Serena Malyon
The refusal to act on the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada is a human rights violation of epic proportions that cuts to the core of our national identity and our idea of ourselves as a caring and compassionate society.
Following the publication of an RCMP report on May 16 2014 stating more than 1000 aboriginal women have disappeared between 1980 and 2012 (at least 1017 homicide victims and an additional 164 still missing) international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International called for a National Action Plan including a national public inquiry. The federal government has refused to follow these recommendations and instead chooses to let the issue wallow in silence idleness and a lack of accountability. How do we understand the continued delay and inaction in dealing with what has happened and is continuing to happen to aboriginal women?
The scope and gravity of the problem offers some insight into the continued silence in addressing this important issue but complexity alone cannot serve as an excuse for more delay and inaction. The current policies and choices can only be understood as the continuation of a sustained ideology and historical practice which has remained more or less unacknowledged. An objective analysis of the historical interaction between aboriginal and European cultures from contact to the present day shows it is distinguished by a sustained politics of disappearance. Unless our long-standing political attitudes are recognized and changed more violence and injustice for the aboriginal women of Canada will occur.
A HISTORY OF DISAPPEARANCE
Disappearance can be used to frame the entire history of interactions between aboriginal and European peoples in Canada. The doctrine of discovery is a prime example. In order for the Europeans to lay claim to the new “discoveries” the land had to be unoccupied. In reality the First Nations were already occupying and using the land as they had for generations. It was therefore decided to characterize the aboriginal peoples as “savages” rather than the sophisticated societies they were. Religion played a role in this domination too; part of the justification was the nefarious idea that aboriginal people lacked souls. It was by making the identity of aboriginal populations as human beings “disappear” that the colonial powers laid claim to their “new” lands. From the beginning the politics of disappearance relied on a manipulation of the truth that stripped the aboriginal people of their humanity while legitimizing and concealing itself as natural and divine law.
The politics of disappearance continue to the present day though often in hidden form. A historical analysis reveals this strategy often (though not exclusively) manifests itself through inaction and delay even when it has had disastrous negative consequences for the aboriginal peoples. Two examples of the politics of disappearance utilizing delay and inaction are the large numbers of aboriginal people that died due to European-introduced diseases including tuberculosis and smallpox outbreaks and the extermination of the buffalo — the traditional food source of the plains Indians. There has been some debate about whether the introduction of disease and the killing of the buffalo were deliberate but this overlooks how our hidden political attitudes can manifest themselves. In many cases our politics operate more subtly but with equally devastating effects.
There can be no doubt that the influx of diseases brought by the Europeans was a plague of epic proportions. Canada’s own Public Health Agency describes the effects as follows: “The aboriginal population was exceptionally susceptible to these disease outbreaks because they lacked immunity to the new infections…. Countless aboriginal people succumbed to epidemics of smallpox tuberculosis diphtheria typhus measles and syphilis. In some cases whole communities disappeared.”
Historical documents reveal that little was done to help the aboriginal peoples dying in “countless” numbers. In the northwest health care was primarily provided by Oblate priests and the Grey Nuns who established rudimentary hospitals in a number of locations. Despite government subsidies and free labour provided by nuns the hospitals operated at a deficit with insufficient equipment and staff and insufficient funding to meet the costs of transporting supplies. Nor was there adequate training for the caregivers. The shocking result was that the primary responsibilities of the Oblate priests during these epidemics was to try to make dying more comfortable to administer last rights and to bury the dead.
Even more shockingly in the late 1920s the Indian Affairs medical director determined that tuberculosis was not a medical disorder even though 90 per cent of aboriginal deaths in Catholic hospitals were due to the infection. Admission of aboriginal tuberculosis patients to the hospitals was prohibited and until the 1940s aboriginal peoples in the north were continuing to die from tuberculosis in large numbers. Eventually Bishop Gabriel Breynat who had established six hospitals in the northwest accused the federal government of implementing genocidal health care policies. In 1943 a commission of Enquiry on Health Conditions in the North funded by the American Rockefeller Foundation found the state of aboriginal health care in the region appalling. The report concluded that hospitals were inadequately funded and the physicians badly trained.
