Excerpts from National Action Plan <br>

TML Weekly is posting below proposals from A National Action Plan to End Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls: The Time is Now, submitted jointly by the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), Dr. Pamela Palmater, Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University, and Canada Without Poverty to the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and made public on February 6. These excerpts are taken from pages 51-61.

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As an urgent national priority, a coordinated, all-government, strategic National Action Plan should be formulated, with established program and service elements, and strategies, that will allow for variations in regional needs and delivery mechanisms, and that is accompanied by timelines for implementation. Measurable goals for improvements in social and economic indicators, and in justice system indicators, should be set, with timelines. The Government of Canada should provide funding transfers to the provinces and territories conditional on implementation of plan elements, and on commitment to engage in coordinated strategies, public reporting, and monitoring, all done in partnership with Indigenous women, their chosen representatives, their governments and service agencies.

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The Government of Canada should immediately take leadership on the issue of violence against Indigenous women and girls in full and equal partnership with Indigenous women and their advocates, organizations and home communities. United Nations treaty bodies have repeatedly urged Canada to use its leadership capacity and spending power to ensure consistent and coherent implementation of treaty rights in Canada. Despite Canada's persistent objection that it cannot take responsibility for treaty implementation by the provinces and territories because of the constitutional division of powers, United Nations and regional human rights bodies reject this claim and continue to identify the federal government as the one with the capacity and the tools to exercise leadership for the country on matters of human rights implementation.

"The Government of Canada should develop a process and mechanism for consultation with the provinces, territories, and, where relevant, municipal governments, and with Indigenous women and Indigenous women's organizations, to identify a priority set of programs, services and strategies that will remedy and prevent violence against Indigenous women and girls. The identification of priorities and formulation of a plan should be grounded in National Inquiry recommendations and those of parties to the Inquiry, on Canada's human rights obligations. [...]

Indigenous women know best what is needed to end the violence against them. A key principle of a rights based approach is to place their voices at the core of decision-making. Therefore, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women must be leaders and decision-makers throughout the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of the National Action Plan.

The National Action Plan will need a pro-active and independent review mechanism to ensure that implementation of the Plan can be monitored and reviewed. This mechanism should be led by Indigenous women and must permit Indigenous women, their organizations and home communities to have equal decision-making powers in evaluation, assessing progress, and correcting deficiencies on a regular basis, as well as ensuring regular public reporting.

The National Action Plan must also include a rights claiming mechanism. Indigenous women must have a venue to bring forward systemic violations of rights -- especially the rights to security of the person and an adequate standard of living. A rights-claiming mechanism in the Plan will begin to address the broader problem in Canada that "economic, social and cultural rights remain generally non-justiciable in domestic courts" and as a result there is "limited availability of legal remedies for victims in the event of Covenant rights' violation." It will also permit identification of areas and situations where the Plan is not meeting goals and needs, and further actions are required.

The Government of Canada must immediately remove all aspects of sex discrimination from the Indian Act [...] The Government of Canada should acknowledge that the Indian Act status registration provisions perpetuate discrimination based on the ground of sex [...] The Government of Canada should apologize in Parliament to First Nations women and their descendants for treating them as lesser human beings, and for the violations of their human rights, including their rights to equality, security, dignity, and the equal enjoyment of culture and participation in their communities, which the long-standing discrimination against First Nations women and their descendants has caused. The Government of Canada should compensate First Nations women and their descendants who have been denied equal Indian status because of sex discrimination for their loss of statutory benefits, treaty payments, and for the injury to their dignity and rights caused by the discrimination.

As a key component of the National Action Plan, federal, provincial and territorial governments must develop a co-ordinated strategy to address and remedy the specific social and economic disadvantages of Indigenous women and girls, including poverty, inadequate housing, homelessness, lack of shelters and supports for Indigenous women who are fleeing violence, dealing with mental health problems, addiction, or exiting commercial sex, or trafficking, and ensure that adequate programs and social supports are available and accessible, taking into account the differing needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit women, and their particular geographical locations.

Federal, provincial and territorial governments must redesign child welfare/family services in all jurisdictions in order to support Indigenous women's ability to care for their children and protect them inside their families and communities; protect Indigenous girls from dislocation, sexual abuse and precipitation into prostitution, sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, disappearances and death; prohibit apprehensions at births; prohibit any engagement of child welfare/family services officials in sterilizations of Indigenous women or girls; redesign funding formulas so that they incentivize keeping Indigenous children with their mothers, families and communities; and redesign funding formulas so that they encourage and support Indigenous women to design and establish services that will meet their needs, and foster their equality and security, and those of their children.

"As a part of a National Action Plan to end violence against Indigenous women and girls, federal, provincial and territorial governments must work together to develop and implement protocols, standards, and mechanisms to ensure inter-jurisdictional and inter-agency coordination of law enforcement agencies, as well as information-sharing and cooperation within RCMP and with other police agencies and Indigenous governments and police agencies.

Federal, provincial and territorial governments, working together, should mandate a comprehensive national investigation into police violence against Indigenous women and girls in all police forces, noting all filed complaints, investigations, charges, discipline, and prosecutions. This investigation should be conducted by independent experts, working with Indigenous women, and include a comprehensive review of police acts, regulations and policies related to prevention, investigation and discipline for acts of sexism, racism, abuse, and sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls.

Federal, provincial and territorial governments should establish new independent and effective civilian and Indigenous oversight mechanisms (including Indigenous women) for overseeing police conduct and for investigating reported incidents of police misconduct, including sexual offences by the police, and with authority to hold officials accountable through administrative, disciplinary, or criminal measures, as necessary;

Federal, provincial and territorial governments must ensure that Indigenous women and their families have access to effective procedures for filing complaints against police, and have the necessary information and supports available to use such procedures, including legal representation; in particular, access to complaint procedures to challenge police conduct must be facilitated for Indigenous women and their families living in remote areas, including by raising awareness in their communities, and other appropriate means.

As a part of the National Action Plan, federal, provincial and territorial governments, working together, should undertake a fundamental re-evaluation of the policing of Indigenous women and girls, justice system decisions, and corrections policies and decision-making in partnership with Indigenous women and their advocates, to identify strategies that will disrupt and reverse the pattern of incarceration and over-classification of Indigenous women, and establish programs and services that will support their decarceration and reintegration into families [...] End mandatory minimum sentences and parole ineligibility periods, which have a disproportionate impact on Indigenous women, and do not permit relevant facts and circumstances to be taken into account in sentencing.

Create an office that functions as a liaison between affected families and law enforcement agencies to assist them to obtain information about cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls, and to make decisions about further steps that may be appropriate. This office must be easily accessible, independent of the police, and function as a replacement for the Family Liaison Units, to provide ongoing critical services, including legal support, to enable families of victims to pursue claims.