OUR BREAKING POINT

OUR BREAKING POINT:
Canada’s Violation of Rights
in Life and Death
In recent years, awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women and the
disproportionate violence Indigenous women face in Canada has grown. What Indigenous
women have been saying for over two centuries is finally being widely articulated.
However, what is far less widely understood is that the Canadian criminal justice system
was founded on the premise of dispossessing and erasing Indigenous women. It continues
to function from this discriminatory basis.
European systems of justice were established in the colonies of the Americas – including
what is now Canada —on the myth of “discovering” the land that was declared terra nullius,
or “empty of people.” The presence of Indigenous women, in particular, posed a significant
problem for the colonial appropriation of Indigenous lands, which in many cases were
organized along the bloodline of women. To settle the land, colonial systems of criminal
justice emptied Indigenous women of their human status through dual processes of violent
invasion and legal subjugation, such as the provisions within the Indian Act.
Today, Indigenous women continue to pose a problem for the Canadian government as they
struggle to protect their lands, waters, and revitalize their communities, languages, and
traditions.
They continue to resist ongoing violence perpetuated against them in appalling and
disproportionate numbers and expose justice systems that not only fail to protect, but
perpetuate harm.
In this context, the treatment of the criminal justice system towards Cindy Gladue is not an
aberration, but the system continuing to function the way it was designed to
function, the same way it functioned in other well documented cases, such as
Helen Betty Osborne, Pamela George, and so many others over the years. The
acceleration of recent murders should terrify all of us.
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