Photo by Whitehorse Star
Kwanlin Dun Chief Doris Bill
Roundtable included many emotional moments
Kwanlin Dun Chief Doris Bill said she was “disappointed”
Kwanlin Dun Chief Doris Bill said she was “disappointed” with the federal response to Friday’s first-ever roundtable on missing and murdered indigenous women, and called for more leadership and financial commitment from Ottawa.
The meeting, which saw premiers, aboriginal leaders and two federal cabinet ministers convene in the nation’s capital, aimed to find solutions to grossly disproportionate levels of violence against First Nations women and girls.
“Overall, I think the federal government should be right in the lead on this,” Bill told the Star this morning.
“I think they should be right up there with the Assembly of First Nations and the Native Women’s Association and the Sisters in Spirit. They should be helping the families of the missing and murdered women and girls.”
Bill highlighted the government’s longstanding resistance to a national inquiry into the issue, returned to the fore with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s denial of the problem as a “sociological phenomenon” in Whitehorse last August.
“The fact that it took the provinces to take the lead on this says volumes about the federal government,” Bill said.
The government has pledged $25 million over five years as part of a federal action plan.
“If you break that down between the provinces and territories, it’s a pittance. It’s nothing,” she said.
Bill suggested the possibility of an agency dedicated to national missing or murdered women’s cases that would also help families and address larger social issues.
The idea of civilian patrols, already in place in some jurisdictions, also appealed to her as one option for her own community.
She added that victim assistance in the Yukon is laudable, especially compared against some of the provinces.
An RCMP report released last May found that at least 1,181 indigenous were murdered or went missing between 1980 and 2012.
It noted native women are much more likely than other demographics in Canada to fall victim to that label.
Carmacks resident Diane Lilley, the sister of Cindy Burk, who was murdered at age 21 on the “Highway of Tears” between Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, B.C. in 1990, spoke at the day-long event Friday.
She was selected by her peers from across the country as one of four First Nations women to represent grieving families at the roundtable — literally a large, circular table at the Ottawa Marriott Hotel.
Chief Bill actually covered the story as a journalist after an arrest was finally made in 2006.
“Sometimes we need to be brought down to reality, and you need to hear the straight truth. And as difficult as it was to hear, I think it probably benefits a lot of people, including myself,” Bill said of the heart-wrenching, horrific stories shared by Lilley and others at the meeting.
“The way I look at it, this conversation had to happen — and I mean the conversation among the politicians.
“It’s a start,” she added, echoing verbatim Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegard.
The conversation focused on prevention and awareness, community safety and the justice system.
The framework of action that emerged saw few concrete commitments. They included a national prevention and awareness campaign as well as a national task force on best practices for policing and justice.
Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger volunteered to host a second roundtable next year.
Premier Darrell Pasloski attended Friday’s event.
“I think it was quite a significant meeting in that for the first time ever, you had the federal government, provincial governments, national aboriginal organizations and communities — represented through family members — all sitting around one table,” he said in an interview this morning.
“It was a tough day emotionally,” he added.
“We went there to listen to what other people are doing.”
The premier stressed the funding the Yukon government has given to improve the plight of vulnerable First Nations women and girls.
A fund for the prevention of violence against aboriginal women has received $1.4 million since 2004. A combined $672,000 went to the Yukon Sisters in Spirit project between 2010 and 2013 and the implementation of the 2012 Yukon Aboriginal Women's Summit — one of two held in Whitehorse.
The territorial government, like Yukon MP Ryan Leef, has supported aboriginal leaders’ call for a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.
Teslin Tlingit Chief Carl Sidney spoke at the roundtable.
“Dialogue is good, but I want to see some genuine results,” he said before the meeting, repeating the call for a nation-wide inquiry.
Other delegates attended the roundtable on behalf of the Yukon Aboriginal Women’s Council, the Whitehorse Aboriginal Women’s Council and the Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society.
There are 39 cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women in the Yukon.
Add your comments or reply via Twitter @whitehorsestar
In order to encourage thoughtful and responsible discussion, website comments will not be visible until a moderator approves them. Please add comments judiciously and refrain from maligning any individual or institution. Read about our user comment and privacy policies.
Your name and email address are required before your comment is posted. Otherwise, your comment will not be posted.
