The REDress Project raises awareness of missing and murdered Native women and girls in Canada. Photo from Facebook
The Canadian government has launched the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls but Carly McIntosh wonders whether the government itself will be held accountable for the disparate treatment of Native peoples:
When a white child is missing, the Government of Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police do not stop till they find the child. Amber Alerts go out every hour, Canadian news channels keep the breaking news live, and everything that can be of any help is done at that moment in time. The last Amber Alert we had in Canada took the Royal Canadian Mounted Police close to four days to solve. When a child of indigenous relation has gone missing the Canadian Government do not have a place in their heart where they care at all. Zero Amber Alerts go out, nothing is spoken of on the Canadian news channels, no watch alerts get placed in the local newspapers. Nothing at all is done when an indigenous child has gone missing and that is the way it has been for multiple years. As the numbers keep increasing in indigenous going missing, murdered, serious accidents, extreme sickness, and young ones committing suicide; the lessening in numbers would mean the Canadian Government have less to worry about indigenous people on the land they claim as Canada. With what the Government of Canada has done to the indigenous through the past and to the present, they should be feeling sick to their stomach. If indigenous people flipped positions with the Government of Canada for even just one week, the Canadian Government would be crawling on their knees begging for forgiveness.Read More from Carly McIntosh:
Carly McIntosh: Racism: Part Of the Canadian Government (Indian Country Today 8/17) Royal Canadian Mounted Police Reports:
Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview (May 2014)
2015 Update to the National Operational Overview (December 2015)
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