{"id":135,"date":"2023-04-11T15:13:44","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T19:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/?post_type=chapter&p=135"},"modified":"2023-10-02T15:32:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T19:32:44","slug":"current-justice-and-legal-issues","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/chapter\/current-justice-and-legal-issues\/","title":{"raw":"Current Justice and Legal Issues","rendered":"Current Justice and Legal Issues"},"content":{"raw":"A country\u2019s history informs its present. As outlined above, the clear intention over many centuries has been to eradicate and\/or assimilate the Indigenous peoples of Canada and subsume their lands and territories into the colonized state. In recent years, we\u2019ve seen evidence of blatant and systemic racism created by colonization still infiltrating all aspects of Indigenous life. One of the ways the general public sees this infiltration is through media stories of clear legal transgressions by white actors and\/or police and\/or legal systems visited upon Indigenous individuals due to racial profiling and entrenched racism.\r\n\r\nAccording to Census Canada, in 2021 Indigenous children under the age of 14 made up only 7.7% of children in the overall population; however, they represented 53.8% of children in foster care (Reducing the number of Indigenous children in care<\/a> 2022).\r\n\r\n\"\"This gross overrepresentation can be seen as both a continuation of the damage caused by residential schools<\/a>\u00a0and the beginning of a slippery slope into legal troubles for children and young adults. In some cases, being in foster care has also led to children\u2019s deaths due to being taken in by people with malicious intentions, suicide, or abduction due to lack of supervision while in care (Sherlock<\/a> 2017).\r\n\r\n\"\"Statistics Canada paints a grim picture in the Victimization of First Nations People, M\u00e9tis and Inuit in Canada<\/a> (2022) as a result of generational trauma. Although the numbers are falling among younger generations, about two in five Indigenous people experience physical or sexual violence before age 15; many of these incidents occur when these children are in the care of government agencies. While 4.2% of the non-Indigenous population were assault victims in 2019, the number doubled to 8.4% for Indigenous people. While 9.2% of non-Indigenous women experience sexual violence, this rate jumps to 26% for Indigenous women (Perreault, 2022<\/a>).\r\n\r\nAlthough traditionally women were highly respected in Indigenous societies, the same could not be said of European women<\/a> during the time of colonization; they were generally perceived as inferior to men (Boose, 1991). The expansion of this perception to Indigenous women through colonization led to Indigenous women being doubly disadvantaged: they were not white and they were women.\r\n\r\nThis racist, misogynistic view has perpetuated over centuries, leaving young Indigenous women vulnerable to even harsher victimization, including human trafficking. The Native Women\u2019s Association of Canada<\/a> (NWAC) produced a report on Trafficking of Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada <\/a>(Roudometkina & Wakeford, 2018) that paints a tragic portrait. According to their research, Indigenous women account for 50% of domestic human trafficking victims in Canada, and many of them are under 18.\r\n\r\nThe cultural disruptions caused by both residential schools and the sixties scoop, accompanied by discrimination within the judicial system have led to a gross overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canadian prisons. While Indigenous people make up less than 5% of Canada\u2019s population, in 2000 they accounted for just over 17% of the prison population, and by 2020 they accounted for over 30% (Office of the Correctional Investigator<\/a> 2020). Indigenous women make up a shocking 48% of prisoners in Canadian prisons, due in part to mandatory prison sentences (Major<\/a> 2021).\r\n\r\n\"\"What must also be considered with these high incarceration rates are the roles of the police and judicial systems and the rampant prejudice of some officers. For instance, since 1976, numerous cases have been reported of Saskatchewan police officers driving men into the prairies on winter nights, sometimes taking their jackets, and leaving them to walk home; often they do not survive (Carlton<\/a> 2022). In 2016, Colten Boushie was shot by Gerald Stanley on Stanley\u2019s farm in rural Saskatchewan; the second-degree murder charge was downgraded to manslaughter, and the all-white jury acquitted Stanley of the charges (Roach<\/a> 2020). A 2020 study by CTV News revealed that Indigenous people accounted for 38% of police shooting deaths in Canada, again a gross overrepresentation given the percentage of the population (Flanagan <\/a>2020). Also in 2020, RCMP officers launched an unprovoked assault on Chief Allan Adam of Fort Chipewyan First Nation in a parking lot (Cecco<\/a> 2020). These, and many similar incidents, point to the police as the frontline in a justice system that frequently supports systemic racism.\r\n\r\nThe Federal Government established a task force in 2016 to investigate Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls<\/a> (MMIWG) and produced its report, Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls<\/a>, in 2019. After hearing from 2,380 survivors and family members of missing and murdered women, girls, and people who identify as 2SLGBTQQIA, echoing the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation report<\/a>, the MMIWG report also consciously used the word genocide. It suggested that about 1,200 Indigenous women and girls went missing or were murdered between 1980 and 2012; however, the Native Women\u2019s Association of Canada <\/a>(NWAC) suggests the number is closer to 4,000. Given Indigenous mistrust of policing, some disappearances were unreported; given the history of the police and RCMP with Indigenous peoples, some reports were ignored. The documentary series Taken <\/a>documents some of these stories, and includes links to information<\/a> and police resources for reporting.\r\n\r\nThe Native Women\u2019s Association of Canada <\/a>(NWAC) produces an annual scorecard of progress in implementing the Reclaiming Power and Place<\/a> report\u2019s 231 Calls for Justice directed to governments, social services, and various institutions. Their 2022 MMIWG2S Federal Action Plan: Annual Scorecard<\/a> details how little action has been taken. While the Government has allocated $2.2 billion, it is unclear if or how these funds are being spent; this lack of transparency makes it difficult to ascertain progress. Reviewing eight general areas, the report suggests that little to no progress has been made, and that none of the actions has been fully realized.\r\n\r\n \r\n
While we have seen some progress made, there is an overall lack of concrete action, accountability and transparency required to end this genocide. This makes it clear that the Federal Government has not prioritized MMIWG2S. In total, the Federal Government outlined 30 actions in their National Action Plan. 16 of these actions saw some progress, while 14 actions saw no progress. However, there are a significant number of Calls for Justice that are completely unaddressed by their National Action Plan. This is unacceptable \u2013 the Calls for Justice are legal imperatives that the Federal Government must respond to. We must see action on every Call for Justice. (NWAC<\/a>, 2022, p. 10)<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nBernard Richard, a lawyer and politician, has stated that due to the effects of residential schools and the sixties scoop, Indigenous foster care requires much more funding than non-Indigenous foster care. \u201cThe intergenerational trauma has to be addressed\u2014it\u2019s significant and it won\u2019t go away on its own. It has resulted in addiction and alcoholism and it has led to broken families, and sometimes physical abuse and sexual abuse\u201d (Richard as cited in Sherlock<\/a> 2017 para. 34). He also suggests that Indigenous child welfare should include culturally appropriate practices (Richard as cited in Sherlock<\/a> 2017). Raven Sinclair states that \u201cSadly, the involvement of the child welfare system is no less prolific in the current era\u2026the \u201cSixties Scoop\u201d has merely evolved into the \u201cMillennium Scoop\u201d (Sinclair 2007 as cited in Sixties Scoop<\/a> 2009). Solving the challenge of the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in foster care will go a long way to avoiding some of the problems Indigenous adults face.","rendered":"

