Following the recent death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to renewed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women while speaking at Yukon College in Whitehorse on Thursday. In his response, the prime minister urged Canadians away from understanding missing and murdered aboriginal women as a “sociological phenomenon” and instead suggested Canadians “view it as a crime.”

In doing so, the prime minister neglects the reality that crime is an inherently sociological phenomenon and the heightened threat of violence faced by aboriginal women more than warrants a sociologically informed response. Unfortunately, the prime minister seems intent to stick to a reactionary approach of crime resolution and to live by his words back in spring of 2013: “this is not a time to commit sociology.”

If the prime minister would take the time to consult even the most rudimentary criminology textbook, he would find that crime is a social phenomenon shaped by powerful historical and social forces. Inequality among different populations in society is one of these forces. In Canada, it is a well-established fact that aboriginal peoples, who face much more poverty and unemployment than the national average, are more likely to be victims of violent crimes than other Canadians, a situation that has long been documented by Statistics Canada.

Indigenous women, in particular, disproportionately experience violent victimization. According to the most recent, 2009, General Social Survey, aboriginal women are three times more likely to experience violent victimization than non-aboriginal women in Canada. Or, more recently, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, found that aboriginal women in Canada are “eight times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous women.”

Yet, the prime minister downplayed the undeniable and well-documented reality that social inequality and violent victimization are closely linked in his suggestion that the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women is simply about “crime.”

He based his claim on the notion that many of the murders have been solved through police investigations. He says, “We brought in laws across this country that I think are having more effect, in terms of crimes of violence against not just aboriginal women, but women and persons more generally.”

Yet, the prime minister’s statement neglects previous inquiries, such as the inquiry following targeted murders in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, which have highlighted substantial police failures. He also disregards the serious lack of confidence aboriginal persons have expressed towards the effectiveness of government responses. Recognizing the limitations and differences in perception of state power would require the prime minister to overcome his aversion to a sociological lens. Or, at the very least, consider that aboriginal women do not want their murders to be solved, they want to live.

By suggesting violence against aboriginal women is merely an ordinary “crime,” Harper perpetuates precisely the type of violence Dr. Sarah Hunt was pointing to in her recent statement: “Treating our deaths as unremarkable is a form of violence that needs to stop along with the murders themselves.” Violence against aboriginal women is a crime but a crime rooted in a particular social context, a context the prime minister suggests Canadians should disregard. He does so at the expense of the lives and safety of aboriginal women.

Julie Kaye, assistant professor of sociology and director of community engaged research at The King’s University. julie.kaye@kingsu.ca @mysoci

Daniel Béland, Canada Research Chair in public policy, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. daniel.beland@usask.ca @danielbeland

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