Comments (7)
Up 0 Down 1
Dubs on Mar 5, 2015 at 10:15 am
@Thomas Brewer
I think i'ts because the suspect is a young offender, as is the victim. They can't release any details.
Up 8 Down 4
Junie Jackson on Mar 4, 2015 at 8:33 pm
There have been 58 studies in the last 20 years..Will 59 solve anything? The causes are already known.. the following is a quote from a article by Gloria Galloway.
"Mr. Valcourt suggested in an interview that part of the problem lies with reserves themselves. “Obviously, there’s a lack of respect for women and girls on reserves,” Mr. Valcourt told The Ottawa Citizen recently. “So, you know, if the guys grow up believing that women have no rights, that’s how they are treated.”
He went on to say the means for ending the violence would not be found federally. “The solution is at the community level,” he said. “Now, who are the chiefs and councils assembling [in their] communities to address this issue?”
Some First Nations women are murdered on reserves or go missing from their native communities where, in many cases, the precursors to violence exist in abundance – poverty, limited education and substance abuse. But the RCMP report says aboriginal women who are homicide victims are actually less likely to have been killed by their spouse than other female victims. Aboriginal women, the report says, more often fall prey to an “acquaintance,” a category that includes men who pay them for sex.
FN have a lot of societal problems. There are more FN in jail because more FN are committing crimes. There are more FN on the streets because they get less support from their bands. More FN leave their traditional territories because there is no future for them there. The list goes on and on and there is a lot of information about it, but damned few suggestions, even bad ideas, about how to remedy the problem.
My opinion? Nothing can be healed, nothing can be made better until every last FN, no matter where they are living, wants to make change. And the rest of us have to want to make change with them.
If FN want an inquiry, they should pay for it themselves. Bands are not only receiving Canadian tax dollars but have billions of dollars in revenue from investments, business, agreements to use their lands etc.. this is a link to how funding works in the Yukon.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/how-does-native-funding-work-1.1301120
Up 32 Down 12
francias pillman on Mar 2, 2015 at 11:11 pm
"Dialogue is good, but I want to see some genuine results,” he said before the meeting, repeating the call for a nation-wide inquiry.
In other words, give us money. That's all this is about. More meetings and studies that will accomplish nothing.
No more money.
Up 22 Down 8
Josey Wales on Mar 2, 2015 at 8:33 pm
Yes Thomas good point. I think the same of Angels case, 'cept no "persons of interest" in a cage on that one.
I'll go out on a limb here, try ditching Gladue.... more sisters may be alive.
Stop fixating on a white boogeyman stalking your sisters, and ask your brothers where they are.
Crime is like an iceberg in this new sty, what we see/hear is a wee fraction of what the reality is.
The rug...yup it sure is getting lumpy with all this non random violence we are getting conditioned with.
Up 36 Down 9
Just Say'in on Mar 2, 2015 at 8:18 pm
It is a fact that aprox 95% of victims in this kind of violence are related to, or well known by the victim. You do not have to look far to find the perpetrators. Please, no more federal studies, when you likely have a good idea who the criminals are. Help and assist the legal system put them away and quit protecting them.
Up 26 Down 13
north_of_60 on Mar 2, 2015 at 6:35 pm
Yes, it's obviously about getting more money from the government, not solving the problems aboriginals cause in their own communities.
If aboriginal groups want to redirect their existing funding for an inquiry, would anyone stop them? Why aren't they using their resources to address the cause of the 'missing women' problem which everyone is pretending to ignore?
This is a predominately aboriginal problem that begins with abuse at an early age in aboriginal communities. The aboriginal communities are the only ones who can fix this and they already get enough money to do it IF they want to. If these communities spent less money on Chiefs and Councilors and more on raising healthy children, then this problem would be solved.
What has been done since the last call for inquiry to address the conditions in their communities that cause their children to get involved with gangs, drugs, and risky behavior, and usually leave the community and go missing?
Up 49 Down 6
Thomas Brewer on Mar 2, 2015 at 3:39 pm
Why has there been no news regarding the 17 year old FN girl on KDFN lands in December? Neither the press nor the band management seem to be pressing the RCMP for details/status.
Sure seems like it's being swept under the rug.