Acknowledge History, But Move to the Future

"[There exists] a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples -- empowered by colonial structures -- leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and suicide in Indigenous populations."
Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

"...Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 

• (a) Killing members of the group;
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." 

Article 2 of the United Nations Convention 

Women embrace during the closing ceremony of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, June 3, 2019.REUTERS/Chris Wattie

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was struck by the federal government to look into the murder or disappearance of an estimated 1,200 Indigenous women over a period of perhaps a decade. These were for the most part unsolved crimes. There had been previous studies of the situation, one or more of which was conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's federal police force.

Although the current committee, after interviewing Indigenous women throughout Canada, had concluded they were justified in naming the murdered and missing women the result of a genocide -- in the process trivializing the meaning of a word meant to convey the wholesale and focused state-sanctioned annihilation of a specific demographic -- what they conveyed was a misplaced sense of dramatic accusation, for the crimes were not state-sanctioned nor were they "committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part" any racial or ethnic group.

According to the 1946 United Nations General Assembly, "Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings". Such was far from the reality of the missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The actual, glaring fact of reality is that the murder of Aboriginal women is attributable largely to the community in which they live, sharing their lives with Aboriginal men who are the perpetrators.

Statistics from the RCMP as well as other sources are clear; 90 percent of the murders in question are committed by intimate partners, men who knew their victims within the Indigenous community, where 72 percent of Aboriginal women are murdered in their homes, very few among them were involved in the sex trade, murdered by clients. On the other hand, Indigenous men comprise an even greater number of murdered, and they as well within their own communities.

A woman holds a sign during the closing ceremony of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, June 3, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

Of the 20,313 national homicides that took place between 1980 and 2012, five percent of the victims were Aboriginal women; in contrast 70 percent of murdered or missing Aboriginal individuals were men. The public at large is aghast at these numbers. But it is from within the Aboriginal communities themselves that this symptom of mass dysfunction exists. What these inner circle and domestic pathologies represent is conditions of isolation, broken homes, family trauma, addiction and welfare dependence and a culture of abuse.

Canada's Aboriginal population represents the fastest-growing demographic in the country; there are more Aboriginal children and young people than any other group in Canada. Indigenous Canadians were the victims of racism in the past, and that racist attitude still exists although it is waning. On the other hand, there is the issue of counter-racism, where Aboriginal women are denied the privilege accorded Aboriginal men, to live within their community if they marry outside the tribe to non-Aboriginals.

If there is any whiff of 'genocide', the finger of blame should be shifted from the Canadian population as a whole, toward the Aboriginal communities that fail to practise self-respect. By living on remote reserves in favour of refusing to join the general population where employment is available and Aboriginal people can live the very same lives as other Canadians, independent and self-sufficient, the ongoing inclination is to live 'traditionally'. But the traditional way of life is eschewed for a welfare, unemployed existence that leads to poverty and resentment.

Massive amounts of tax dollars have been expended in support of the reserve lifestyle, with those on reserves living in government-supplied homes where they see no stake in what is normal household upkeep on their part so accommodation deteriorates and the expectation is that new homes be built. With idleness due to lack of employment opportunities, boredom sets in for all age groups, and access to drugs and alcohol lead to addiction and familial neglect with children's needs poorly cared for. A self-inflicted harm absent values.

It really is past time for Canada's Aboriginal communities to follow the example of some among them that have proudly established commercial enterprises in successful bids to become independent and capable of serving the needs of their communities. Weeding out the corruption known to exist in other communities would go a long way to guiding them toward an improved future.

Simply banking on the utility of inducing guilt in the greater Canadian population with historical claims of racism and ill-guided measures for inclusion of Aboriginals serves no function but to continue the social abrasion that has mounted a wall of disaffection between both communities.