MCK supports Call for Immediate Action on entrenched racism in Canadian justice system

06/18/2020

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke wishes to express its complete solidarity and support of the letter signed by Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador Regional Chief Ghislain Picard and British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief Terry Teegee. The letter (see here) was published in today’s Toronto Star and Montreal’s La Presse.

The letter is a demand for Canada to take action to, “…end the violence, discrimination, racism, and abuse against Indigenous peoples that are entrenched in the Canadian justice system.”

More specifically, the letter makes it clear that further commissions, reports and inquiries are not the answer to a problem that continues unabated and, it seems, is actually accelerating in recent weeks.

“The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke is in full agreement with the sentiments expressed in the letter from Regional Chiefs Picard and Teegee,” said Ietsénhaienhs Gina Deer. “The situation has gone beyond the crisis stage and reflects the ongoing genocide referenced in the report on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.”

“We are not strangers to this,” she continued. “Many of us recall that, in 1979, one of our community members, David Cross, was killed by police in his own front yard while unarmed. That was over 40 years ago, and it seems that not much ever changes. Fourteen years ago today Tiffany Morrison disappeared, and no one has ever been charged in her murder.”

“There was, and is, a culture of systemic racism that has to end today – not tomorrow or in the near future. Today.”