Nursing station that burned to ground targeted by accused last fall

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This article was published 25/06/2024 (444 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A judge issued a warning to Lavern Chartrand the last time she got into trouble in connection with the nursing station on a Manitoba First Nation.

The provincial court judge in The Pas said on Jan. 10, 2024, that if she got tangled up in another crime on the Chemawawin Cree Nation, the community might take the drastic step of banishing her.

“The band is saying, if she gets into trouble anymore, we’re going to kick Lavern out of the community,” said Judge Todd Allen Rambow at Chartrand’s sentencing hearing.

He explained the situation in simple terms because she has a severe intellectual disability.

Chartrand, 20, was being sentenced in connection with breaking in to the nursing station and adjacent RCMP detachment, as well stealing a vehicle from the medical facility, in October 2023, and the subsequent breach of a court order.

On Monday, the nursing station in the remote and under-serviced community burned to the ground. Chartrand is accused of lighting the blaze.

RCMP were called about the fire at about 5:35 a.m. Monday. Officers quickly determined the fire had been deliberately set. Chartrand was arrested and charged with arson with disregard to human life and failing to comply with probation conditions. She was remanded into custody.

The arson is the latest major crime in Chemawawin and the adjacent hamlet of Easterville, about 460 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, which have had three homicides in less than two months.

As a consequence of Monday’s arson, emergency patients are diverted to Grand Rapids or The Pas. A three-person nursing team remains in the community to respond to emergencies and triage patients, a provincial spokesperson said Tuesday.

“The province will continue to monitor the situation as work with the community begins on replacement efforts,” the spokesperson said.

In the Oct. 5, 2023 incident, Chartrand and a group of younger teens were caught on video surveillance breaking into the ambulance bay of the nursing station. Twenty minutes later, they tried to break in to the RCMP detachment. They were unsuccessful, so returned to the nursing station, where they made off with a television and prescription medication.

The group returned and stole a vehicle that was parked in front. It was later found near The Pas with a teenage boy behind the wheel.

“It was essentially trashed. The nursing station had to close, which caused the entire community that relies on that nursing station for medical care… to be diverted to either Grand Rapids or The Pas,” said Crown prosecutor Muhammad Riaz.

“The nursing station could not open for several days.”

Riaz told Rambow that Chartrand, who has a history of committing break-ins and arson, had mostly received probation due to her status as a vulnerable individual. In the October case, the Crown was seeking one year of jail time and 18 months of probation, Riaz said.

Her IQ has been determined to be 48, court heard. The average IQ falls between 85 and 115.

The prosecutor said Chartrand is the second youngest of eight children and has a father who emotionally abused her and told her to kill herself.

She does cocaine and meth and consumes alcohol, partly due to boredom, but also because a cousin, who gives substances to her, wants her to commit crimes.

Court was told she had a similar explanation for why she commits crime — she’s bored and has little to do.

Chartrand has no positive friendships and mostly socializes with younger teens, which the judge said he suspects is due to her lack of maturity.

She is easily influenced, quick to anger, and self-harms. She has difficulty connecting her actions to consequences, court was told.

Riaz said Chartrand was ruining the few services available in Chemawawin and Easterville.

Chartrand, Riaz said, has faced challenges in getting help. She was once referred to an addictions treatment program for youth with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder — she hasn’t been diagnosed but the disorder is suspected — but couldn’t access it outside of Winnipeg.

Rambow said the sentencing must weigh her vulnerability and the effect of her crimes on the community, including the temporary closure of the nursing station, and noted the effects of colonialism on her family and Chemawawin.

The Cree Nation was relocated from the Saskatchewan River delta, west of Grand Rapids, when Manitoba Hydro flooded land to operate the Grand Rapids generating station in the 1960s, to the area near Easterville.

The judge said the area the band was forced to live on has poor soil and few jobs.

Chartrand, Rambow said, has a history of sexual trauma and diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, ADHD, conduct disorder, oppositional defiance disorder and depression.

Rambow gave Chartrand 138 days of jail time, in addition to time served, and a year of probation.

She was barred from going to the nursing station or the RCMP detachment unless for an emergency or for official business.

—With files from Tyler Searle

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca