The Resentment of Valued Victimhood

"I will tell you, because there is no media in the room, that the RCMP report states that up to 70 percent of the murdered and missing indigenous women issue stems from their own communities."
Bernard Valcourt, aboriginal affairs minister

"We had never intended to publicly discuss the ethnicity of the offenders. Rather our focus has been on the relationship between the victim and offender, which has pointed our prevention efforts to familial and spousal violence."
Janice Armstrong, RCMP deputy commissioner

"I know for a fact there are a lot of native men that are very respectful ... Seventy percent of what? The whole? All I want is answers, I want facts."
Bernice Martial, Grand Chief, Confederacy of Treaty Six Nations; Cold Lake First Nation, Alberta

Grand Chief Bernice Martial

"Why wouldn't they give us that information? We're a very strong people and we're resilient and this is no different. Give us the information so we can help, why keep it from us? It's isolating us all over again."
Kurt Burnstick, chief, Alexander First Nation

Isn't that just too, too precious! First Nations chiefs and tribal councils have no idea, no idea whatsoever that most of the violence projected against aboriginal women emanates directly from the men in their lives; husbands, boyfriends, tribal members. There is a culture of violence within First Nations communities, and that culture includes the women living among the men whose predations on women seem to have escaped the notice of the chiefs, the grand chiefs, the native groups set up to counter violence on reserves.

They insist -- and they persuade Canadians at large -- of the dire necessity of having an official government enquiry to explain just why and how it is that women of aboriginal descent are disproportionately victimized by violence in Canadian society. The very evidence of dysfunction that lives among them is shunted aside as nothing to be examined, that no introspection is required, that a need to confront the issue internally is simply not a necessity.

It is the function of the federal government to peer intrusively within aboriginal practices to delicately probe and somehow, miraculously, present a solution. Finally, pressed to divulge their findings, the RCMP has admitted that 70 percent of the perpetrators in instances of missing and murdered aboriginal women are themselves indigenous. When aboriginal affairs minister Bernard Valcourt confided these numbers during a closed meeting of aboriginal leaders he was soundly rebuked.

Now, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson described data from 300 police agencies "has confirmed that 70 percent of the offenders were of aboriginal origin", and that this information was withheld "in the spirit of bias-free policing". Because such a disclosure, according to the perception of the RCMP, had the potential to "stigmatize and marginalize vulnerable populations", he emphasized, the truth was kept in wraps to avoid offending aboriginal sensibilities.

Since, however, aboriginal leaders specifically insisted that this information be divulged, it has been, building on part of the report that was published stating that 1,181 aboriginal women and girls were murdered or became missing persons between 1980 and 2012. Missing from that narrative was the rest, that 62 percent of those homicide victims lost their lives when a spouse, family member or someone with whom they were intimate killed them.

The RCMP plan to use the data to enable them to identify communities appearing most at risk of violence against women, to help them develop prevention strategies. Mightn't it be a good idea if the aboriginal leaders themselves approached the reality of dysfunction with a resolve to do the very same thing? Grand Chief Martial insists she wants answers; she has them, what'll she do with them, aside from reject them as gravely false?

Instead of taking that information and scrutinizing it and analyzing the reasons for the violence, accepting that it exists and from whence it emanates, the same old blame game is indulged in. Everything that befalls the aboriginal populations in Canada is the direct fault of Canadian society outside the aboriginal community, and specifically of the Canadian government.

Native Canadian leaders will never accept that there are many dreadful problems assailing their members, and that it is their obligation as leaders to help their people turn away from dysfunction. Instead, attacking government appears the only reasonable option, to push for greater grants, so funding can be received and nothing will change the status quo.

The message of Grand Chief Martial is that the RCMP has got it all wrong. The message of Chief Burnstick is the information is required to enable leaders to begin dealing with their dreadful problems. Which response is the one that might have a chance of succeeding in meeting the needs of vulnerable aboriginals?