘read up on it’ as we aren’t getting our information pumped into us second hand from a textbook or university. Some very good people and some very good actions that were taken at that time are now being demonized by the current supposedly enlightened generation. It’s very easy to put people of yesteryear down when they are no longer around to set the record straight but I for one am getting tired of friends from that era who I know to be very good people now being smeared basically as child abusing abductors. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true today.

Up 15 Down 0

Groucho d'North on Jul 12, 2018 at 2:49 pm

Why grant bail at all? Does he have dependents to provide for? A job he may loose if locked up? I fail to see why these accommodations are being made, perhaps it's some twisted leftist approach to reconciliation.

Up 10 Down 1

Bandit on Jul 12, 2018 at 1:08 pm

@ Doug Ryder
I am going to try and put this into perspective. Forgive me if my math is off but I think you will get my point.
5)Aboriginal/Indigenous persons account for approximately 20% of the prison population while representing approximately 4% of the Canadian population.

So if the remaining 96% of the population commits 1.2 % (96 divided by 1.2 =80%) of the crimes to account for the other 80% of the prison population that should mean that the remaining 20% of the prison population committed (20% divided by 5 = 4%) Crimes at the rate of 5X the national average.
That should explain why Aboriginal/Indigenous people account for 20% of the prison population. Just sayin.

Up 6 Down 16

Doug Ryder on Jul 11, 2018 at 11:17 pm

@ Rod - A cornerstone of the judicial process is the presumption of innocence; the ideal should apply equally to all! You should read up on Indigenous history and attempt to gain a better understanding of Aboriginal issues locally, nationally and globally.

For your edification some general facts on the North American/Canadian front are as follows:

1) A North American Indigenous population kill rate over the last 400-500 years at about 90%.
2) Within Canadian Residential schools some estimates project that approximately 1/2 of the children died at school due to disease, abuse, starvation, running away etc.
3) The 60s scoop was a continuation of the Residential Schools phenomenon wherein Aboriginal children were taken from their homes and fostered - sometimes hundreds if not thousands of kilometres away - never to return.
4) Canadian government policy used words like, kill the Indian in the child, deal with the Indian problem etc.
5) Aboriginal/Indigenous persons account for approximately 20% of the prison population while representing approximately 4% of the Canadian population.
6) Suicide rates for Indigenous persons are as high as 11 times the national average in some isolated geographic regions.
7) Aboriginal/Indigenous women are 7-8 times more likely to be the victim of spousal abuse than non-Caucasian women.
8) By virtue of their family and community contexts, lack of resources and supports many Aboriginal/Indigenous persons have greater difficulty in maintaining changes in their lives due to these factors.

Gladue factors are the antecedent consequence arising from the “intended” and “concerted” effort to assimilate and colonize Aboriginal/Indigenous persons through the coercive machinery of the state over centuries which still continues to this day. Your statement above is a reflection of the ongoing process.

Your statement above indicates a prejudice at best and racism at worst. This is a phenomenon that ‘we’ should eschew with great expediency. However, I hope I am correct in assuming that your statement originated from ignorance rather than a contempt for an assumed class of individuals.

Make no further mistake in this regard - the literal intent of past federal government policy was to figuratively, by design, “kill the Indian” in the child through the destruction of the family of which Residential Schools was but one tool. Creating the context for racism - dividing people along racial lines [social construct] - to pit one against another is an example of another such tool.

By spouting off prejudicial or racial rhetoric we allow ourselves to become tools. So I say Rod - don’t be a tool for hate...

What if Mario did not do anything other than having the misfortune of being an Indigenous person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? I do not know for certain, do you?

Up 10 Down 3

BOLE on Jul 11, 2018 at 8:25 pm

Yes I understand the “process” is just begun and still merely accused.
That said, bail...really?
Seems to me that the bigotry of lower expectations strikes again.

Funny that, no one need remind me that killing is bad, nor rape, nor thieving...imagine?
Oh yeah, Ron...perhaps but a blanket “whiteys fault” has seemed to work real well for the cultural elites thus far.
Everyone else it would suggest is here as practice dummies for nefarious P’sOS to perform their craft unmolested.
A mere glance to Whitehorse downtown illustrates this BOLE effect quite well.
When I see hosed and violent elites in our core, I see walking NCR’s and Gladue kangaroos.
Not folks responsible for virtually anything done, thank Mr. Dress Up our PM....daddy for those racist policies.
BOLE....keeping NGOs, doctors, surgeons and morticians, lawyers and state actors employed and thriving.
Free bail from jail even, the gift of white guilt that just keeps on giving...and giving....and giving.
Wonder how our soon to be Shariah Canada...will care for historical grievances?
Ponders this whitey infidel ...

Up 14 Down 4

My Opinion on Jul 11, 2018 at 7:27 pm

A Gladeau Report, Oh sorry I mean a get out of jail free card.

Up 20 Down 0

moe on Jul 11, 2018 at 7:02 pm

And people wonder about why the Missing and Murdered situations happen. Deaths of first nations people at the hands of first nations people are not treated anywhere near as severely as if anyone else in the country were doing the killing. If it is their own First Nations community members getting killed and the First Nations people agree with this and are okay with it, then it is none of my business and I am okay with it. I'll tell you what though, I doubt very much I would be okay with a person charged with murdering my family member getting bail. Maybe the evidence is really bad, but first degree? That means the crown aims to prove that he planned this killing. It was not spur of the moment or based on an accident or a moment's lapse.

Up 27 Down 9

Rod on Jul 11, 2018 at 4:01 pm

Ah just give him a slap on the wrist after all I’m sure it’s all the “residential schools” fault.

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