Sunday, March 26, 2023
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Violence against Aboriginal women requires a creative solution, not an inquiry: Coates

August 29, 2014
in Columns, Indigenous Affairs Program, Latest News
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A

In this op-ed for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Senior Fellow Ken Coates argues that the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women requires a more creative solution than just calling a national inquiry.

Instead, Coates argues for a “problem-solver’s movement” that involves community leaders, activists, professionals and the general public.

“The murders of hundreds of Aboriginal women is a national disgrace”, writes Coates. “Let’s not assume that government has all of the answers”.

By Ken Coates, Aug. 29, 2014

Critics of the Government of Canada have pushed hard for a federal inquiry into the shocking levels of violence against Aboriginal women, sparked by the recent murder of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine in Winnipeg. Superficially, the idea of an inquiry seems logical, particularly if such an investigation produced viable and sustainable solutions to an epidemic of violence directed at vulnerable women.

The inquiry route, however, is the wrong one for Canada and the wrong one for Aboriginal women, who absolutely deserve greater protection and who have to be saved from the scourge of violence across the country. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is wrong when he says that the issue is criminal in nature and not “sociological.”  There are countless studies that have documented the roots of violence against women and against Aboriginal women specifically, and these are profoundly social, cultural and economic in nature.

Canada has held many inquiries, commissions and Royal Commissions over the years. Some, like the MacDonald Commission on Canada’s economic prospects, played a crucial role in leading Canada toward free trade. Others elevated issues from the background and made them national news. The LeDain commission on drugs, the Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission, and the LaMarsh study on the status of women all sent a bright spotlight into areas of public policy largely shielded from public view.  Aboriginal people had a Royal Commission devoted to them, resulting in a voluminous report published in 1996 that captured the complexity of indigenous issues in Canada but failed to capture the public or the political imagination.

What makes the matter of murdered Aboriginal women somewhat different is that the immediate and contextual causes are quite well-known. Most murders of Aboriginal women — of all women, sadly — involve family members or other people close to the victim. The causes are painful familiar: drug and alcohol abuse, sustained domestic violence, and the tragic lifestyles of young women forced into prostitution and hard drug use. We know, in general, who kills Aboriginal women, why the murders occur, and the family and social context in which the violence occurred.

We also know the broader social and historical environment that created the intense poverty, marginalization, and social crisis. We are much less frank in addressing systematic racism — a painful and real experience for far too many Aboriginal Canadians — but most will acknowledge that it is there.

It is true is that, despite a firm grasp on the nature of the problem, no one knows precisely what to do. From the 1970s on, the then Department of Indian Affairs tried to address social problems with more programs and greater government engagement. While there were some improvements, in many ways the active intervention by government did not solve problems that were more social, cultural and economic in nature. The current government is preoccupied with economic development, believing that jobs and prosperity — along with modern agreements and Aboriginal self-government — will address the social and community ills over time. We can see the improvements economic development has brought, with the James Bay Cree, Meadow Lake, Onion Lake, Osoyoos, the Tahltan, Carcross-Tagish, Inuvialuit and many other groups. But even here, the path is uncertain and there is no assurance of uniform success.

All the while, Indigenous women — and Aboriginal men — continue to die at an alarming pace and often in gruesome and awful ways.

Public policy is not the only lever available to Canadians. The country at large can get engaged, with and at the request of First Nations. Unions, churches, community organizations, philanthropists and others can get involved directly, as former Prime Minister Paul Martin continues to do, as Aditya Jha has done with his private foundation, and as another initiative by Chinese-Canadian leaders has the potential to do. Most of the real problems facing Aboriginal people in Canada did not begin with government policy and will not be solved by policy actions. The crisis began with racial stereotypes, discrimination, hostility and cultural disdain, all of which fed into government actions over time. Canadians — with their governments following rather than leading — have to do more.

So why don’t we Canadians do something different, instead of retreating to the time-worn idea of national inquiry, which is rather like punting the ball deep into the political wilderness. If there ever was an opportunity for a citizens’ mobilization, where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people came together to focus on solutions — not causes — this is it. There is a remarkable model before us, provided by the founders of Idle No More, who showed that peaceful engagement focused on consciousness raising could sweep the country and mobilize tens of thousands of Aboriginal people. Why not start a “problem-solver’s movement,” involving community leaders, activists, professionals and the general public, designed to work with local Aboriginal groups to identify possible solutions to the crisis of murdered Aboriginal women.

Canadians are good at talking — and we are better at finger-pointing. We are much less accomplished at problem-solving and figuring out real world solutions to serious and sustained social problems. The murders of hundreds of Aboriginal women is a national disgrace. Let’s not assume that government has all of the answers. Let’s transform the tragedies into a search for workable solutions and, even more importantly, reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and all other Canadians.

Ken Coates is Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He is the co-author of the MLI reportNew Beginnings: How Canada’s natural resource wealth could re-shape relations with Aboriginal people.

Tags: Ken CoatesMacdonald-LaurierMLI
Previous Post

Hot topic: Interprovincial trade, health care and infrastructure at the premiers meeting

Next Post

Stats Can downsizing has created a more focused organization, Cross tells Citizen

Related Posts

Putin and Xi driven to make authoritarianism the standard worldwide: Balkan Devlen in the National Post
Columns

Putin and Xi driven to make authoritarianism the standard worldwide: Balkan Devlen in the National Post

March 24, 2023
Outside intervention does a disservice to Indigenous communities that need to take control of their economic destinies: Chris Sankey in the National Post
Columns

Changing a lyric in O Canada is not a path to reconciliation: Chris Sankey in the Hub

March 23, 2023
Holding China to Account for the COVID-19 Coverup: Charles Burton and Brett Byers for Inside Policy
Columns

Beijing is the one stoking racism against Chinese-Canadians: Christian Leuprecht in the National Post

March 23, 2023
Next Post
Nazareth in iPolitics: Weak temporary foreign worker program hurts the economy

Stats Can downsizing has created a more focused organization, Cross tells Citizen

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
    • Women’s History Month Fundraiser
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Health Care
      • Innovation
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Telecoms
    • Energy Policy Program
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Competition Policy in Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Annual Reports
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.