Racism needs to be a key focus of MMIWG inquiry

This week the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls rolled into Saskatoon. This commission of inquiry has been fraught with internal strife and calls have been made for it to be abandoned and reset.

It didn’t help that the first media scrum by commission chair Marion Buller was cut short when the reporters began to ask questions about the problems the commission was encountering. Later it was revealed through a leaked internal memo from Debbie Reid, the commission’s executive director, that the staff ’s priority was to protect the commissioners from “criticism and surprises.” It began to appear that the commission was an organization in a state of siege rather than tasked with the important responsibility of conducting an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Since January, 20 people have been fired or quit the commission, including commissioner Marilyn Poitras and executive director Michele Moreau. This week, one of the lawyers tendered his resignation.

The commission’s website states that its mandate is “to educate the public, to facilitate healing of traumatized communities, to restore public confidence in institutions that have been seriously damaged in the eyes of Canadians, and to make recommendations for action and policy reform aimed at effecting real changes to make Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQ2S feel safe, sacred, honoured and empowered.”

Clearly this is a sweeping mandate and time is not on the inquiry’s side.

The commission has become a self-generating news machine, but the reality is that it has an important mandate and the issue of violence against Indigenous women and girls continues unabated. The real story is the loss of so many women and girls and the pain that continues for the families.

Saskatoon is a fitting place for the inquiry to touch down in Saskatchewan. In 1996, John Martin Crawford was sentenced to life for the killing of three Aboriginal women in 1992. He had previously done time in Alberta for the killing of another Aboriginal woman. This serial killer spread fear throughout the city and this year the Saskatoon Police Service placed a statue in front of the police station honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Over the course of the hearings in Saskatoon, the commissioners heard from more than 80 people in both public and private settings. The pain and suffering was hard to observe, but there is a strong need for individuals to tell their stories and experience the catharsis it provides.

The commission has been faulted for not providing support to those who appeared before it and leaving damaged people in its wake. In Saskatoon, the Friendship Centre stepped in and provided support services, including a shuttle between the hearings and the Friendship Centre.

A sacred fire burned in a teepee in the park across from the hearings. Saskatoon people stepped up to support the families like no other location the commission had visited.

What will be the findings of the inquiry? It will most likely come up with recommendations for policing, addictions, poverty and improved social services, but at the end of the day the underlying problem is racism.

Canada’s image as an international boy scout ignores the racism that exists just under the surface. There is a misconception that serial killers are monsters; in reality they are pathetic losers. Killers like Crawford looked down on Indigenous women, considering them less than human and certainly less than him. No matter how pathetic he was, he knew that he was white and his victims were “Indians.”

During the civil war in the United States, it became apparent to the commanders that the soldiers didn’t like to kill each other. In order to reduce this unfortunate attitude, they created names for and lies about the enemy. In the future, the Germans would be called krauts and huns; the British referred to the people of India as wogs; the Vietnamese became gooks to the Americans, and so on.

If you can build up your side and tear down the other, then killing isn’t such a moral dilemma. The same pattern is at work here, and the result is that Indigenous women’s lives are regarded as cheap.

Racism is Canada’s dirty secret, and it must come out in this inquiry.