Women's group wants Harper to denounce racist e-mail sent from federal office

YELLOWKNIFE (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to publicly denounce an e-mail denigrating aboriginal women that was distributed by federal government employees in the Northwest Territories, says the director of a northern women's centre.

Arlene Hache of the Centre for Northern Families said the e-mail shows three young white women, all naked, alongside a photo of an intoxicated aboriginal woman, about 50 years old, with her shirt pulled up and breasts exposed.

The subject line reads: Can you spot Miss NWT? Watch out for the last one, it will knock you off your feet!

"We want the prime minister and the minister for the status of women to step forward and declare that e-mail for what it was, which was a racist attack on aboriginal and Inuit women in the North," Hache said Tuesday.

"And we want them to publicly declare that . . . it won't be tolerated in the government."

LINK: Canadian Press