Court heard that Kreko’s Aboriginal mother came from a chaotic home fuelled by alcoholism. The Court of Appeal ruled last week that an Oshawa judge erred in concluding that there was no link between Andrew Kreko’s Aboriginal heritage and the gun-related offences to which he pleaded guilty in 2013. Kreko only found out about his Aboriginal heritage from his adoptive father between the ages of 16 and 18. Writing for a unanimous three-judge appeal court panel, Justice Gladys Pardu said that the case law is clear: a person does not have to establish a “causal link” between their Aboriginal heritage and the offences they’ve committed. “While his partly Aboriginal teenage mother had given him up for adoption… the most important aspect of this was not some colonial treatment of the birth mother.

Source: thestar May 24, 2016 04:35 UTC