Canada’s special interlocutor for missing children, unmarked graves and burial sites says the federal government needs to ensure funding for searches is both sustainable and long-term.
“I have raised this with the government – both in my interim report and over the last two years – that there has to be sustainable funding for these searches,” Kimberly Murray said. “They are continuing to limit what communities can utilize the funding for and that seems to be changing on a monthly basis what you’re able to use the funding for.
“At the end of the day, we need to stop treating this search for missing and disappeared children as a program. Canada has a legal obligation to support the findings of these truths.”
The Trudeau government has come under fire recently for trying to restrict funding and access for searches.
As part of this year’s budget, the government tried to cap the funding per community at $500,000, but later restored it to the previous $3-million-dollar-limit after pushback from First Nations.
But communities continue to complain there is much less money for searches than was previously available.
At a news conference in Ottawa Monday, the Survivors’ Secretariat, an organization that represents people who attended the Mohawk Institute in Ontario, said federal officials told them there was only $91 million available for searches over the next two years compared to $216.6 million over the previous three years – about a 58 per cent cut.
Murray’s term as special interlocutor comes to an end this fall and she will release a final report at the end of October.
Indigenous Peoples and the police
Hill Times columnist Rose LeMay says Canada has reached a critical crossroads in terms of its long-fractured relationship between Indigenous people and police.
“Provincial, territorial police forces have yet to even come to the table on reconciliation,” she said. “So, what do we need? I’m actually scared to ask the question. What do we need to happen to change their minds? I don’t even want to know what that would be.”
LeMay was speaking about the nine Indigenous deaths at the hands of police forces in the past month.
She said police have made next to no progress on reconciliation and things will only get worse before they get better unless non-Indigenous Canadians stand up and demand the same treatment from police for Indigenous people as they expect for themselves.
Fighting First Nations in court
NDP MP Niki Ashton says it is outrageous the Trudeau government continues to fight First Nations in court rather than make good on its commitment to provide safe drinking water.
“Canada, who under the Liberal government has said repeatedly that they were deeply committed to moving away from boil water advisories, to ensuring all First Nations have clean drinking water,” she said, “but when it comes to Shamattawa (First Nation) and the 59 other First Nations in this class-action lawsuit, it is very clear that Canada has not delivered the goods.
“And the fact that they refuse to settle with Shamattawa and the other First Nations, find a solution, and instead are continuing to fight them in court, is absolutely appalling.”
Shamattawa is in Ashton’s northern Manitoba riding and has been under boil-water advisories for the past six years. It remains without a functioning water-treatment plant.
The lawsuit has gone all the way to the Supreme Court with federal government lawyers arguing Canada is not legally liable to provide safe drinking water to First Nations in spite of past commitments made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other government ministers.
Ashton raised the issue in the House of Commons this week.