The near extinction of the buffalo the traditional food and clothing source of the plains Indians can also be understood as part of a hidden politics of disappearance. While the Canadian government did not wage “total war” against the plains Indians as happened in America nor set out to deliberately exterminate their food source they did nothing to curtail the massacre of the herds by non-aboriginals seeking only economic gain. There are still pictures of thousands of buffalo skulls piled up waiting to be crushed for use as fertilizer. The numbered land treaties which followed the disease epidemics and extermination of the buffalo must be understood in the context of a pre-existing politics of disappearance and as a continuation of that same politics. The treaties themselves were all about disappearance about the abrogation of aboriginal rights and the exchange of vast tracts of land for small reservations. By then the First Nations were so decimated by disease and starvation they had little choice but to sign them.
PIECING IT TOGETHER
A good question to ask is whether the three examples provided — the doctrine of discovery the lack of treatment for epidemics and the extermination of the buffalo — really prove that a politics of disappearance in Canada existed or continues to exist. To a certain extent acknowledging a politics of disappearance involves adopting a certain point of view or looking at historical events from a certain vantage point. The doctrine of discovery the plagues and the buffalo are only small pieces of a much larger puzzle but when you look at all the pieces of the aboriginal experience in Canada and try to find a common theme disappearance emerges again and again. It becomes obvious to the point of being overlooked. This is perhaps the most interesting aspect of our politics of disappearance: it almost makes itself disappear.
It is impossible to explore all the issues facing aboriginal people in great detail here however even a brief view of some of the many issues reveals that disappearance is a persistent theme. One example is that aboriginal men are disappearing in Canada due to over-incarceration. Howard Sapers the federal corrections investigator recently issued a report raising concern that although approximately four per cent of our population is aboriginal they represent 21.4 per cent of federally incarcerated inmates. Aboriginal children are disappearing too apprehended by child welfare into government care — overrepresented in child services for over four decades. The 2003 Canadian Incidence Study found that although only five per cent of children in Canada were aboriginal they comprised 25 per cent of children admitted to care. Men women and children disappear and so too does the funding that is supposed to help them. In 2007 the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations filed a human rights complaint against the federal government alleging Canada is discriminating against First Nations children by failing to provide equitable services on reserve. This complaint is currently being litigated. First Nations child welfare agencies receive approximately 22 per cent less funding than provincial agencies yet carry a higher case load of child welfare files.
These numerous pieces of the aboriginal puzzle all point to a politics of disappearance. The biggest piece however clearly brings this ideology into focus: residential schools.
These schools and the policies that guided them were designed to take the “Indian” out of the child and so literally make the aboriginal person disappear. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found that between the 1870s and 1996 more than 150000 aboriginal children were taken from their homes and more than 4000 aboriginal children died while in care. Kimberly Murray executive director of the commission was forced to conclude “aboriginal kids’ lives just didn’t seem as worthy as non-aboriginal kids.” Recently the Canadian government recognized residential schools were wrong and issued an apology and some compensation for survivors. Many of the individuals most significantly impacted by the residential schools experiment however are not here to listen to apologies or receive compensation.
Similarly a late apology does nothing to hold accountable the actual perpetrators of the many crimes suffered and endured by aboriginal children. Justice delayed is justice denied. Perhaps in 30 or 40 years the government will issue another apology this time for the families of the missing and murdered aboriginal women. What good will that do? Will anyone be held accountable? How many more aboriginal women must be murdered or disappear before such an apology is made? Won’t such a late response be a continuation of the politics of disappearance that treats the aboriginal person as less than the non-aboriginal?
