Saskatoon city council unanimously voted to explore implementing the calls for justice from the final report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
“We Indigenous women in front of you now, who have strong voices, will not let our sisters be forgotten,” said Karen Pelletier, an Indigenous RCMP officer.
She made an emotional statement to the council to underscore the importance of the motion.
“Indigenous women are a force to be reckoned with,” she said.
“We have survived through colonization, residential schools and day schools — which myself attended — the ’60s scoop, forced relocation to towns and cities and daily violence due to the fact of being First Nation, Metis, Inuit and female.”
The adoption of the motion means that city administration will examine the report. The administration will then present to council at a later date which of the 231 calls are applicable to the city and how they can best be implemented.
The report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman and Girls was publicly released on June 3, 2019. The report took more than two years to compile and is comprised of the testimony of almost 2,400 people affected in some way by a First Nations, Metis or Inuit person being killed or disappearing.
The report, titled Reclaiming Power and Place, says that thousands of women and girls have been lost.
It also states that the disappearance of so many people is a “Canadian genocide.”
“The statistics are very disturbing,” said Mayor Charlie Clark.
“Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than members of any other demographic group in Canada and 16 times more likely to be slain or disappeared,” he said to council, citing the report.
It follows a similar motion from Winnipeg’s city council in June.
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