Photo by Sandra Ataman/Radio-Canada.
Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow has signed a message of support for Anishnabe and Cree women and girls directly affected by sexual violence by the Sûreté du Québec.
A Montreal Police investigation into 37 cases of abuse by Sûreté du Québec police officers in Val d’Or against 21 Indigenous women and 7 Indigenous men resulted in just two officers being charged in another community. The Toronto Star reports, “Val d’Or was the setting for a devastating [Radio Canada] news report aired one year ago in which a number of native women told of their experiences of sexual and physical abuse as well as threats and harassment allegedly dealt to them by officers. But the two former police officers who were charged allegedly committed their offences in Shefferville, a town about 1,000 km from Val d’Or, near the Labrador border.”
The Indigenous women spoke of sexual violence and intimidation by police, as well as “starlight tours” in which police officers drove them out of town and forced them to walk back home.
Last year, CBC reporter Neil MacDonald wrote, “According to several native women there who spoke to Radio-Canada, SQ officers have, for years, been assaulting them, or punishing them for being intoxicated by driving them out of town and stranding them in the cold. Sometimes, these women say, the officers would throw in a demand for oral sex. Refusing, they said, carried a painful price. As it turns out, authorities had been aware of such allegations for months. But, as usual, the provincial police force was being allowed to quietly investigate itself, even though it has a nearly perfect record of declining to lay charges against its own members.”
The petition signed by Barlow states, “We believe you. We heard your stories when you first spoke and we were in awe of your strength and bravery for coming forward. We waited with you in our homes across the continent for the verdict to come down, for some measure of safety and security to be restored in your lives, for those men to be fired, disgraced, and removed from their positions of authority for what they had done. We stand against a policing and legal regime where Quebec policing agencies ‘investigate’ and systematically exonerate one another for violence perpetrated against you.”
Twelve of the women have now released a letter stating, “We feel betrayed, humiliated and our heart is broken in pieces. It is as if in this country’s justice system, we were not important, we were left behind and we have not been heard.”
Viviane Michel, the president of Quebec Native Women Inc., says, “We feel anger. We feel injustice. The message we’re left with is that justice simply doesn’t apply to us.”
Edith Cloutier, the executive director of Val d’Or’s Native Friendship Centre, says, “They feel betrayed and humiliated. They have a lot of anger and disappointment. …We’re basically in a context where we feel that things haven’t progressed since one year ago. …For a year now we’ve been asking for an independent public inquiry. More than ever, it’s a proven fact that the route of a criminal investigation will not bring them justice, and we have to find a way to allow them to be heard.”
Perry Bellegarde, the Assembly of First Nations national chief, says, “This is another reminder that the justice system is failing First Nations and it reinforces our call for a First Nations justice system – right from policing, to courts, to the recognition of indigenous law and restorative justice.”
And Ghislain Picard, the Assembly of First Nations Quebec and Labrador regional chief, says, “Had this been about non-indigenous women we probably would have an independent inquiry as we speak.”
The petition endorsed by Barlow was also signed by Families of Sisters in Spirit, Idle No More, Bridget Tolley, Erica Violet Lee, Sylvia McAdam, Eriel Deranger, Tori Cress, Marylynn Poucachiche, Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Harsha Walia, Naomi Klein, Judy Rebick, and numerous other people.
To listen to an October 2015 CBC Radio The Current interview on this issue, please click here.
To add your name to the petition, click here.
