Missing and murdered Indigenous women not on trial This week, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the most important case in a generation regarding the Canadian legal system’s response to murdered and missing Indigenous women. Thursday’s hearing was the culmination of a case that was set in motion on the morning of June 22, […]
Indigenous women vastly overrepresented among those sentenced to life What’s wrong with mandatory minimum sentences? Plenty. Especially when it comes to murder. High profile serial murderers come to mind when Canadians think of murder convictions: Bernardo, Olson, Pickton. Few turn their minds to the 18-year-old Indigenous teen who kills her abusive drug dealer. Such a […]
Judges need more flexibility in sentencing There is no justice for Indigenous women in the current Canadian justice system. Indigenous women are violently victimized at almost three times the rate of their non-Indigenous counterparts. Indigenous women are also more likely to commit criminal offences — but nine times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be […]
Bill C-75 reforms too little, too late to respond to domestic violence A woman is killed by her current or former partner every six days in Canada. Indigenous women are killed by their intimate partners at a rate eight times higher. In Peel (Toronto) alone, five women were killed in January 2018 — the […]
Originally published in the Winnipeg Free Press on June 8, 2017 Another week. Another investigation into allegations that a sexual assault victim has been treated like a criminal. No doubt this one too will result in solemn mea culpas and a pledge to do better. I can’t be the only one who is fed up with […]
