The RCMP recently released an updated and very controversial report on missing and murdered aboriginal women, which specifically concluded that about 70% of murdered aboriginal women were killed by native male Indians – that is, spouses, family members, acquaintances or otherwise known to the female victims.
The response by the liberal media (i.e. CBC) and aboriginal leaders was, let us say, quite underwhelming.
Anna Maria Tremonti of CBC’s “The Current” found these statistics alarming. She appeared particularly shocked that these RCMP “findings,” by a federal agency under the control of the Harper Conservatives, would suggest that indigenous men would be at all responsible for the disappearance and/or deaths of aboriginal women with whom they were involved or knew in their community.
The fact that the CBC and the progressive liberal press appear to be genuinely surprised by the RCMP’s irrefutable evidence-based findings, that the predominant killers of murdered aboriginal women are in fact native Indian men, should not come as a shock to those who have diligently followed the CBC over the years.
For years the CBC and other political liberal media, have been deluding themselves and perpetuating the myths that red-necked, long gun-toting, white conservative Harper-loving serial killer types or overweight pig farmers were running wild in the north and in western Canada preying on defenceless aboriginal women.
So imagine the surprise at the CBC that the causes of such deaths may be closer to home – literally in the homes and communities of aboriginal women.
However, in the case of the CBC and its fellow liberal/progressive media travellers, once they have been seized with a certain narrative, a certain inflexible way of seeing the world through rosy liberal glasses, it is next to impossible to suddenly and fundamentally change the direction of the story. Notwithstanding the actual facts on the ground have changed.
Accordingly, I believe that myopic people like Tremonti and the whole bunch at CBC still believe – notwithstanding the definitive conclusions of the recent RCMP reports – that a multi-year $50+ million public inquiry is still required to look into the root causes of how Canada, Canadians, and especially the Harper Conservatives have failed aboriginal women.
Knowing the CBC as well as I do, after decades of exposure to this publicly-funded institution, I believe that it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the CBC sincerely believe that one solution to the deaths of all these unfortunate aboriginal women is to significantly restore CBC funding so that CBC can create and produce inspiring and innovated aboriginal programming here in downtown Toronto, so as to positively influence the behavior of native Indian men.
The harsh reality is that such programming would be quite irrelevant to the First Nations experience, but very beneficial to the many politically correct, Toronto-based TV writers, directors and producers favorable to CBC, who are suffering from severe unemployment, while forced to make outrageous mortgage payments on their over-priced downtown Toronto condos.
But I digress.
Note in the RCMP’s original 2014 report on this matter, covering a period from 1980-2012, and based on police reports from all the provinces and territories, the RCMP found that there were a shocking 1,017 female aboriginal homicides and 164 missing aboriginal women.
Even though the female aboriginal population consists of only 4.3% of the total Canadian female population, the figure of 1,017 murdered aboriginal women represent about 16% of all Canadian female homicides.
This report also concluded that most homicides were committed by men and most of the perpetuators knew their victims – whether as an acquaintance or a spouse.
Interestingly, at that time, the RCMP, in order not to be accused of racism and “native Indianaphobia” and the RCMP, apparently overly concerned with the sensitivities of the overall male aboriginal population, failed to specifically directly lay the blame on the whole male aboriginal population for containing within their ranks – abusive native Indian men, rapists and murderers.
In the above-noted 2015 updated report, the RCMP did not make the same mistake again. To their credit, they did not pull any punches.
The said report concluded: “Parallel to the findings of the 2014 Overview in which most homicide victims had a previous relationship with the offender (meaning, native male Indians,) the 2013 and 2014 RCMP data reveals that the offender was known to the victim in 100% of the solved homicides of Aboriginal women in RCMP jurisdiction.”
In other words, in 100% of the solved murders of aboriginal women from 2013 and 2014, in RCMP jurisdictions, the murderers were 100% native male Indians.
Predictably – and notwithstanding these very clear statistics – Bernice Martial, the Grand Chief of Treaty Six in central Saskatchewan and Alberta, is unconvinced that responsibility for the tragedy can be pinned on native men.
“How are they collecting and compiling all this information? To me, it just doesn’t drive,” she said in a telephone interview with the Globe & Mail. “The RCMP is under the federal government, they have to comply with their policies and whatever they are told, they have to do. What I would like to see is an independent national inquiry.”
Furthermore, Chief Martial and other First Nations chiefs do not see the connection between native Indian men abusing and killing aboriginal women and native Indian men being responsible for abusing and killing aboriginal women.
To these chiefs, many aboriginals and many liberal and progressive Canadians, these statistics are irrelevant. They should be ignored. It just doesn’t drive. To these people, this is not a male native Indian issue, it is a Canadian issue.
As such, these people believe the Harper Government and all the other federal parties should support another Justice Murray Sinclair “Truth and Reconciliation Part 2 – The Sequel” public inquiry, investigating the disappearance and the murder of aboriginal women. (Because 40 independent previous studies, which all have come to the same conclusion, are irrelevant and should be ignored.)
Apparently “Truth and Rec 2” should also last at least five years. Cost $50+ million. And employ tons of politically-connected aboriginal lawyers or aboriginal-friendly lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and general hangers on. All on the taxpayers’ dime.
This TR2 Commission should look at such root causes as the residential school system of 50 years ago, British colonialism, failed treaty negotiations, global warming, the existence of oil pipelines and most importantly, the lack of CBC programming of heroic aboriginals as influential role models.
In other words, more Adam Beach in Arctic Air or repeats of North of 60.
I get it. If I lived on a steady diet of Dragons Den and the unfunny Rick Mercer and Mr. D, I too would be driven to violence.
But more funding for CBC, that may be a bridge too far for us poor suffering taxpayers.
Mitch Wolfe: The Playful Contrarian 