Some of the MMIWG inquiry’s farthest-reaching recommendations

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This article was published 02/06/2019 (1937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GATINEAU, Que. – The final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls includes more than 200 “calls for justice.” A selection of some of the farthest-reaching ones:

1. Establish a national Indigenous and human-rights ombudsperson and a national Indigenous and human-rights tribunal

2. Create a national action plan to ensure equitable access to employment, housing, education, safety, and health care

3. Provide long-term funding for education programs and awareness campaigns related to violence prevention and combating lateral violence — that is, violence committed by one Indigenous person against another

4. Prohibit taking children into foster care on the basis of poverty or cultural bias

5. Fund Indigenous-led efforts to improve the representation of Indigenous people in popular culture

6. Launch health and wellness services aimed at Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA* people, particularly so that health care is available to vulnerable Indigenous people in their own communities

7. Create a guaranteed annual livable income for all Canadians, taking into account “diverse needs, realities and geographic locations”

8. Create safe and affordable transit and transportation services in, to and from remote communities, to reduce dependence on risky activities such as hitchhiking

9. Revise the Criminal Code to “eliminate definitions of offences that minimize the culpability of the offender”

10. Fund policing in Indigenous communities so their services are equitable compared to those in non-Indigenous communities, including modern information technology, major-crime units and crime prevention

11. Fund training and education for Indigenous people to thrive in education, health-care, media, policing, law and other fields

12. Consider the welfare of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people in planning resource-development and extraction projects

13. Remove the “maximum security” classification in the federal correctional service, which limits access to rehabilitation and reintegration programs

14. Increase Indigenous representation on all Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court

15. Develop knowledge and read the final report. Listen to the truths shared, and acknowledge the burden of these human- and Indigenous-rights violations, and how they impact Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people today

* Two-spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual