Lake St. Martin First Nation’s chief has been charged with the sexual assault of a child and creation of child pornography.
Christopher Traverse was arrested Feb. 1 and is facing charges of sexual assault, possessing and creating child pornography, and sexual interference.
Winnipeg police confirmed the arrest Wednesday. They said the victim is an elementary-school-aged child but declined to comment further.
The offences allegedly occurred on Dec. 23.
Traverse, who was elected chief in July 2022, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs declined to comment on the arrest and said in a statement it was “not aware of the particulars of these charges.”
“The AMC wishes to confirm its support for the citizens of Lake St. Martin First Nation,” the statement reads. “The AMC commits to working with council of the Lake St. Martin First Nation to ensure that appropriate supports are available for all those who are affected.”
Traverse appeared to be holding a meeting at a Winnipeg hotel in a livestream posted by the First Nation on social media last week. He discussed a petition calling on him to resign but did not elaborate.
“The allegation against me should have been brought up at a family law platform,” he said in the video, published April 3. “That family law platform is supposed to be (there to) protect the children of Lake St. Martin, and it should have been brought up there.”
He said in the livestream that he has no plans to resign.
“I’m not stepping down as chief. I’m going to move through the storm, and the only way out of this is going through it,” he said.
Traverse spoke to the Free Press in April 2023 about the death of Linda Beardy, a Lake St. Martin member whose body was found at the Brady Road landfill. Winnipeg police ruled out foul play in her death after surveillance video revealed she had climbed into a garbage bin shortly before its contents were collected by a truck and taken to the landfill.
“Indigenous people are not trash, and normalizing having their bodies found in dumpsters is disgraceful,” Traverse said at the time. “It’s traumatizing for our community.”
Traverse has frequently denounced the provincial and federal governments for their handling of the flood that displaced Lake St. Martin residents in 2011. He said Beardy was evacuated during the flood and not allowed to return home.
Raymond Keeper, the former chief of Little Grand Rapids First Nation, was accused in 2021 of luring and sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl. The assaults were alleged to have occurred in July and September 2021.
The charges against Keeper were stayed after his death in August 2022.
When the charges were announced, RCMP said they believed there were more victims, but no other charges were laid against Keeper.
Lake St. Martin First Nation is about 225 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, in the Interlake region.
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
