The latest installation at the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG), Walking With Our Sisters, commemorates missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada, while serving as a reminder that this country has a long way to go in terms of racism.
When it comes to racism, Canada is often overshadowed by the United States, where police brutality is at the forefront of a long battle with systematic racism for people of colour. However, racism is still a local issue.
The CBC reported in June 2015 that Aboriginal women are over-represented in the rate of missing and murdered women in the country. Between 2013-2014 alone, 32 Aboriginal women were killed within RCMP jurisdictions.
The conditions of First Nations reserves remain in a crisis status. A UN Indigenous rights investigator found in 2013 that homes of Aboriginal peoples on reserves need serious repairs and the suicide rate in these locations is at an all-time high.
The government often tackles the issues that plague Aboriginal peoples of Canada by providing grants or scholarships to people living on reserves, but piling money away isn’t enough when the problem is so deeply rooted in the system.
The Harper government focuses on rebuilding and reconciliation, and claims that issues facing Aboriginal peoples are a thing of the past. This is the first mistake towards a cycle of negligence and racism.
Inequality of Aboriginal peoples compared to the rest of Canada is a pressing issue. These issues are not fragments of the past, but are the present and will be the future if this ignorant attitude towards Canada’s racism continues.
