Put the Blame for Missing & Murdered Inidgenous Women Where It Belongs

Writing on Rabble.ca, Sarah Hunt has drawn the most predictable (and racist) conclusion regarding murdered and missing indigenous women: blame whitey.

"Over the past few weeks, we have seen a rise in media coverage of violence against Indigenous girls and women following the murder of 15 year old Tina Fontaine. Discussion reached its peak last week during the annual meeting of premiers, which was seen as a venue to push for action to address the root causes of this ongoing atrocity. Yet as the meeting fades out of memory and Tina becomes the latest in the seemingly endless string of murdered young women, I fear that this flurry of dialogue and public outrage has yet again failed to bring about real change.

I fear that no amount of increased awareness and political organizing will actually end the violence if we continue along this current trajectory because we are still not shining a spotlight on the real causes of violence. No, I'm not talking about the drug use and street involvement that some journalists have drawn attention to in their portrayal of Tina Fontaine's final days. I'm also not talking about widespread poverty on reserve, or even the myriad factors that systematically marginalize Indigenous girls and women.

What this latest round of media coverage has failed to address is simply this: white male violence.

Indeed, the erasure of that violence as a topic of social and political concern is arguably a form of violence itself, as it serves to remove white men from the equation. White men get away with being unmarked by the violence they perpetrate, not at fault for carrying out a form of violation that is as old as colonialism itself. They also disassociate themselves from the institutions and systems that serve to normalize violence against Indigenous people -- systems that were designed and are largely upheld by (you guessed it) white male leaders.

For example, we have heard very little about the fact that the multiple murder trial of a 24 year old white man, Corey Legebokoff, is wrapping up this week in Prince George -- an area associated with the Highway of Tears. Indeed, no one has been connecting the dots between Legebokoff's multiple killings and the widespread violence against Indigenous girls and women in that area."

Apparently, Hunt resents the tragic facts of Tina Fontaine's last days being recounted because it impedes her agenda of just blaming the white devil. So instead she moves on to drawing some rather bold conclusions from the Corey Legebokoff trial: the white man is to blame after all.

The especially interesting thing about this is that Legebokoff is on trial for murdering four women. Of those four women, two were white and two were aboriginal. (Legebokoff is literally an equal-opportunity murderer, so far as race is concerned.) And so on the basis of half of Legebokoff's victims, Hunt casts the finger of blame at white people (especially white men) for the murders of indigenous women.

In social science, this is called a sampling error. It occurs when a subset of a statistical sample is used to draw conclusions about the sample as a whole.

So far, Hunt has found two murdered indigenous women killed by a white male. And based on this sample (of two) she draws her conclusions about the entire sample.

Well, the RCMP did not draw its conclusions based on a subset as small as two. They drew it based on the entirety of a sample of 1,181. Based on that sample of cases, this is what they concluded:

-The solve rate for murdered or missing indigenous women is practically identical tothe solve rate for non-indigenous women.
-Indigenous women were most likely to be murdered not by a stranger such as Corey Legebokoff, but by someone known to them. Either an acquaintance (30%), their spouse (29%) or other family member (24%). More than 90% of murdered indigenous women knew their killer in some way.
-The bulk of the killers of these women were men with criminal records, attained via previous violence against the women they eventually killed.

So the overwhelming majority of the murderers of indigenous women were indigenous men already known to the victim. Somehow Hunt has managed to look at this and conclude that "white male violence" is the underlying root cause.

The only way that Hunt could have even possibly reached these conclusions is to wilfully disregard the results of the exhaustive RCMP study and simply create her own out of whole cloth, with nothing more than a sampling error to support them. Why would motivate an academic to do such a thing?

It turns out that the answer is in her bio:

"Sarah Hunt (PhD) is a writer, educator and activist currently based in Lkwungen Territories (Victoria, BC) and is of Kwagiulth (Kwakwaka’wakw), Ukrainian and English ancestry. She has more than 15 years’ experience doing community-based work on issues of justice, education and cultural revitalization in rural and urban Indigenous communities across B.C. Most recently, Sarah’s research investigated the relationship between law and violence in ongoing neocolonial relations in BC, asking how violence gains visibility through Indigenous and Canadian socio-legal discourse and action."

It's only natural Hunt would be wilfully blind to the grim realities reflected in the RCMP report. Simply put: she, and the kinds of policies she has advocated, has a direct hand in this matter becoming as out-of-control as they have gotten. While indigenous women have been murdered by the violent thugs sent loose by a justice system instructed to go easy on them because they're aboriginal, she and her ideological cohorts have been telling us that if you can just hug a thug hard enough, everything will be OK.

With 1,181 murdered and missing indigenous women to show us how wrong Sarah Hunt and her cohorts are, I say "enough. It's over. You're done."

It only reaffirms my belief that there should be a Parliamentary Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, but not the one that Sarah Hunt and her ilk imagine. They imagine an inquiry as a soapbox from which they can disregard the facts, invent their own, and push their failed agenda. The result will be more missing and murdered indigenous women.

Canada needs a very different inquiry: more of a trial, with Sarah Hunt and her cohorts in the docket, answering for the policies they pushed. One in which they will not be able to evade the blame for softening Canada's criminal justice system so that it no longer even tried to protect the women who eventually wound up murdered at the hands of those who had already victimized them. A trial that will discredit them so thoroughly that, PhD or not, the public will recognize their unworthiness and we will never hear from them again. They will be relegated to the irrelevance they have so richly earned.

Then the rest of us will go on with the business of protecting indigenous women by an act so simple, obvious and intuitive as keeping their assailants in jail so that they cannot harm their victims again.

Bob Paulson to Charlie Angus: "Go Cut Yourself a Switch, Boy"

Let it never be said that the far-left gives up easily.

In the wake of the RCMP's decision to end the investigation of former PMO Chief of Staff Nigel Wright without pressing charges, various individuals refused -- simply refused -- to accept that. From iPolitics columnist Michael Harris to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, people began demanding to know why Wright wasn't charged.

Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus -- who is also the NDP's ethics critic, despite his own run-in with Elections Act violations -- decided to take that a step farther. He decided to write the RCMP. He might not be so happy he did. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson decided to write back.

Here's an especially-tasty excerpt from Paulson's letter:

"While I'm at it, permit me to point out that in your letter you alternately refer to '...the decision to drop the charges against Mr Wright', and 'the decision to end the investigation into the actions of Mr Wright...' While I'm sure your selection of words was largely innocent you must understand that Mr Wright was never charged with any offense and so the RCMP did not decide to drop charges. The RCMP decided not to bring charges after we thoroughly and completely investigated the matter. Illustrative perhaps of the complexity of these situations and the need for precision around these sensitive matters."

Ouch. I imagine that Mr Angus is learning that perhaps sometimes it's better to let the facts stand in the way.

But here's the thing: there is no reason whatsoever to treat Mr Angus' letter for anything other than precisely what it is: an attempt to put political pressure on the RCMP. If it were an NDP MP, staffer, or operative under investigation, and a Conservative MP doing the same thing, the NDP would be freaking the fuck out. They would be insisting that this MP was applying political pressure in order to obtain a result from which he could gain political advantage.

And they wouldn't be wrong. Except that isn't what's going on. It's an NDP MP -- an ethics critic, no less -- applying such political pressure. It's no less acceptable.

And it's no more ethical. To attempt to place political pressure on the national police force in a highly politicized matter is an act of extremely questionable ethics, to say the least. Of course no one should expect Mr Angus to do the right thing and resign his portfolio -- he didn't do so the last time his adherence to the rules -- and election law -- were found to be sorely wanting.

The Unconscionable Nuttiness of Michael Harris

iPolitics columnist Michael Harris is bitter. Very bitter. And because the RCMP have elected not to take any prisoners in l'affaire Nigel Wright, neither will he, apparently.

This week, the RCMP cleared Wright of any criminal wrongdoing. It had been alleged that Wright had committed "frauds upon the government" by giving now-suspended Senator Mike Duffy $90,000 to repay expenses that have been alleged to have been improperly claimed. A decision by the RCMP on whether or not Duffy has committed any crime is said to be forthcoming. It sounds like charges might be laid.

About the RCMP's decision, Harris is apparently furious. Furious enough that he and his left-wing cohorts haven't gotten their way that he's taken it upon himself to impugn the RCMP's independence.

"The other night on television, Stephen Harper’s former communications manager, Geoff Norquay, said that since the RCMP has assured Nigel Wright he will not be charged, nobody cares about the whole stinking mess any longer.

Well, I do. As the saying goes, justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.

In order for that to happen in the case of Nigel Wright, we deserve a full explanation of how this decision was made — and who ultimately made it."

Apparently for Harris -- who openly chafes at any suggestion that he holds a cavalier attitude toward the law -- justice being done and being seen to be done precludes the RCMP declining to charge someone who hasn't actually broken the law. An impressive leap of logic, that.

And now that the RCMP have declined to press charges against Wright apparently everyone within the RCMP must suddenly account for where they stand, and what role they had -- if any -- in the decision to not charge Wright with fraud.

Corporal Greg Horton? Commissioner Bob Paulson? Only one is known (Horton) to have played any role whatsoever in the investigation, but apparently both must answer to Michael Harris, apparently.

But here's the thing: the RCMP's decision not to charge Wright is far from surprising, and not for the reasons that Harris insinuates.

To reach this conclusion, it's worthwhile to take measure of just what Harris is alleging makes Wright's cheque to Duffy criminal:

"Even though the RCMP investigation into Nigel Wright has been dropped, what about the Parliament of Canada Act? Under Section 16 of that statute, it is an indictable offence to give a senator compensation for services rendered with respect to 'any claim, controversy, arrest, or other matter before the Senate'."

Harris' reading of the Parliament of Canada act reads with all the expertise of someone whose doctorate of laws is honourary. It seems that Wright's and Duffy's financial arrangement lacks a key component: any services rendered.

Awkward, that.

But let's take a look at what some legal experts had to say about l'affaire Wright. As it just so happens, Harris loves experts. He could listen to and defer to them all day. Or so he says.

But what did the experts say?

Well, Canada's top expert on fraud law, David Debenham, had this to say:

"'Some of us are not convinced that [Mr Wright] did break the law, actually,' said David Debenham, a partner at the Ottawa-based law firm of McMillan. Even if all the details of the document were proven true, Mr Debenham believes they offer thin proof of any wrongdoing.

'[Mr Wright appears to be] basically trying to help Mr. Duffy to do the right thing. There doesn’t seem to be a personal motive. He’s not trying to persuade Mr Duffy to break the law, he’s offering the money so Mr Duffy can comply with the law.'
Further, Mr. Debenham said he remains perplexed as to whether the ITO is even offering evidence that condemns Mr Wright’s actions. 'What, exactly, is the corruption element here? There doesn’t seem to be any influence peddling,' he said."

For the record, Mr Debenham doesn't have an honourary doctorate of laws. He just has 25 years of experience in the field as an actual lawyer (not merely as an activist). Oh, and he also co-chairs the Supreme Court Practice Group. No biggie. Certainly no reason why Harris, with his honourary doctorate in law, would want to defer to an expert.

There's two reasons why Mr Harris would discard Mr Debenham's actual expertise in favour of his own honourary (read: not actual) expertise. One reason is that he is simply unaware of it -- that in writing this column he simply failed to do his research. It wouldn't be the first time. The second is that it wasn't sufficiently political enough for Mr Harris, and so he discarded it.

Even while he tries to ascribe it to others, this is Harris' modus operandi. He politicizes everything. Now he's out to politicize the RCMP.

This is the basest form of political iconoclasm: nothing that disputes Harris' position can be acknowledged, and any institution that declines to act as his personal political enforcers must apparently be razed to the ground. Never mind that the facts do not, and never have, justified charging Wright with fraud. That doesn't matter. Harris is determined to see conservative scalps taken, and any institution that doesn't gleefully go along with it must be horribly corrupted.

But sadly Harris has played a mean trick on himself that he doesn't seem to have comprehended: in declaring his non-confidence in the RCMP simply because he didn't get his way, Harris has precluded confidence in the RCMP period. Had the RCMP charged Wright -- in clear contradiction of the requisite legal principles -- Harris could have feigned confidence in the RCMP, but it could not have been legitimate. His confidence -- or lack thereof -- in the RCMP is entirely flippant, the hallmark of a cavalier attitude toward the law. And now everyone knows it.