The Vulnerability of First Nations Women

"There is an unmistakable connection between homicide and family violence."
RCMP deputy commissioner Janice Armstrong

"The relationship between the victim and the offender was particularly relevant in that over 90 percent of the women represented within the homicide data were known to the victim."
"Most often the offender was a spouse, a family member or an acquaintance."
RCMP Supt. Tyler Bates

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Janice Armstrong, left, answers a question from a reporter as Superintendent Tyler Bates looks on during the release of the Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: 2015 Update to the National Operational Overview Report in Ottawa on Friday, June 19, 2015. (Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

"We cannot ignore the evidence or the reality."
"There is a significant and tragic over-representation of indigenous women among the missing and murdered in this country. This is not just a First Nations issue, this is a Canadian issue and we all have a role to play."
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde

"These are terrible crimes against innocent people. The RCMP has said itself in its own study that the vast majority of these cases are addressed and are solved through police investigations."
"We don't need yet another study on top of the some 40 studies that have already been done; we need police to catch those responsible and ensure they're punished."
Andrew McGrath, spokesman for Status of Women Minister Kellie Leitch

A year ago the RCMP issued a report detailing some statistics among which was that between 1980 and 2012, some 1,181 aboriginal women were murdered or missing. That data released yet another barrage of demands that the Government of Canada set up an investigative commission to look into the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women. The government has consistently resisted these demands, and so they should; more than ample evidence exists that the reality needs no further investigation.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, meeting with aboriginal leaders last March stated that 70 percent of murdered aboriginal women were killed by aboriginal men. His statement unleashed another tsunami of blame; not against the aboriginal community in which women are devalued and violated, but against the government for not 'doing something' about the situation, and doing something seemed always to come back to launching an official enquiry.

First Nations leaders are disinterested in the reality that their culture has stagnated to the point where dysfunction is the order of the day, every day. And included in that dysfunction is the violence directed toward aboriginal women, and usually from and by men they know and trust, who betray that trust. The chiefs, hearing Mr. Valcourt tell it like it is were outraged; they had no intention of taking any blame, nor of having aboriginals blamed for their cultural dystopia.

Now, another report has been released by the RCMP. Which stated last Friday that female victims, irrespective of their ethnic origin continue to be targets by men within their own homes and communities. This data was based on findings under the force's jurisdiction. And those findings indicate that homicides of aboriginal women are solved in 81 percent of instances as opposed to the 83 percent of cases solved involving non-aboriginal women.

And critically, since the release of the original report, yet another 32 aboriginal women in the space of a year have been murdered, with eleven more having disappeared. First Nations simply refuse to take ownership of the situation. And AFN National Chief Bellegarde insists that this is no First Nations problem, but rather a Canadian problem, one that involves all Canadians, as though it is non-aboriginal Canadians who have someone manipulated and inspired aboriginal culture to produce this end.

RCMP Supt. Bates explained the 'acquaintance' category he attributes some of the violence against aboriginal women to by identifying them as "primarily neighbours" or associates, not discounting "criminal relationships". And so, the Assembly of First Nations calls this a national crisis; which in a sense it is, but in the AFN stating this to be so, it passes the buck, once again; since implicit in its statement is the belief that the Government of Canada must solve the problem, not First Nations leaders.

The irony here being that the AFN and its chiefs forever at one another's throats, repudiate, resent and reject interference by the Government of Canada and provincial governments in First Nations affairs; just send cash, and more of it, thank you very much, and they'll run with it to provide all the supports and services required by reserve aboriginals whose family lives are absolute horrors of dysfunctional pathology.

But it remains politically incorrect, and is not supported by the opposition political parties to call the AFN, let alone the First Nations communities to task for themselves not seeking to find a solution to a problem that is primarily theirs to solve.