- Announcements
CRRF Launches a New Video Series on Justice and Lived Experience
A note before you read and watch: these stories include the loss of a young life to gun violence and a distressing encounter with police. Please take care of yourself, and come back to them whenever you’re ready.
Behind every policy are people. Canada’s Black Justice Strategy was shaped by the lived experience of Black communities across the country, yet most of us will only ever meet it on paper, where those lives are hard to see.
So we asked two Black Canadian advocates to tell us theirs. Skye Bowen, a school principal in Ontario, and Leslie Blot, a civil rights advocate in Quebec, generously agreed, and today we’re sharing their stories in a new two-video series.
How the Strategy Was Built
The Strategy is the result of a long, collective push. For years, Black advocates, community leaders, and community members called for it and worked to make it real.
In February 2023, the federal government appointed a Steering Group of nine experts and leaders from Black communities to advise the Minister of Justice on developing it, in response to a 2017 recommendation from the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent. Twelve Black-led organizations then held consultations in nine provinces and territories, and more than 1,670 people took part. Together, that work produced a 10-year plan grounded in community voices, with one aim at its centre: equal treatment before and under the law.
Numbers show the scale of the work behind the Strategy, but not what’s at stake in a single life. That’s where Skye and Leslie come in. Their stories reflect the realities the Strategy was created to address: one begins in a classroom inside youth corrections, the other at a family barbecue.
Skye Bowen
The Student She Lost
Skye Bowen has spent more than 20 years in education. For more than three of those years, she taught young people serving sentences in Ontario’s youth corrections system. She remembers them as some of the most brilliant young men she has met, a number of them Black youth who, in her words, “reminded me of our own children.”
One of her students was deeply involved in music. He talked about his mom, his family, and everything he hoped to do with his life. Six weeks after he was released from custody, he was shot and killed. Skye was devastated. Teaching in that setting, she explains, you don’t get to know families the way you would in a regular school, or even have the chance to say goodbye.
Losing him set Skye on a new path into school leadership, determined to help students see a future for themselves.
“It takes everybody, and it takes a lot of work, and it will take time, but through this it can happen, and I believe it’s possible.”
Skye Bowen
Leslie Blot
What Happened on His Own Lawn
Leslie tells his story in French, with English subtitles.
It was a sunny afternoon in 2017, and Leslie Blot was at home in Repentigny, where about ten of his family had gathered for a small barbecue. He and his brother were out on the front lawn blowing up inflatable toys for the children when police stopped and demanded his ID. By the end of the encounter, Leslie had been handcuffed in front of his three-year-old son, and the celebration was over.
Leslie, a mortgage broker by profession, refused to let it end there. He filed a formal complaint, and won.
“What happened in front of my son was unacceptable, and I couldn’t imagine it happening to my son when he grows up.”
Leslie Blot
(translated from French)
Why These Stories Matter
Skye and Leslie didn’t have to open up about some of the hardest moments of their lives. They chose to, and we’re deeply grateful for their courage and their trust.
Their experiences aren’t isolated. Black people across Canada have carried stories like theirs for generations, often without anyone asking to hear them. At the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, we believe those stories deserve to be heard, and that they belong at the heart of how Canada’s Black Justice Strategy is understood.
That’s why we made these films. We want the Strategy to reach further: to front-line practitioners supporting Black youth and families, to young people finding their way through the justice system, and to everyone whose understanding and support will carry this commitment forward. The Strategy is only at the beginning of its 10 years, and what it can achieve is far-reaching: radically better outcomes for Black communities, and an unprecedented new chapter of possibility for all of Canada.
Watch, Share, and Keep Reading
If Skye’s and Leslie’s stories move you, please watch both videos and share them with someone who hasn’t seen them yet. To learn more about the changes the Strategy sets out over the next decade, visit Canada’s Black Justice Strategy. In the coming months, we’ll publish more articles that explore the issues they raise.
Learn more about the work of the CRRF, and stay up to date by
subscribing to our newsletter and following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.