Dec. 14, 2011 - Issue #843: New Year’s Eve Style
Vuepoint
There is no pause button
Politics can often be caught up in games. The complexity and forethought of chess is used to describe the maneuverings of oppositional parties to gain the advantage. Caught up in wordplay and whodunnits, the high stakes of political decision making can quickly devolve into a cat-and-mouse game of press releases and question period dodges and feints. But there should be some instances that clear the board, hit reset on the game and focus the players on the real questions.
This past week, Amnesty International and the United Nations hit the reset button. Amnesty International called out the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Status of Women for failing to deliver on expectations into its inquiry on threats to Aboriginal women across the country. The committee had delivered an interim report earlier this year which had called for a comprehensive response to address violence against Aboriginal women. It indicated a need for a coordinated effort to address foster care, the shortage of emergency shelters and widespread impoverishment. Instead, the final report recommends no concrete steps to remove these barriers faced by Aboriginal women, and only states that government should work "within existing service models."
The next day, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women announced it would follow up on calls from Aboriginal and feminist advocacy groups to investigate violations of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. An international agency—in which Canada should be a leading member in determining the standards of human rights and proper living conditions—is investigating this country's inability to provide safe living conditions for women.
The statistics should make the situation clear enough. Aboriginal women are five times more likely to die of violence than non-Aboriginal women. The Native Women's Association of Canada has documented the disappearance of over 600 Aboriginal women and girls in 20 years. And those are just the ones that have been brought to light. Numbers and statistics cannot represent the women who have left behind families and lives and unrealized opportunities. For these women there is no pressing pause, no reset on the game. Until the Canadian government realizes it has a responsibility to act, the conditions of these women's lives will continue to pull them away from a potential every human being deserves to realize. Perhaps with the intervention of an international monitor the Canadian government will finally realize the stakes of the game they're playing.
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