Conservatives "piggy-back" agenda on Aboriginal women's strategy: critics

APTN National News
OTTAWA–The Conservative government is pushing through portions of their tough-on-crime agenda under the cover of a national strategy to deal with the hundreds of murdered and missing Aboriginal women cases, opposition critics say.

Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose announced Friday that the government would finally put to work the $10 million set aside in the last budget for a national strategy to deal specifically with murdered and missing Aboriginal women cases.

The announcement, however, included a recycled portion of a failed justice bill on warrantless wiretapping and reduced the amount of money that had been earmarked specifically for the national strategy.

According to a the government’s own funding breakdown, $4 million will go to the RCMP to increase their investigative capacity on missing persons cases in general through the creation of the National Police Support Centre for Missing Persons. Only a portion of the centre’s work, and therefore the money, will go specifically toward cases involving Aboriginal women, said the NDP’s status of women critic.

“They skimmed $4 million off the top for another initiative,” said NDP MP Irene Mathyssen. “It is a sleight of hand, consistent with the Conservatives trying to appear to be addressing the issue when they are really not.”

The Conservatives also announced Friday they would be introducing amendments to the Criminal Code to make it easier for police to execute warrantless wiretaps in emergency situations and to obtain several warrants on a single application to a judge or justice of the peace.

While the government wrapped the change in language linking it to possible investigations involving Aboriginal women, the proposed warrantless wiretap amendment was part of Bill C-31, which died when Prime Minister Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament last year. Bill C-31 did not include the proposed warrant application changes announced Friday, but it did include provisions to make it easier for police to obtain warrants over the telephone.

“What does that have to do with missing Aboriginal women? This is legislation that (Justice Minister Rob Nicholson) is talking about that law enforcement have been asking for longer than five years,” said Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, the party’s justice critic.

“It sounds like the government is trying to piggy-back legislation and policies that may be needed for the general public and trying to make it out as though this is designed to address the issue of murdered and missing Aboriginal women,” Jennings said.

The Conservatives, however, say the criticism is politically motivated.

“We are talking about murders, we are going to need every tool possible to make sure we find these women…anyone who criticizes that, I am sorry, they are taking a step backwards, ” said Conservative MP Shelly Glover, a former Winnipeg police sergeant who is now parliamentary secretary for Aboriginal Affairs. “I just wish it wouldn’t become a political issue because these are tools we gravely need”

The Conservative announcement is also drawing criticism from other sectors.

Pam Palmater, chair for Indigenous governance at Ryerson University’s Centre for Indigenous governance blasted the government’s announcement for focusing too much on law enforcement. She also criticized the Native Women’s Association of Canada for endorsing it.

“There is no amount of funding that will affect real change in violence against Indigenous women if it is all directed towards policing and not at the root causes of this inequality,” wrote Palmater on her blog, “Shame on Canada for continuing to criminalize our peoples and on NWAC for settling for it.”

The Conservatives are also putting $4.65 million in funding toward community and school-based programs to deal with cycles of violence and improve the safety of Aboriginal women in Aboriginal communities along with enhancing victims’ services in Western provinces to make them more sensitive to Aboriginal people.

Of the remaining $1.35 million, $850,000 will be available to Aboriginal groups, and “groups which work with Aboriginals” to develop public information on violence against Aboriginal women, and $500,000 to enhance interaction between authorities and Aboriginal people.