QUESTION PERIOD — Crown-Indigenous Relations
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls--National Action Plan
June 1, 2021
Honourable senators, my question is also for the government leader in the Senate.
The devastating discovery of a mass grave containing 215 children at the site of a former Indian residential school in Kamloops has filled our hearts with sadness for these small children and their families. Far too many Indigenous families in Canada have lost cherished loved ones without ever knowing what happened to them. One family is too many.
Two years ago, June 3, 2019, the federal government received the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Over these past two years, this government has failed to bring forward a national action plan in response to this report, which is what the Prime Minister had promised on the day the final report was released in 2019.
Leader, when will your government finally bring forward its action plan?
Thank you for your question. In response to the public inquiry, the government is working and continues to work — not only with provincial and territorial governments, but with Indigenous leaders, survivors and families — to develop this national action plan in order to set a clear road map to ensure that Indigenous women, girls, two-spirited and gender-diverse people are safe.
With its partners, including over 100 Indigenous women, the government is committed to ensuring that it has indicators and measurements that will allow this plan to be accountable for the results and allow this to evolve over time. I’ve been advised that the government is making good progress on the development of the federal component, and it is but one component of the federal action plan.
It has been two years, leader, so we look forward to the action plan very soon.
The final report brought forward two years ago also noted that while Indigenous women represented only 4% of Canada’s population in 2016, they comprised nearly 50% of victims of human trafficking. The report looked into problems of cooperation across different policing jurisdictions as well as a lack of reliable data about human trafficking networks and the recruitment methods in areas targeted by traffickers.
Leader, just before the 2019 federal election your government reinstated the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, which actually the Trudeau government had cancelled in 2016. How much of the $75 million under this plan has been allocated to directly help protect Indigenous women and girls against human trafficking?
Human trafficking is an abominable and unacceptable practice with tragic consequences. I do not have the figures at hand, honourable colleague. I will make inquiries and report back.