A country\u2019s history informs its present. As outlined above, the clear intention over many centuries has been to eradicate and\/or assimilate the Indigenous peoples of Canada and subsume their lands and territories into the colonized state. In recent years, we\u2019ve seen evidence of blatant and systemic racism created by colonization still infiltrating all aspects of Indigenous life. One of the ways the general public sees this infiltration is through media stories of clear legal transgressions by white actors and\/or police and\/or legal systems visited upon Indigenous individuals due to racial profiling and entrenched racism.<\/p>\n

According to Census Canada, in 2021 Indigenous children under the age of 14 made up only 7.7% of children in the overall population; however, they represented 53.8% of children in foster care (Reducing the number of Indigenous children in care<\/a> 2022).<\/p>\n

\"\"This gross overrepresentation can be seen as both a continuation of the damage caused by residential schools<\/a>\u00a0and the beginning of a slippery slope into legal troubles for children and young adults. In some cases, being in foster care has also led to children\u2019s deaths due to being taken in by people with malicious intentions, suicide, or abduction due to lack of supervision while in care (Sherlock<\/a> 2017).<\/p>\n

\"\"Statistics Canada paints a grim picture in the Victimization of First Nations People, M\u00e9tis and Inuit in Canada<\/a> (2022) as a result of generational trauma. Although the numbers are falling among younger generations, about two in five Indigenous people experience physical or sexual violence before age 15; many of these incidents occur when these children are in the care of government agencies. While 4.2% of the non-Indigenous population were assault victims in 2019, the number doubled to 8.4% for Indigenous people. While 9.2% of non-Indigenous women experience sexual violence, this rate jumps to 26% for Indigenous women (Perreault, 2022<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Although traditionally women were highly respected in Indigenous societies, the same could not be said of European women<\/a> during the time of colonization; they were generally perceived as inferior to men (Boose, 1991). The expansion of this perception to Indigenous women through colonization led to Indigenous women being doubly disadvantaged: they were not white and they were women.<\/p>\n

This racist, misogynistic view has perpetuated over centuries, leaving young Indigenous women vulnerable to even harsher victimization, including human trafficking. The Native Women\u2019s Association of Canada<\/a> (NWAC) produced a report on Trafficking of Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada <\/a>(Roudometkina & Wakeford, 2018) that paints a tragic portrait. According to their research, Indigenous women account for 50% of domestic human trafficking victims in Canada, and many of them are under 18.<\/p>\n

