The Fourth of Thirteen Moon Teachings ...
All too often people want to debate with me about the existence and reality of cultural genocide in Canada. For the most part I do not engage in these opportunities largely because I do not have time to fully address my position with every single person.
That said, regardless of its removal from Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, through my recent reading of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls' Legal Analysis of Genocide it is clear to me that cultural genocide in Canada continues in the form of practices, policies, and for that matter acts of omission.
We need to keep in mind that a crime can exist regardless of a legal system’s denial, silencing, and carefully constructed voids in law. As an example, INAC’s unknown and unstated paternity policy assumption was not written down and thus not formalized as a policy, but I challenged it anyway because INAC did have a policy at the level of practice of discriminating against these children.
Do you want to learn more? If so, you can read my seven key learnings on the MMIWG Legal Analysis of Genocide at this link:
https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/seven-key-learnings-from-the-mmiwg-legal-analysis-on-genocide
All too often people want to debate with me about the existence and reality of cultural genocide in Canada. For the most part I do not engage in these opportunities largely because I do not have time to fully address my position with every single person.
That said, regardless of its removal from Article 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, through my recent reading of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls' Legal Analysis of Genocide it is clear to me that cultural genocide in Canada continues in the form of practices, policies, and for that matter acts of omission.
We need to keep in mind that a crime can exist regardless of a legal system’s denial, silencing, and carefully constructed voids in law. As an example, INAC’s unknown and unstated paternity policy assumption was not written down and thus not formalized as a policy, but I challenged it anyway because INAC did have a policy at the level of practice of discriminating against these children.
Do you want to learn more? If so, you can read my seven key learnings on the MMIWG Legal Analysis of Genocide at this link:
https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/seven-key-learnings-from-the-mmiwg-legal-analysis-on-genocide
© Lynn Gehl, Ph.D. is an Algonquin Anishinaabe-kwe from the Ottawa River Valley. In 2017 she won an Ontario Court of Appeal case on sex discrimination in The Indian Act, and is an outspoken critic of Canada's land claims process. Recently she published Claiming Anishinaabe: Decolonizing the Human Spirit. You can reach her through, and see more of her work, at www.lynngehl.com.
