Speaking Notes
Premier Tom Marshall
All-Party Resolution: “Call for a National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls in Canada”
House of Assembly, March 2014
Check against delivery
Let me begin by reading into the record the all-party resolution that we are bringing forward today.
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WHEREAS Aboriginal women experience a rate of violence 3.5 times higher than non-Aboriginal women;
WHEREAS Canadian Aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than all other Canadian women in the same age group to die as a result of violence;
WHEREAS the Native Women’s Association of Canada estimates that there are approximately 800 cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada;
WHEREAS the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is on record as supporting the Native Women’s Association of Canada in calling for a national inquiry on missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in July of 2013;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that all parties of this honourable House call upon the Government of Canada to do its part to address the very serious issue of violence against Aboriginal girls and women by launching a national inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada.
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Healthy debate is at the heart of our democracy, and much can be accomplished by exploring all sides of an issue. But there are also times when it is proper to put aside our differences and stand united to achieve a goal about which we all agree. This is one of those moments.
Loretta Saunders was a young Aboriginal woman from Newfoundland and Labrador who was deeply troubled by the issue of violence against Aboriginal women in our country – violence that so often leads to death or disappearance. She understood the grief. She understood the unbearable vacuum that so many families endure when they do not know where their loved ones are or what has happened to them. She understood it because, as a young Inuk woman, she felt it. She took ownership of it, and she set out to change it.
She enrolled at St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia and commenced work on a thesis about missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Her thesis advisor has written poignantly about the insight she brought to this issue and her determination to shine a spotlight on these tragedies and change things.
She was just 26 years old, just starting out, expecting to have a whole lifetime in which to bring about change – but then, she herself disappeared.
In a database of statistics somewhere in Ottawa, the number of Aboriginal women murdered in Canada increased by one. Loretta has become a statistic.
But Loretta’s family, her community, and all of us are absolutely determined that “just another statistic” is not what Loretta Saunders will be. This time, it will be different. This time, we act.
Loretta’s sister, Delilah Terriak, announced on Facebook that she intended to help organize a nationwide vigil for March 27.
She wrote: “While we found my sister, she and I know of too many stories of women who will not be laid to rest. This needs to change now. I plan on holding a country wide vigil and would love to have any help organizing actual gatherings in your community. This is for all women, not just you, me or Loretta.”
In a couple of minutes, I am going to ask that we all rise and pay tribute to Loretta with a moment of silence. And then I am going to ask that all of us put silence aside and raise our voices to make a change.
Indigenous rights groups, the United Nations, the premiers of all 13 provinces and territories and both opposition parties in Ottawa have called on the federal government to launch a national inquiry on missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
Such an inquiry will be one of the most painful in Canadian history. It will reveal deep and bleeding wounds in our society. All sorts of things will be said that it will be painful to hear. There will be anger and outrage, harsh accusations and scathing indictments. The process will unleash a tempest of fury like none we have seen in our history. Many political advisors and public relations professionals would probably advise that this is absolutely, unequivocally, NOT the thing to do.
But it is the right thing to do. Just as South Africa needed Nelson Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose the deep wounds in that society in order for the necessary reforms and the healing to begin, so too, we need such a process to expose the wounds in our society, to change things and to start the process of healing.
We are a long way from healing, because the violence continues to be done. The wounds continue to be inflicted. Aboriginal women continue to suffer from violence, continue to disappear, continue to be murdered, continue to live in fear that it will happen to them or their daughters or their neighbours.
All of us are culpable if we continue to ignore it.
I implore the federal government to take a leap of faith, as truly this will require. I implore them to ignore those who are saying No, and to make this inquiry happen. Find a way. Do it now. Let this be Loretta’s legacy – the legacy of the thesis she never got to finish.
I am sure she would say that, far more important than the thesis she hoped to write was the change she hoped to inspire. Although her voice has fallen silent, we can breathe life into her words and aspirations by taking up the torch and bringing about the change she hoped to inspire.
So let us rise to honour her now with a moment of silence, and then let us resolve to be silent no more.