Call for criminal investigation could lead to progress on reconciliation
Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq holds a photo Thursday morning of French Oblate priest Joannis Rivoire, who is accused of sexually assaulting Inuit children who attended residential schools in Nunavut communities in the 1960s. The NDP is calling on the government to investigate Rivoire and other alleged perpetrators within the residential school system. (Screen grab courtesy of CPAC)
EDITORIALS JUL 10, 2021
With one deft move, Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq advanced the fight for justice over Canada’s mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples and, at the same time, painted the federal Liberal government into a corner on one of the country’s most pressing issues.
Qaqqaq and NDP counterpart Charlie Angus, an Ontario MP, called on Liberal Justice Minister David Lametti on Thursday to appoint what they called a “special prosecutor” to conduct a government-funded investigation into crimes committed against Indigenous Peoples, particularly at residential schools but also at other government-run institutions, such as sanatoriums for treating tuberculosis.
The government dismissed the NDP’s call, saying the justice minister doesn’t direct police investigations. Investigating crimes is the exclusive jurisdiction of the police. That’s an appropriate response from Lametti’s office. Law enforcement and the justice system do need to operate independently from politics to eliminate the prospect of politicians using their office to prosecute their opponents.
But what Canada is learning about the scope of the mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples suggests it’s much bigger than any police department can handle as part of its routine policing. Most residential schools are in sparsely populated, remote communities where the local police detachment might be just a few officers.
Qaqqaq is right that these circumstances require a unique mechanism to look into who did what to residential school children, whether their treatment was criminal and whether it’s possible to prosecute any offenders.
It makes sense to create an independent body to investigate crimes committed against Indigenous Peoples. It would be messy for the RCMP or provincial police forces to probe governments, politicians and churches. Certainly, police have effectively investigated these entities in the past, but never on the scale that might be required to get to the bottom of this situation.
Canada doesn’t have much experience in the kind of investigation the NDP described — an independent body with the power to investigate the government and to lay charges.
Whether it’s a special prosecutor, a public inquiry or a Royal commission, what’s needed is a commitment to get to the bottom of who did what, and whether they can be held criminally responsible.
The abuse of children at residential schools has been well known for a long, long time. But now, after many Canadians learned there are hundreds — maybe thousands — of unmarked graves near the school sites there is more than reasonable grounds to suspect that some of those dead children were victims of very serious crimes.
The same day Qaqqaq and Angus called for the criminal investigation, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said during a news conference that, for most Canadians, there was no cemetery attached to the schools they attended.
The fact that there are gravesites at residential schools is a sign, Singh said, that administrators knew that children would die.
While there’s no doubting that Qaqqaq is motivated by genuine anger over the mistreatment of residential school children specifically, and Indigenous Peoples generally, her call for a special probe was also a shrewd political move. In a bizarre twist of fate, Qaqqaq has done some of her strongest work as an MP since announcing last month she won’t be running for re-election.
With a federal election on the horizon, the NDP has created an issue with which they can beat the Liberals up on a key file that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds close to his heart.
Whenever Liberal candidates talk about Crown-Indigenous relations, their New Democrat opponents will repeat their party’s demand that the government create a special probe to look into crimes against Indigenous Peoples. New Democrats will point to Liberal inaction as proof the party doesn’t care. And if the Liberals do come around to creating a special inquiry, the NDP will take credit for making them do it. Politically, it’s a win-win for the NDP.
The sooner the Liberals act on Qaqqaq’s and the NDP’s recommendation, the better for them.
It would also be better for Indigenous Peoples – and help honour the memories of the children lying in unmarked graves outside residential schools.
NDP calls for criminal probe into residential schools
‘The map of Canada is covered in crime scenes,’ Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq says
The federal New Democrats are calling on Ottawa to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate potential crimes committed against Indigenous people at residential schools, and their alleged perpetrators.
Nunavut MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq and her fellow NDP MP Charlie Angus held a press conference on Parliament Hill Thursday to ask federal Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti to reach out to the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation into a system they said “represents a crime against humanity.”
“The map of Canada is covered in crime scenes,” Qaqqaq said.
“We need a full and independent investigation that has the power to shine a light on every facet of this national crime, and has the power to bring perpetrators to justice,” Qaqqaq said.
“We have been saying this for generations, and it’s time for Canada to face the truth.”
The NDP’s demand comes after weeks of revelations about unmarked graves at residential schools in Kamloops, B.C., Cowessess, Sask., and other sites throughout the country.
The NDP is also asking for “a serious increase” in funding to do proper forensic investigations at former school sites, so bodies can be exhumed and returned to their families.
A spokesperson for the Minister of Justice told Nunatsiaq News that Lametti does not have the authority to launch such a criminal investigation, saying that would be up to the police.
“Minister [Lametti] has held frank and productive discussions with Indigenous leaders about the next steps the government needs to take to support Indigenous communities, particularly survivors and their families, following the horrific discovery of graves in Kamloops and Marieval,” said Chantalle Aubertin, press secretary to Lametti, in an email.
“We will consider all options that will allow the survivors, their communities and the country to move forward on the path to healing and reconciliation.”
But Qaqqaq insists the justice minister does indeed have the authority to appoint a special prosecutor but chooses not to exercise it.
Qaqqaq said an investigation should extend beyond just residential schools to examine any institution that Indigenous people were forced to attend, providing the example of southern sanatoriums Inuit were sent to between the 1940s and 1960s to recover from tuberculosis.
“There are possibly hundreds, if not thousands, of Inuit [buried] outside of sanatoriums across the country,” she said.
During the press conference, Qaqqaq held the image of French Oblate priest Joannis Rivoire, who is accused of sexually assaulting Inuit children who attended residential schools in Nunavut communities in the 1960s.
In 1997, Rivoire was charged with sexual interference and sexual assault in connection with incidents alleged to have occurred in Naujaat and Arviat between 1968 and 1970.
The RCMP issued a warrant for his arrest in 1998, but CBC reported in 2019 that warrant had been stayed. It’s unclear if the government ever sought to have Rivoire extradited from France.
“Instead of facing justice for his crimes, Rivoire is living a luxurious life in a home for priests in Strasbourg, France, and the federal government is doing nothing about it,” Qaqqaq said.
“The abuse at his hands has caused generations of trauma,” she said. “The federal government and the church are responsible for the fact that people like Rivoire destroyed childhoods. And continues to destroy childhoods today.”
The NDP said Rivoire is just one of potentially thousands of perpetrators who abused Indigenous children through the residential school system, and any investigation must come with full access to documents and names.
Last month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked the Catholic church to disclose documents related to potential crimes and unmarked burial sites at its residential schools, a demand religious orders in some provinces have agreed to.
Trudeau has also expressed a willingness to launch an investigation into residential schools but said Indigenous communities should lead that process.
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