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“In a span of a week, the Conservative government confirmed their feelings of indifference, disregard and utter lack of respect for indigenous people.
It seems that their contempt is solely aimed at First Nation men, First Nation women, and First Nation girls.
This is the very attitude that underlies the government legislation and (non) actions that have resulted in tragic consequences suffered by First Nation people for generations.
The Indian Act. The Indian Residential School. Child Welfare. Theft of land. Theft of children. Theft of identity. Theft of existence. Genocide by legislation.
This, coupled with deeply entrenched stereotypes, bears life and death consequences of violence, self violence, community violence, societal violence, and systemic violence.”
– CBC News, Stephen Harper’s comments on missing, murdered aboriginal women show ‘lack of respect’.
“Um it, it isn’t really high on our radar, to be honest, Peter. You know, our ministers will continue to dialogue ah with ah those who are concerned about this. They’re studying it. But we have an awful lot of studies and information on the phenomenon and an awful good ah indication of what the record is in terms of investigation and prevention of these sorts of things. I really think the important thing – you know, we can spend literally as we have in the past on some of these royal commissions or inquiries, we can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get the same report for the 41st or 42nd time, or we can actually take action. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’ve, as you know, taken strong laws to prevent and to punish ah criminal activity which a lot of this is. We’ve taken, ah made significant investments into ah preventative measures, particularly involving family violence measures on reserves and elsewhere. We’ve done things to try and enhance the legal and social status of women in aboriginal communities and reserves. You know, things like, basic things like having protections under the Human Rights Act, matrimonial property rights, these kinds of things that were not done in the past. So there’s still more work to be done but I would – I would rather spend my time focusing on what actions we can take to improve ah these situations, prevent these situations than, than have more multimillion dollar inquiries.”
– CBC News, Full text of Peter Mansbridge’s interview with Stephen Harper.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #50 – Harper Inquiry (MMIW).
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
