Lights, Camera, Action! Trivializing Genocide

"Many people, non-Indigenous and Indigenous, many institutions will find this day, this report, these truths difficult, challenging and uncomfortable."
"We take this day as an essential day in the history and the future of this country and we will walk forward together."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"We don't need to hear the word 'genocide' come out of the prime minister's mouth, because the families have told us, the survivors have told us their truth."
"Governments must fully implement the calls for justice to ensure the safety and dignity of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people."
"The continuing murders, disappearances and violence prove that this crisis has escalated to a national emergency that calls for timely and effective responses."
"Although we have been mandated to provide recommendations, it must be understood that these recommendations, which we frame as 'Calls for Justice', are legal imperatives -- they are not optional."
Chief commissioner, Marion Buller, National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

Chief commissioner Marion Buller and, left to right, commissioners Brian Eyolfson, Qajaq Robinson and Michele Audette prepare the final report by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Gatineau, Que., on Monday. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

"We're going to leave the discussion of the actual use of the term 'genocide' to academics and experts."
"The important thing today is not about definitions but about action."
Justice Minister David Lametti

"The RCMP will study the final report and its recommendations, and give careful consideration to changes that strengthen investigations, support survivors and their families, bring stakeholders and partners together, and reduce violence against Indigenous women, girls and the Two-Spirit-LGBTQ community."
"We are committed to achieving reconciliation with Indigenous peoples through a renewed relationship built on the recognition of rights, respect, cooperation, and partnership."
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki

Women hold signs during the closing ceremony of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

There have been calls for years for an official enquiry into the weighty issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to authorize such an enquiry citing the reality that there have been previous such commissions looking into the very issue. One conducted by the RCMP. All the conclusions of such enquiries pointed to the fact that the majority of assaults and killing of Indigenous women and girls resulted from intimate partner, family or acquaintance killings within the Indigenous community itself.

From that reality it would appear that this is a matter of cultural dysfunction. That being obvious, it was also pointed out that background was the major issue at play, that poverty, disaffection, bigotry, drug and alcohol addiction and widespread child neglect, added to the collective and individual trauma attributed to both isolation (a chosen 'traditional' way of life on reserves) and primarily the faults attributed to the issue of residential schools where Indigenous children were taken from their families to live and study under religious organizations for the purpose of exposing them to a way of life other than that of their tradition.

The Liberal party and its leader during the 2015 run-up to the federal election, made a commitment to establishing an enquiry. One of its first acts on winning the election and taking government from the Conservatives was to make good on its promise. The resulting Missing and Murdered Inquiry on Indigenous Women was troubled from the outset with accusations, squabbling, resignations, and its mandate was extended until the report was presented on May 3. The report hangs on the thread of 'Canadian genocide' against Indigenous people in its 1,200 pages containing 231 recommendations.

Possibly the most controversial of the recommendations is that which claims that violence or murder committed against Indigenous women and girls should be considered a capital offence of first degree murder, elevating such murders above the criminality of those committed against non-Indigenous women. Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett has revealed that this recommendation had immediate reaction from a number of sources, among them women of non-Indigenous origins who have recoiled at the very suggestion that killing them is less serious than the killing of an Aboriginal woman.

And therein lies a dilemma; since most Indigenous women meet violent death through the hands of an Indigenous male, and Canadian courts of law take into account a Gladue law when dealing with aboriginals accused of crimes which means their backgrounds must be considered in an enlightened manner to reduce punishment in recognition of their deprived status; how will it then be feasible to prosecute an Indigenous murderer of an Indigenous woman or girl under those circumstances? Taking also into account that Indigenous inmates of Canadian federal prisons outweigh in numbers their percentage of the population.

Yet the report insists that all governments are "to develop laws, policies and public education campaigns to challenge the acceptance and normalization of violence". Society in general does not normalize violence. It is within the tribal groups, the reserves where the culture of violence appears to have been normalized, to explain its ubiquity and where male Aboriginals suffer violence and death at even greater numbers than women and girls. And is that not within the purview and responsibility of Indigenous groups themselves where that old adage of doctor cure yourself holds?

"My daughter Hilary went missing on September 15, 2009."
"When I went to the police, they assumed she was out partying and did not look for her."
"My community ended up looking for her. We called the media and when the media got involved and it blew up on television, the police started looking for her."
"When my daughter was found, it was discovered that her first cousin had murdered her."
Pamela Fillier, Esgenoopetitj First Nation, New Brunswick

"It was unlike my sister to not come home because she was a young mother... When my mom went to the police, she was met with the stereotype that because she was only 24, she was probably just out with friends and would show up."
"Unfortunately, my sister's remains were found four years later. It was devastating because where she was found was less than a kilometre from her home."
"My hope would be that there is an immediate change of how the police handle Indigenous files on or off-reserve so there's no delay in pursuing every possible option to find that missing or murdered loved one."
Melanie Morrison, Mohawk Mi'kmaq woman, Quebec