A rchive Date
[ 04-06-2019 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
|
[https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/uncomfortable-truths-trudeau-says-of-mmiw-report-but-genocide-he-doesnt-go-there
Uncomfortable truths, Trudeau says of MMIW report, but genocide? He doesn't go there
Maura Forrest
June 3, 2019 8:01 PM EDT
GATINEAU, QUE. - Near the end of the prime minister’s speech at the ceremony for the release of the final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women on Monday in Gatineau, Que., one moment stood out.
“Many people, non-Indigenous and Indigenous, many institutions will find this day, this report, these truths difficult, challenging and uncomfortable,” Justin Trudeau was saying, when a voice cut in.
“Genocide!” someone in the audience yelled. “Say it!”
Trudeau carried on, unfazed. “We take this day as an essential day in the history and the future of this country and we will walk forward together.”
There were many words Trudeau used to describe the reality of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women during his address to the inquiry’s commissioners, Indigenous leaders, survivors and family members gathered at the Canadian Museum of History on Monday: a “painful story,” “unimaginable,” a “heartbreaking reality.”
But “genocide” was not among them, despite the fact that one of the central findings of the national inquiry’s 1,200-page final report, whose recommendations he promised to act on, is that the deaths and disappearances of thousands of Indigenous women constitute genocide.
Chief commissioner Marion Buller, who had earlier declared her finding of genocide before a cheering audience, later told reporters she didn’t need to hear Trudeau say it. “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,” she said.
Yet his reticence is perhaps the clearest example of the challenge now facing a government that has made the national inquiry the central pillar of its commitment to reconciliation. How do you prove in the last few months before an election that you are taking seriously the 231 recommendations of a 1,200-page report that took two and a half years to produce — particularly when some of its major findings and recommendations you are unlikely to accept?
It was Justice Minister David Lametti who seemed to give the clearest indication of his government’s stance on the use of “genocide” to describe the fate of missing and murdered Indigenous women. “We’re going to leave the discussion of the actual use of the term ‘genocide’ to academics and experts,” he told reporters after the ceremony. “The important thing today is not about definitions but about action.”
Standing with Lametti, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett said she agrees with the commissioners that “racism and sexism kills,” but did not go beyond that. She, too, focused on the need for action. “We can’t let the families down,” she said. “We can’t let the survivors down.”
To that end, Trudeau promised on Monday to develop a national action plan to address violence against Indigenous women, which would fulfil the first of the inquiry’s recommendations.
But it remains to be seen what more this government can accomplish before it heads to the polls in October. In her speech during the closing ceremony, Buller said the recommendations, referred to as calls for justice in the report, are “legal imperatives.”
“Governments must fully implement the calls for justice to ensure the safety and dignity of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people,” she said.
That will be no mean feat, given the scope of the recommendations. Many are somewhat intangible, requiring all governments, for example, “to develop laws, policies and public education campaigns to challenge the acceptance and normalization of violence.” Others would entail major policy shifts, including a call for a guaranteed annual livable income for all Canadians.
Still others seem like they may be unpalatable to this government, including one calling for harsher punishments for those who commit violence against Indigenous women. The final report demands the government pass legislation proposed by Liberal Sen. Lillian Dyck in 2015 that would make violence against Indigenous women an aggravating factor during sentencing. The Liberals defeated that bill in the House of Commons earlier this year, and Bennett recently told the National Post she’d heard “negative” feedback from women’s groups to such proposals.
The inquiry’s recommendations cover huge ground, ranging from a call to grant Indigenous languages official language status to a transformation of Indigenous policing and better funding of policing in Indigenous communities. The report also calls for long-term funding for Indigenous communities for violence prevention programs, and for more funding for community-based health services.
It also makes a number of recommendations for all Canadians, including that they should read the final report and denounce violence against Indigenous women.
The grand hall of the Canadian Museum of History was packed on Monday, and the mood was less solemn than might have been expected. The four commissioners, who have faced a barrage of criticism for poor communication and slow progress almost since the inquiry’s launch more than two years ago, received standing ovations and people cheered after many of their findings were announced.
Trudeau also received applause when he promised the report “will not be placed on a shelf to collect dust.”
“We have failed you,” he told the audience. “But we will fail you no longer.”
Still, many family members of missing and murdered women were careful not to sound too optimistic.
“I’m not very hopeful that anything’s going to come out of it,” said Evelyne Youngchief, whose niece, Lindsay, was murdered 10 months ago. “They never do anything that’s supposed to happen.”
Marcella Johnson said she feels hopeful that things will change but worries about what will happen after the next election, if Trudeau isn’t re-elected. “It has to continue onto the next prime minister, I guess,” she said. “I don’t know how that’s going to be.” Johnson’s younger sister, Sandra, was murdered in Thunder Bay, Ont., in 1992. The case remains unsolved.
There was a duality to Monday’s event, a strange contrast between vivid ceremony and the dry, clinical list of numbered recommendations, with its bullet points and academic language. This was, perhaps, the same unresolved tension that has dogged the inquiry since its inception: how to transform the personal, private tragedies of thousands of Indigenous people into calls for tangible change.
When it came time for the four commissioners to deliver the final report to the prime minister, they sat on short stools on a red star blanket, used during births, deaths and marriages. They touched the pages of the report with tobacco, sweetgrass and ash, then wrapped it in sealskin and tied it with a Métis sash, before two young people presented the document to Trudeau.
Shortly after, a long line of the family members of the missing and murdered stretched across the stage, each in turn stepping up to the microphone to read out one of the report’s calls for justice. It was as though, by saying them aloud, they might somehow make them real.
Email: mforrest@postmedia.com | Twitter: MauraForrest
© 2019 National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|