Article content continued

How do we navigate this deeply colonial and gendered story?

Who was Cindy Gladue? A mother, sister, daughter, and cousin, who is mourned by many. A person. One of thousands of Indigenous women who experience extreme sexual violence and systemic discrimination. One who died in violent circumstances and whose life was less important to the Canadian legal system than the manner of her death. The jury did not hear from a single witness who had known Gladue in her life outside the Yellowhead Inn.

What was Cindy Gladue doing there? We don’t know precisely, because she didn’t survive to tell us. Perhaps she was to be paid a small sum of money in return for sexual intercourse. Even so, Gladue — like all of us — had the right to withhold consent at any time, for any reason. There is no evidence that she consented to the violence that was necessary to cause her fatal wound.

What was whitewashed at trial?

Certainly not Cindy Gladue’s Indigeneity or her reasons for being in that motel room. She was utterly defined by racist and misogynistic stereotypes. Private aspects of her life and body were on full display, literally and metaphorically.

In legal terms, this case turns on the significance of any errors that were made at trial. Ultimately, the court is being invited to enforce the principle that Indigenous women who exchange sex for payment are entitled to the full range of protections that Canadian law promises to victims of sexual violence.

Beyond the court case, Canadian society must grapple with the circumstances of Cindy Gladue’s life and death. We must come to terms with systemic racism and sexism and address the intergenerational trauma that Canadian “justice” imposes on Indigenous people.

This is our duty, just as surely as the judges must perform theirs.

So, Canada, let’s not whitewash this.

Emma Cunliffe is an associate professor in the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia and a contributor with EvidenceNetwork.ca based at the University of Winnipeg.