Living With an Ongoing Genocide

Niigaan Sinclair and MMIW etc.

Niigaan Sinclair (Credit: Penguin Random House Canada).

It must be hell for an itinerant activist like Niigaan Sinclair to be sandwiched between two epic genocides. On one side is the genocide of Indian Residential Schools and on the other is the “ongoing genocide” of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). The former would have been history’s longest running genocide but in a recent column, Sinclair informs us that “the centuries-old, systemic genocide of MMIWG and LGBTTQ+ peoples” continues.

Readers will, of course, note that the MMIW acronym has been extended to include a slurry of sexual orientations. Sinclair cheats us of the fuller acronym recently proffered by MP Leah Gazan (NDP; Winnipeg Centre) in a viral clip of earnest kvetching. It’s not at all clear how Canada actually targets transgender people for genocide or why it would need to if people undergo surgeries that eliminate their ability to reproduce.

Sinclair moans: “Even as a prime minister (Justin Trudeau) recognized a genocide was occurring, though, very little changed other than the level of funding flowing of some organizations and short-term initiatives.”

The obvious reason for that lack of change is because no one takes the claim of MMIW genocide seriously and it’s hard to tell if Sinclair and Gazan do, either. How could they, short of blind, ideological adherence? The claim is patently absurd and false and Sinclair inadvertently explains why.

“Data from Statistic Canada shows the homicide rate for Indigenous women and girls is more than six times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous women.”

The rhetorical objective of MMIW activists has been to construe all homicides of aboriginal women as a genocide regardless of the apparent lack of system and the demonstrable intent required to prove genocide has been committed. As well, most of the MMIW murders have been solved and criminal convictions obtained. To further prosecute parties for these unrelated homicides as a genocide, it would be necessary to show how how all of these unconnected killers acted under direction from a state authority.

However, Sinclair and the rest of the MMIW activists have no intention of treating their dubious case of genocide as a criminal matter. For all intents and purposes, they regard the accusation as the verdict and expect sentencing in the form of duly indexed government funding for organizations like the “National Family and Survivors Circle (and) the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak, (and) Giganawenimaanaanig.”

As with all homicides everywhere, the MMIW victims tended to have known their killers and often as a domestic partner. The killers were overwhelmingly also aboriginal. A genocide that has the target group being most responsible for killing the target group is a morally repugnant absurdity.

To the extent that characterizing the MMIW homicides as a genocide isn’t just a venal ploy to get paid for an especially specious form of special interests advocacy, there is an underlying ideological objective that is commonly shared amongst most aboriginal activists: Indigenous sovereignty. Defining Indigenous sovereignty is much like defining reconciliation: it is more of a sentiment generating heat by friction rather than a clear, intelligible concept. Indigenous sovereignty tends to be defined more by what it is not since it is something that never really existed in any meaningful sense.

What Indigenous sovereignty is not is Canadian. A people require a state to be sovereign and for aboriginal nationalists, a state of their own is lacking. But what they can do is delegitimize the existing Canadian state and one of the oldest strategies for doing so is by depicting Canada as a genocidal enterprise.

When Sinclair talks about a centuries-old systemic genocide, he is delegitimizing the entirety of Canada’s existence and then some. If Canada has always been committing this genocide and it is still occurring, does Sinclair actually expect the Canadian government to stop?

Since it is common knowledge that real people were actually convicted for most of these murders, funding organizations who want to call it a genocide is an obvious waste of money. Those organizations aren’t stopping any future MMIW homicides by pretending there is a genocide. But that’s the moral degeneracy of their pretension: a rhetorical genocide is a genocide they figure they can live with if they have generous government funding for denouncing the ongoing genocide. As well, by regarding the MMIW homicides as a genocide ostensibly caused by colonizers, advocates like Sinclair make victims out of the aboriginal victimizers.

A very real social phenomenon is being observed, as Sinclair writes: “Nearly one-fifth (17 per cent) of Indigenous women have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence. For Indigenous women who identify as LGBTTQ+, the number is a shocking 86 per cent. More than four in 10 (43 per cent) of Indigenous women have been sexually assaulted at least once since the age of 15.”

Maybe there is some need amongst the MMIW activists to psychologically distance themselves from the prolific rates of aboriginal violence by blaming it on the colonial state but there is a profound question of justiciability to declare that there is an ongoing genocide.

The alleged MMIW genocide is potentially actionable under the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court could theoretically impose its jurisdiction if Canada was either unwilling or unable to prosecute its accused citizens. If this was at all an actual genocide, Carney would be compelled under the Rome Statue to seek prosecution for the perpetrators or be held liable under that same Statute. However, because the accusation of genocide has become common rhetorical ordnance, there is no expectation of actually seeking prosecution for this alleged genocide. Consequently, we ended up with the absurdity of a sitting Prime Minister agreeing that he was presiding over an ongoing genocide and facing no prosecution for it.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confessing to a MMIW genocide (Credits: Johnathan Hayward; CP).

“Does Canada under Trudeau’s successor continue to acknowledge the existence of the genocide of Indigenous women and girls and LGBTTQ+ people?,” asks Sinclair. If there is an ongoing genocide, it’s a crime whether or not Mark Carney acknowledges it: he is now implicated as the current Prime Minister. But this is all just so much posturing and vanity on Sinclair’s part, he doesn’t see the MMIW ‘genocide’ as a crime requiring investigation and prosecution.

Having reduced ‘genocide’ to a rhetorical banality and evidently failing to reckon with his handiwork, Sinclair laments the absence of the funding that obviously should be sent to address the alleged genocide.

“Is seven years of piecemeal funding that barely scratched the surface of the problem adequate?”

The answer would be, ‘no,’ according to the Department of Justice Canada from a 2024 summary report: “The rate of homicide for Indigenous women (4.60 victims per 100,000 Indigenous women in 2021, 5.26 victims in 2022, and 4.74 victims in 2023), and for Indigenous men (15.13 victims per 100,000 Indigenous men in 2021, 17.27 victims in 2022, and 13.85 victims in 2023) have fluctuated year to year, with men consistently having a higher rate.”

The colonial state does seem to be doing a good job, though, of perpetuating the MMIW genocide: “In 2023, the rate of Indigenous men accused of homicide (15.22 per 100,000 Indigenous men) was almost nine times higher than that of non-Indigenous men (1.80 per 100,000 non-Indigenous men). Further, the rate of Indigenous women accused (4.17 per 100,000 Indigenous women) was just over 26 times higher than the rate of non-Indigenous women accused (0.16 per 100,000 non-Indigenous women).”

If you blame the night for sun burns, expect more sun burns.