Fifty Years After I Fled: Rural Alberta is Still Failing to Protect Its Children
In this extraordinary solo episode of ReThreading Madness, host Bernadine Fox steps out from behind the mic to share one of the most personal stories she has ever told on air. Fifty years ago, as a 16-yr old teenager in rural southern Alberta, Bernadine ran away to save her life. She was growing up in a small farming community shaped by isolation, silence, and deeply entrenched cultural norms that left children vulnerable and without protection. In this monologue, she reflects on what it meant to grow up in a landscape where for some danger was ever-present and help was miles away. Now, half a century later, a family estate process brought her back into the systems she had escaped. What unfolded in that rural courtroom echoed patterns she remembered from childhood — disbelief, minimization, and narratives that made her feel unseen. She describes these events from her own lived perspective, exploring how trauma, geography, and culture intersect in ways that continue to leave rural women and children behind. Bernadine also speaks to the broader crisis: in many rural areas, sexual and domestic violence rates remain significantly higher than in cities, and lifesaving services remain out of reach. Silence, she argues, protects the status quo — not children. This is not a story about blame. It is a story about systems, intergenerational harm, and what happens when progress bypasses entire small pockets of the country. It is also a story of reclamation. Bernadine shares her decades of work as a mental-health advocate, writer, disability-rights activist, artist, and host of this very program, reminding listeners that none of us are not defined by what was done to us, but by the life we build in its aftermath. Raw, poetic, and fiercely courageous, this episode challenges us to reconsider what safety means, who receives it, and who is left behind. A necessary listen for anyone concerned with trauma-informed justice, rural equity, or the ways silence travels across generations — and what it takes to break it.
The episode is rounded off with a re-air of an interview with Jamie Smallboy and Alli Geisbrecht (Gees Brecht) here to talk about a piece of art that was exhibited at Gachet’s Oppenheimer Annual show that addresses issue of MMIWG2S – which stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2 Spirit people. Jame is Cree and single mother of five from Maskwachees, Alberta. She is a full-time student at Langara and te founder of the Red Ribbon Skirt Project for the families of our MMIWG2S. Ally is a child of immigrants from Hong Kong who reside in Vancouver / Chinatown. She is an activist, person of colour, mental health occupational therapist, and a resident of Vancouver’s DTES. The piece of artwork these two collaborated on combines photographic images by Ally and with poetry by Jamie. Jamie shares this poem with us on this episode.
music by Shari Ulrich and Good Vibes Tribe
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