*Click here to listen to the original audio recording in Saulteaux. Clarence Woodhouse Statement to the Senate Standing Committee Regarding the David and Joyce Milgaard Law Boozhoo! My name is Clarence Woodhouse, thank you for the opportunity to address you concerning the importance of the David and Joyce Milgaard Bill for an independent group to review wrongful convictions. This group is necessary because it will be separate from the system that convicted and imprisoned me and a lot of other innocent people across Canada. I am Anishinaabe from Pinaymootang First Nation, Manitoba.

I along with my brother Russell, now deceased, A. J. Woodhouse, no relation, and my cousin Brian Anderson was wrongfully convicted at 19 years of age for the murder of Mr. Tin Fong Chang, a stranger, who I and my co-accused did not know. We were not responsible for Mr. Chang’s death. All of us were new to Winnipeg and had none to very limited knowledge of English. An interpreter was not provided during our interrogations by the police. I could not understand what was going on and no one explained it to me. I was shell shocked. I didn’t understand my rights but, did the best I could to get through this nightmare.

None of us had been involved before with the criminal justice system so we were easy prey for the police and the prosecutor George Dangerfield. I was brutally assaulted by the police into signing a false confession. The prosecutor said I made the confession in English, a language I could not speak, read, or write. I testified to that at trial, but no one believed me. I was scared, lost, and felt very alone as the years passed by in prison. A place that no person should have to be made to survive.

My time in prison was a living hell primarily because of corrections staff who were determined to make me admit to a murder I did not commit or had any

part in. By the time I was released from prison, 12 years later in 1983, I was institutionalized and found it extremely difficult to make it in society. I received no help, or direction. It was hard to move on with my life in a world I didn’t recognize or feel comfortable in. As a young boy I was often kicked out of school because I had a learning disability and because of my lack of education, and still not being able to communicate efficiently in English and being considered a murderer I could not find a permanent job, so I had to do casual labour to make a living.

Since retiring from the workforce, I have been living on welfare to this very day. I can’t make ends meet. Life is a day-to-day struggle with no hope in sight. I believe that a new independent group to look at wrongful convictions will help other wrongly convicted people not have to suffer the way I and my co-accused did. If Bill C-40 is passed, there will be a group to hear the cries of help from the innocent and they will not have to wait 50 years for their names to be cleared as we did. It was 50 years of uncertainty, struggle, and unimaginable pain that never seems to end. Thank you for hearing my voice.

Meegwetch