He Won't Answer Anymore: The Tale of Max Kakegamic

Since the spotlight of Native issues has been shining square on Caledonia for over a year there has been little extra wattage to share. What a shame, considering that it certainly isn’t very hard to unearth cold case files involving Native legal issues that deserve urgent attention.
Perfect example: Max Kakegamic, murder victim. Kakegamic was an Ojibwa Native from the North Spirit Lake reserve, a good distance north of Kenora. While travelling from a funeral for a cousin that was held near Thunder Bay he stopped by in Kenora, apparently got a little too drunk, and passed out on a couch in an unlocked apartment.
The apartment belonged to a woman named Maria Campanella who called her friend Justin Carambetsos, as she was understandably frightened by the noise of Kakegamic entering and passing out. Carambetsos told police that when he arrived he carried Kakegamic out of the apartment and left him on a sidewalk, ironically beneath the monument to Native art where he was later found dead.
Justin Carambetsos was arrested shortly after on suspicion of murder, but was released without bail and never tried. Furthermore, a witness out walking her dog checked out the unconscious Max Kakegamic upon seeing Carambetsos leave him on the sidewalk, returned to her apartment across the street, observed him for a brief period of time, and saw another man act suspiciously around Kakegamic’s body, which she later affirmed was moved from it’s original drop-off position.
The figure was identified as Danny Favreau, a young man with a criminal record, suffers the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome and who, incidentally, was spotted robbing another unconscious Native man just a short distance from where Kakegamic was discovered.
Despite the woman’s testimony, the police took virtually no action against Favreau. Interestingly enough, he is the nephew of investigating officer Tom Favreau. Danny denies, however, that Tom would have covered for him and risked losing his job. Still, it has been found out that Danny once worked as a paid informant of the OPP, who took over the investigation after Kenora Police failed to solve the crime.
If that wasn’t enough, it appears that Justin Carambetsos has bad blood with an investigating officer named Lloyd White whom Carambetsos, the owner of a bar, refused an additional drink to when White was already heavily intoxicated. White threatened to return with his gun and kill Carambetsos.
With family bias and a drunk cop’s grudge, how could Kenora Police expect to solve this case ethically? This issue was such a big deal that CTV did a special report on it one year ago. This incident occurred in 2000, and even after CTV’s chastising, remains unsolved.
Could the lack of justice for Max Kakegamic be linked to the fact that 80 kilometres northwest of Kenora the Natives of Grassy Narrows are still fighting to stop Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. from clear-cutting their land, which has the approval of the McGinty government?
There are countless other cases in which either the rights of Natives to justice, or the treaty rights of Natives, are being wantonly infringed upon. Caledonia is only a page in the big book of Canadian Government blunders on the treatment of our land’s former tenants.
Native Canadians have a different way of life than the rest of Canadians do, and they did before the European settlers arrived. It is not giving them any kind of “special treatment” that merits a violation of equality to recognize the injustices that non-Natives have inflicted upon them, including nearly forcing total integration, the silent genocide of residential schools, and shameful violations of our treaty obligations which just don’t seem to stop, and to make amends.
Many have asked “why is it my responsibility to take care of them, I didn’t do it, my parents didn’t do it, and my family came over here long after it all happened?” Our Canadian society is built on the land that once belonged to Natives, that once nurtured their culture and livelihood, and we are obligated not as individuals specifically, but as holding the status of Canadians. As long as we continue to live on their land that we recklessly took and greedily refused to share, we must respect both our treaty obligations and the same moral obligations that forced Germany to pay the State of Israel reparations, even if that particular German government did not commit the crimes.
Canadians often look to the United States and their troubles with race relations and say “glad that’s not us”, but unless we take a look at ourselves from time to time, we may be headed down the same perilous road. After all, Black people have, and still do, face a plight in the United States for equality just as the Native Canadians have for decades.
The reason that we're in denial about our race issues could simply be that we have become too comfortable with our status as accepting, peace-loving people to ever consider ourselves as racists in any way. The stigma attached to racism, after all, is immense in Canada if nowhere else. Maybe it has simply got to the point where we feel we’re immune to racism, and if we show any signs of it, we go through several stages of denial. Then we must consider, though, just how many more stages we have to go through before we see the truth.
For certain, Max Kakegamic illegally entered Maria Campanella’s apartment, but since when has trespassing deserved legal execution? Kakegamic and his family – he left behind a wife and five children – deserve justice regardless of the misdemeanour Kakegamic committed moments before, just as every Native deserves justice on a level equal to that of his or her non-Native counterparts. No exceptions.