01) REPORTS HIGHLIGHT OPPRESSION OF INUIT, INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN QUEBEC

By Johan Boyden

            In April 2015, Raymonde Saint-Germain was visiting detention cells in northern Quebec and found seven Inuit women locked up in a tiny cell originally intended for one or two people. She discovered none of the women had slept all night: there was not enough room for them to lie on the floor.  In some of detention centers, she found suicidal detainees, held with those who were intoxicated.

            Billions of dollars flow out of Quebec’s north through natural resource exports like mining, but social conditions faced by indigenous communities are comparable to the Third World. This contradiction was in the media spotlight in February with the release of a report by Quebec’s Protecteur du Citoyen or Ombudsperson in Nunavik.

            As Indigenous activists and allies across the country celebrate the promised inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, this reality of genocide will continue to come forward.

            Located north of the 55th parallel, bordered by Labrador in the east and Hudson’s Bay to the west, Nunavik is larger than California. The region includes communities which were subject to the forced High Arctic Relocation during the 1950s to assert Canada’s sovereignty. It is the homeland of the Inuit peoples who live in what is now Quebec.

            Saint-Germain’s report describes a Nunavik judicial system which does not respect the fundamental rights of the accused – particularly their right to dignity. Cells are dirty and overcrowded with limited access to water, clean laundry, janitorial services and even fresh air. Seven to twenty-five detainees are often held in cells intended for two. In Puvirnituq police station, the stench can be smelt when you walk in, with traces of blood and excrement on the walls.

            Saint-Germain said it reminded her of jails she had visited in Africa. The Quebec government has known about this probably for at least ten years, she said, yet appears to refuse to do anything. (Two years ago a similar report on Nunavut detention centers on Baffin Island suggested they were also likely non-compliant with the Charter of Rights.)

            The justice system shuttles Inuit from Nunavik detention centers down to Montreal for court, then back to the community – or to jail. According to the newspaper Le Devoir, Inuit represent 7.6 per cent of the First Nation population in Quebec, but 43 per cent of incarcerated indigenous people. And the number is rising. Total Inuit in Quebec jails increased by 64 percent in the last five years.

            Quebec is not alone. Canada’s violent crime rates are falling, yet prison populations are at an all-time high as jails become what some call “the new residential schools.” Maclean’s magazine says that in the Prairies, the overwhelming majority of people in the criminal justice system are First Nations. In jail, indigenous people spend more time in segregation and isolation than other prisoners.

            Another crisis is the incarceration of indigenous women. Overall, while indigenous people represent less than 4 per cent of the Canadian population, 36 per cent of female inmates are indigenous – up 109 per cent in recent years.

            These numbers are just part of the context of the gendered colonial legacy of oppression against indigenous peoples which the events at Val-d’Or have again exposed.

            Last fall, a group of indigenous women told Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête that provincial police officers in Val-d'Or routinely picked up women who appeared to be intoxicated, drove them out of town and left them to walk home in the cold. Some allege they were physically and sexually assaulted.

            Quebec First Nations leaders have rallied behind the women who have come forward, and support demonstrations were held in Val-d’Or as well as Montreal. Indigenous activists have condemned the lack of support received by Aboriginal people in the region, which is in the north-east of Quebec.

            An open letter to the Premier signed by the Quebec Native Women’s Federation, as well as twelve other groups including the CSN labour union central, calls the investigation now taking place into the allegations at Val-d’Or by the Montreal Police “fundamentally flawed”. Citing strong skepticism towards “police investigating police” inquires, the group is calling for an independent investigation.

            The Quebec Federation of Women (FFQ) has also supported the women’s demands, calling them “whistleblowers” for a more systemic problem. Their statement echoed the message at the annual march for Missing and Murdered Aboriginal women in Montreal last month.

            As the inquiry comes into shape, it will no doubt be an immensely painful yet important development, worthy of close attention by all democratic-minded Canadians, indigenous and non-indigenous, women and men alike.

(The above article is from the March 1-15, 2016, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)