Resultantly, we know the Canadian state is familiar with the issues relating to violence against aboriginal women, as it is the patriarchal state that initiates, maintains, and perpetuates the objectification, stratification, normalization, racialization, invisibilization, sexualization, marginalization, criminalization, institutionalization, hospitalization, and colonization that in the end may result in the cremation of our women in this country because they are so badly beaten by society.
To us, it is overtly exemplified in the Eurocentric feeling of land entitlement as demonstrated by the public and private spheres of economic and political entities. I am speaking to the rape of our Mother Earth.
Our main concerns at this point are the issues of paternalistic racism inherent in the socio-political institutions and legislation, the lack of education and resources for urban and rural aboriginal women, and gaps in the justice system, together with jurisdictional barriers.
So for our action items, we want action because women make up 50% of the Canadian population. We want the “Ministry of Women and Equality” reinstated in British Columbia and in place in all provinces across Canada. For the record, there is no longer any ministry that has “women” in its name.
We want action. We want women named on every agenda and their voices included in all the planning and decision-making processes of Canada and its provinces.
We want action. We are asking for socio-political attitudinal change.
We want action. We want the focus of women's experience of violence placed on the perpetrator, not the women. Too often women are blamed and pathologized for the violence they experience.
We want action. We want structural change in governments, law enforcement, and other institutions that maintain the status quo of gender inequality.
We want action. Battered Women's Support Services calls for anti-violence services rooted in historical understandings of colonial violence and informed by aboriginal women.
We want action. We support the Native Women's Association of Canada's call for a reduction of violence; a reduction of poverty; a reduction of homelessness and access to housing; improved access to justice; the 2006 Highway of Tears Symposium's call for victim prevention; community development and support; emergency planning and response; and victim, family, and counselling support.
I'm almost done.
Status of Women Canada and the House of Commons have been relatively silent, notwithstanding this meeting. Violence against women has to be a national priority in ending violence on every level of society, with all institutions mobilizing efforts that are on the ground right now. We have been doing this support without support.
Finally, I will repeat the words of Chief Robert Pasco from Merritt, British Columbia. He says, “Whatever the words of your final report and recommendations may be, they will mean little if they are not met with the political will, the knowledge and the ability to achieve their intent”.
Furthermore, in the section on “How to Begin”, in the highlights taken from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, it is said: Change of this magnitude cannot be achieved by piecemeal reform of existing programs and services--however helpful any one of these reforms might be. It will take an act of national intention--a major, symbolic statement of intent, accompanied by the laws necessary to turn intention into action.