MOVING FORWARD
We need to think about what is important to us as a nation. There has been much in the news about domestic terrorism and the threat of ISIS. The death of two uniformed Canadian soldiers is tragic and conversations about terrorism need to happen but we also need to address the conversations we are not having. We should talk about the over 1000 aboriginal women who have been murdered. Their blood was as red as those two soldiers. On August 17 2014 the body of 15-year-old aboriginal girl Tina Fontaine was pulled out of the Red River days after she was reported missing from a foster home. Her body was wrapped in a bag and she had been murdered before being dumped in the water. Police had seen her after she was reported missing and yet did not do enough to protect her. Earlier in the year on February 14 2014 Loretta Saunders a pregnant Inuit woman described as a “uniquely brilliant” criminology student and who was herself studying incidents of murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada went missing. Her body was found in a wooded area off the Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick two weeks later.
There is no question that if over 1000 non-aboriginal women had been murdered over the same time period a public inquiry would have occurred and an effective national action plan would already be in place.
If we only look at the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women in isolation it is hard to understand our inaction and delay but if we look at the history of interactions between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples since the birth of Canada we see that it is part of a pattern involving delay inaction devaluation of aboriginal life and a lack of accountability. We need to add the 1000 murdered women to the 4000 dead aboriginal children to the 150000 aboriginal children forced into residential schools to the tens if not hundreds of thousands who died in underfunded and understaffed hospitals. We need to add up all the aboriginal males in prison and all the aboriginal children in child protection. We need to add up all the funding that has disappeared. We need to treat the issue of missing aboriginal woman as part of the broader social problem it is even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper has brazenly declared that it is not a sociological phenomenon. We know that the politics of disappearance often relies on distortion and the ability to remain unnoticed.
If 1000 murdered aboriginal women is not a “sociological phenomenon” what exactly is it? James Anaya the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples has called the unresolved cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women a “disturbing phenomenon” and an “epidemic.” He also called on the federal government to launch a national public inquiry into the matter. Anaya recognized that the government had taken some measures to deal with the issue of violence against aboriginal women but was clear that aboriginal people had “a widespread lack of confidence in the effectiveness of those measures.” Anaya was of the view that nothing less than a comprehensive nationwide inquiry would ensure a co-ordinated response and give an opportunity for the loved ones of the victims to be heard.
RESURGENCE AND RESPONSIBILITY
It is clear that the issue has reached such a point that it is not going away. Credit and recognition has to be given to the grassroots aboriginal organizations such as the Native Women’s Association that have been advocating on this issue for years. New organizations such as Idle No More and the Walking With Our Sisters Project which displays artwork and tributes made by the families and friends of women who have disappeared are having a powerful impact. The aboriginal grassroots organizations are the leaders on this issue. Both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people should get behind these powerful movements for social change.
As for the non-aboriginal Canadians it is easy enough to point to our government and say they are not doing enough but ultimately our government is an expression of ourselves. We cannot expect our government’s hidden policies to change unless we take a good look at our own hidden biases and prejudices. Non-aboriginals need to spend time with aboriginal people. We need to listen to them learn from them and get to know them. The aboriginal peoples are reaching out to us they are holding vigils they are mounting exhibitions they are organizing. It is time for us to join them and recognize our hidden historical prejudices that continue to the present day. It is time for us to recognize the value of aboriginal lives.
The time for a fundamental change in our attitudes toward aboriginal peoples is now. We must look objectively at our history to understand where we stand. This is a first step. This is the way to shift from a longstanding hidden politics of disappearance that espouses delay inaction and no accountability towards a politics of restoration and responsibility. We must recognize our subconscious thoughts and behaviour patterns which have subtly but tragically influenced the course of our Canadian history. This is the only way to grant justice and peace to the aboriginal women in Canada both the living and the forever disappeared.
Telmo dos Santos is a criminal defence lawyer and aboriginal rights advocate based in Calgary Alberta.