Wow. Eleven pages into this thread, and most people are opposed to the idea of an inquiry. Perhaps even more disturbing, I haven't seen a serious discussion using two key words/concepts: racism and colonialism.
Many of you have claimed that you're well aware of why there's so many missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. Waldo has a done a good job at countering that. It's strange that we're all so aware of the problem, and yet the government over the past 10 years has made no serious steps to address the core systematic issues of reserves and indigenous communities. In fact, the last residential school was just closed 18 years ago - in 1996! - which was a huge factor in negatively affecting indigenous communities.
A lot of you have posted that there isn't a distinctly high level of missing indigenous women. That's odd, considering that a RCMP says the exact opposite. This is just statistics from known cases, meaning there's dozens if not hundreds of other cases not reported to the police potentially. "The study found aboriginal women made up 4.3 per cent of the Canadian population, but accounted for 16 per cent of female homicides and 11.3 per cent of missing women." Ok, so now we've objectively established that there is a unique issue for indigenous women. Moving on.
Alright. So we should take action, right? Why discuss it anymore if we're all aware it's a problem? Let me put it in simple terms: indigenous leaders want an inquiry to look at all facets of this issue. Is the problem solely that of dysfunctional and deprived indiginous communities? Are indigenous people just drunk, drug-crazed violent people? Or perhaps another factor has to do with the RCMP itself. Maybe the RCMP and other policing authority in Canada has to do with the lack of solved case, the degree of kidnappings and/or murders.
After all, it was the RCMP who policed the residential schools in the first place. It was the RCMP's role, in much of Western Canada, to ensure that they caught and reprimanded any aboriginal children caught trying to run away from the abusive, brutal residential schools. Of course these kids couldn't go home to their family, speak their native language or enjoy basic dignities - it was the role of the RCMP to keep them in line. EDIT: Just in case people aren't aware of what Resident Schools were like, let me explain. The government would visit reserves and indigenous parents, kidnap their kid and forced them to go to school far away. At the school, they were regularly disciplined (verbally, beatings, sometimes rape) for embracing their native culture. They were discouraged (read: forced) from speaking their native language, wearing their native clothing, and other native customs on threat of emotional, verbal and physical reprimands. Tens of thousands of indigenous kids died in this system. To rephrase that, the government was the one kidnapping aboriginals up until 1996, and the RCMP helped with those kidnappings.
And yet this same organization is responsible for protecting the well-being of a people it so recently wronged. Perhaps indigenous leaders - and those who have followed the history - feel as if there's some residual effects. Somehow.
Perhaps the racist founding of this country hasn't quite been resolved. Perhaps our government - in some way, shape or form - through some arm, crown corporation or department is perpetuating the problems. When the Britian first colonized the Canada the official policy was to slaughter and forced relocate. Since then forced relocation has been the official policy, up until 1994. Maybe, just maybe, the effects of that aren't quite gone. Maybe there's some - *gasp* - racism still lingering in the institutions and arms of the government that persued racist policy not too long ago.
Maybe that's why we should have an inquiry, to look at this from a broader, objective, historical, bureaucratic and social perspective. Maybe it's not as simple as we think it is. Maybe there's more to it than first meets the eye. Maybe we should have some humility.
