Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls Inquiry: - Summary of Findings for Urban

The CTJs, in the view of the commissioners, build a foundation to allow Indigenous women and girls and 2SLGBTQQIA to “reclaim power and place,” a concept that speaks to the role and responsibilities that women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people play in “fulfilling their own People or Nation’s understandings of their rights” and to reversing the narrative from victimhood to one of human rights. [...] In doing so, we take two analytical approaches which provide two different insights: the first is a narrow read of the CTJs that speak to program, service and other needs that exist in urban contexts; the second is a broad read where we apply the underlying logic to the CTJs to understand their spirit and intent and then apply them to urban issues in ways that might not be apparent at first glance. [...] Understanding the Report from an Urban Lens There are two main themes that guide the work of the Commission and that are essential to understand in order to apply the report to urban settings. [...] The first is that the causes of violence are historic (but living) and systemic in nature, and that the only way to address and redress violence is to confront societal problems at large through a transformative paradigm shift that reorients Canadian society so it upholds Indigenous rights, including the right to self-determination. [...] In addition, the report stresses that the imposition of colonial jurisdiction – and the failure to respect and uphold Indigenous jurisdictions – has created inequalities, service gaps, and governance regimes that fail to represent the interests of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA.