Activist loses battle with cancer

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Margaret Mary Pitawanakwat, who won a decade-long battle with the federal government over racial discrimination and sexual harassment, lost her battle with breast cancer at the Regina General Hospital July 12, 1995. She was 45.

While an Elder erected a wreath and burned sweetgrass during a wake held at the Regina Friendship Centre that day, friends and family talked of her life, her struggles and her accomplishments.

"She was a very driven woman," said Bob Hughes, her long-time friend and partner. "I don't know if she knew she was living on borrowed time. She was someone who would challenge racism and sexism wherever it was, and suffered the consequences."

Mary Pitawanakwat was born in 1950 in Little Current, on Manitoulin Island, Ont. An Ojibway woman, she came to national prominence in 1986 when she was fired from her Regina job as a program development officer with the federal Secretary of State, after seven years.

Until she lodged complaints of sexual harassment and racial discrimination in 1984, which were rejected at a public service hearing, she had received favorable reviews for her work performance.

Two court motions were needed before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal agreed to hear the case. When the tribunal eventually ruled, it criticized the department and upheld her complaints.

However, her award was limited to two years' salary instead of the six years she lost, and the department was ordered to give her a job in another province, since there was "far too much bitterness" for her to return to her previous job in Regina.

Riding a wave of outrage from provincial and national women's groups, Pitawanakwat appealed the tribunal's ruling to the Federal Court, which criticized the tribunal for not ordering her to be reinstated in Regina and for limiting her award.

Last year, she reached a $200,00 settlement with the department and returned to work. However, she knew that her cancer had reached a terminal stage.

There was never any action taken against any other official within the department, Hughes said.

"Because of that struggle, that took a lot out of her," he said. "I think the strain brought on her cancer. Until the Federal Court's decision, the issue gave her a bad reputation with a lot of people around the city. People don't challenge the system and not pay the price."

While her struggles were those of a role model, it could also be seen as a detriment for many others who buck the system, said her 17-year-old daughter, Robyn.

"When I was growing up, I could see the toll it took on her," she said. " I don't know if I'm a strong enough person to do what she did."

The dispute with the federal bureaucracy was the most public of a life spent in social-justice causes, Hughes said.

"As a teenager, she was inspired by the civil-rights struggles in the United Stares, which she compared with the efforts of the First Nations in Canada," he said.

As recently as a week before her death, she was sending material to a Toronto journalist about child prostitution on the streets of Regina.

She served on the board of the Regina Indian and Native Education Council, the Aboriginal wing of the National Action Committee of the Status of Women, and was a founding member of the Saskatchewan Coalition Against Racism. She was vice-president of the Regina Native Women's Association and a member of the Saskatchewan's Battered Women's Advocacy Network and several First Nations organizations.

The National Action Committee on the Status of Women awarded her their Woman of Courage award, and she was awarded the Rainford Jackson Award for fighting discrimination in the workplace by the Ontario Public Service employees Union.

She was buried July 15 at the Birch Island (Ont.) Cemetery.