Impoverished Indigenous British Columbians don't count now, if they ever did
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 by David Eby
It's remarkable how little the lives and voices of impoverished Indigenous people appear to matter to British Columbia's government these days. Assuming that their lives and voices did count at some point.
As Assembly of First Nations National Chief Sean Atleo stood outside the Missing Women Inquiry speaking to the media, in his role as leader of Canada's national Indigenous organization, he was too gracious to mention that his request that the Commission be adjourned until the government could fix the inquiry was completely ignored.
Ignored like he is not the elected National Chief of a group of people towards whom the provincial government has a constitutional duty of consultation and honourable conduct.
But it's not just Indigenous people that are being ignored, it's also those who make recommendations on their behalf.
Ignored like the unprecedented ignoring of Wally Oppal, former B.C. Liberal Cabinet Minister, who recommended that Indigenous women be supported to participate in their own inquiry. That response must have been a surprise for Mr. Oppal, especially after finding out that his was the first ever recommendation for funding by a Commissioner that the province had completely ignored.
But also ignored like Commissioner William Davies' recommendations in the Frank Paul Inquiry. Paul, a homeless aboriginal man, froze to death in a back lane after being dropped there, semi-conscious, by a rookie VPD officer.
Key recommendations in the Frank Paul Inquiry included the establishment of civilian-run sobering centres, which would save lives, as well as police time and taxpayers money, by shifting responsibility for those arrested for being drunk and high in public out of jail and into facilities where people trained in responding to alcohol overdoses could ensure safety.
Another recommendation was a managed alcohol program where homeless chronic alcoholics are engaged in a way that eliminates their use of what is euphemistically called "non-beverage alcohol" like hand sanitizer, mouthwash or rice wine. Ontario has three of these programs, and they're hugely successful.
Where the Robert Dziekanski Inquiry led to the Province announcing, within minutes of the Commissioner's report being issued, the full implementation of every recommendation, the Frank Paul Inquiry has led to years of nothing following the March, 2009 issuing of the original report.
Today, the Province proudly announced a number of technical amendments to how charge approvals around criminal investigations of police are done to respond to the Frank Paul Inquiry report. Where are the sobering centres? Where are the managed alcohol programs?
Commissioner Davies was ignored, and not just ignored, but insulted by being asked to make recommendations that the Government clearly had no intention of implementing. Perhaps Commissioner Oppal is just being saved some time by the government.
Surely it's just a coincidence that aboriginal women in the DTES happen to be the poorest of the poor, happen to have been disproportionately represented in Pickton's victims, happen to be the same voices excluded from their own Inquiry? That their funding happens to be the one legal funding package refused by the Provincial government, after funding Basi and Virk for $6m in legal fees?
It's surely coincidence that the government voice ignored by the provincial government happens to be the elected leadership of Indigenous peoples in Canada?
A coincidence that Frank Paul, too, was an aboriginal man?
That the recommendations from his Public Inquiry are substantively ignored while every Dziekanski Public Inquiry recommendation is implemented without question?
So many coincidences. Coincidences that give the appearance that the lives and voices of Indigenous men and women mean just about next to nothing in this Province. Thank goodness we all know better.
As Assembly of First Nations National Chief Sean Atleo stood outside the Missing Women Inquiry speaking to the media, in his role as leader of Canada's national Indigenous organization, he was too gracious to mention that his request that the Commission be adjourned until the government could fix the inquiry was completely ignored.
Ignored like he is not the elected National Chief of a group of people towards whom the provincial government has a constitutional duty of consultation and honourable conduct.
But it's not just Indigenous people that are being ignored, it's also those who make recommendations on their behalf.
Ignored like the unprecedented ignoring of Wally Oppal, former B.C. Liberal Cabinet Minister, who recommended that Indigenous women be supported to participate in their own inquiry. That response must have been a surprise for Mr. Oppal, especially after finding out that his was the first ever recommendation for funding by a Commissioner that the province had completely ignored.
But also ignored like Commissioner William Davies' recommendations in the Frank Paul Inquiry. Paul, a homeless aboriginal man, froze to death in a back lane after being dropped there, semi-conscious, by a rookie VPD officer.
Key recommendations in the Frank Paul Inquiry included the establishment of civilian-run sobering centres, which would save lives, as well as police time and taxpayers money, by shifting responsibility for those arrested for being drunk and high in public out of jail and into facilities where people trained in responding to alcohol overdoses could ensure safety.Another recommendation was a managed alcohol program where homeless chronic alcoholics are engaged in a way that eliminates their use of what is euphemistically called "non-beverage alcohol" like hand sanitizer, mouthwash or rice wine. Ontario has three of these programs, and they're hugely successful.
Where the Robert Dziekanski Inquiry led to the Province announcing, within minutes of the Commissioner's report being issued, the full implementation of every recommendation, the Frank Paul Inquiry has led to years of nothing following the March, 2009 issuing of the original report.
Today, the Province proudly announced a number of technical amendments to how charge approvals around criminal investigations of police are done to respond to the Frank Paul Inquiry report. Where are the sobering centres? Where are the managed alcohol programs?
Commissioner Davies was ignored, and not just ignored, but insulted by being asked to make recommendations that the Government clearly had no intention of implementing. Perhaps Commissioner Oppal is just being saved some time by the government.
Surely it's just a coincidence that aboriginal women in the DTES happen to be the poorest of the poor, happen to have been disproportionately represented in Pickton's victims, happen to be the same voices excluded from their own Inquiry? That their funding happens to be the one legal funding package refused by the Provincial government, after funding Basi and Virk for $6m in legal fees?
It's surely coincidence that the government voice ignored by the provincial government happens to be the elected leadership of Indigenous peoples in Canada?
A coincidence that Frank Paul, too, was an aboriginal man?
That the recommendations from his Public Inquiry are substantively ignored while every Dziekanski Public Inquiry recommendation is implemented without question?
So many coincidences. Coincidences that give the appearance that the lives and voices of Indigenous men and women mean just about next to nothing in this Province. Thank goodness we all know better.
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First Nations has been the last concern of all levels of government, most evident to me in the implementation of Residential Schools and the plan to assimilate First Nations children to 'civilized' society. The removal of generations of children who have become disassociated from their families, communities and cultures, the abuses that occurred to them at these schools that are actively rippling through their own communities still, the self medication needed to drown out the pain and lack of self identity. What level of government is willing to take on proper, ethical support to those that are still suffering these effects? The Missing Women are at the dire outer edges of the ripple of Residential School.
The Settlement Agreement was negotiated by the Federal Government, their lawyers, the Merchant Law Group, the Consortium of lawyers involved and the lawyers representing each Church that administered the schools. On the former students side, Phil Fontaine and one lawyer: approximately 30 Chiefs were not allowed in the negotiations.
Again, those that were the most hurt, the victims, have no voice in the justice being 'handed down' to them.