The cultural disruptions caused by both residential schools and the sixties scoop, accompanied by discrimination within the judicial system have led to a gross overrepresentation of Indigenous people in Canadian prisons. While Indigenous people make up less than 5% of Canada\u2019s population, in 2000 they accounted for just over 17% of the prison population, and by 2020 they accounted for over 30% (Office of the Correctional Investigator<\/a> 2020). Indigenous women make up a shocking 48% of prisoners in Canadian prisons, due in part to mandatory prison sentences (Major<\/a> 2021).<\/p>\n

\"\"What must also be considered with these high incarceration rates are the roles of the police and judicial systems and the rampant prejudice of some officers. For instance, since 1976, numerous cases have been reported of Saskatchewan police officers driving men into the prairies on winter nights, sometimes taking their jackets, and leaving them to walk home; often they do not survive (Carlton<\/a> 2022). In 2016, Colten Boushie was shot by Gerald Stanley on Stanley\u2019s farm in rural Saskatchewan; the second-degree murder charge was downgraded to manslaughter, and the all-white jury acquitted Stanley of the charges (Roach<\/a> 2020). A 2020 study by CTV News revealed that Indigenous people accounted for 38% of police shooting deaths in Canada, again a gross overrepresentation given the percentage of the population (Flanagan <\/a>2020). Also in 2020, RCMP officers launched an unprovoked assault on Chief Allan Adam of Fort Chipewyan First Nation in a parking lot (Cecco<\/a> 2020). These, and many similar incidents, point to the police as the frontline in a justice system that frequently supports systemic racism.<\/p>\n

The Federal Government established a task force in 2016 to investigate Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls<\/a> (MMIWG) and produced its report, Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls<\/a>, in 2019. After hearing from 2,380 survivors and family members of missing and murdered women, girls, and people who identify as 2SLGBTQQIA, echoing the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation report<\/a>, the MMIWG report also consciously used the word genocide. It suggested that about 1,200 Indigenous women and girls went missing or were murdered between 1980 and 2012; however, the Native Women\u2019s Association of Canada <\/a>(NWAC) suggests the number is closer to 4,000. Given Indigenous mistrust of policing, some disappearances were unreported; given the history of the police and RCMP with Indigenous peoples, some reports were ignored. The documentary series Taken <\/a>documents some of these stories, and includes links to information<\/a> and police resources for reporting.<\/p>\n

The Native Women\u2019s Association of Canada <\/a>(NWAC) produces an annual scorecard of progress in implementing the Reclaiming Power and Place<\/a> report\u2019s 231 Calls for Justice directed to governments, social services, and various institutions. Their 2022 MMIWG2S Federal Action Plan: Annual Scorecard<\/a> details how little action has been taken. While the Government has allocated $2.2 billion, it is unclear if or how these funds are being spent; this lack of transparency makes it difficult to ascertain progress. Reviewing eight general areas, the report suggests that little to no progress has been made, and that none of the actions has been fully realized.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While we have seen some progress made, there is an overall lack of concrete action, accountability and transparency required to end this genocide. This makes it clear that the Federal Government has not prioritized MMIWG2S. In total, the Federal Government outlined 30 actions in their National Action Plan. 16 of these actions saw some progress, while 14 actions saw no progress. However, there are a significant number of Calls for Justice that are completely unaddressed by their National Action Plan. This is unacceptable \u2013 the Calls for Justice are legal imperatives that the Federal Government must respond to. We must see action on every Call for Justice. (NWAC<\/a>, 2022, p. 10)<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bernard Richard, a lawyer and politician, has stated that due to the effects of residential schools and the sixties scoop, Indigenous foster care requires much more funding than non-Indigenous foster care. \u201cThe intergenerational trauma has to be addressed\u2014it\u2019s significant and it won\u2019t go away on its own. It has resulted in addiction and alcoholism and it has led to broken families, and sometimes physical abuse and sexual abuse\u201d (Richard as cited in Sherlock<\/a> 2017 para. 34). He also suggests that Indigenous child welfare should include culturally appropriate practices (Richard as cited in Sherlock<\/a> 2017). Raven Sinclair states that \u201cSadly, the involvement of the child welfare system is no less prolific in the current era\u2026the \u201cSixties Scoop\u201d has merely evolved into the \u201cMillennium Scoop\u201d (Sinclair 2007 as cited in Sixties Scoop<\/a> 2009). Solving the challenge of the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in foster care will go a long way to avoiding some of the problems Indigenous adults face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":480,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-135","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":91,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/480"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135\/revisions\/241"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/91"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/indigenoustorontoresearchresource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}