Stephen Harper Abandons Aboriginal Women ... Again

After much bluster and a promise of $10 million to help find missing aboriginal women, the Harper government has again gone back on it's word.

The Conservatives recently announced how they would spend the $10 million set aside to address violence against aboriginal women. Although this was a welcome change to their long silence on this issue, the result was disappointing. The Conservatives plan to give $4 million from the allocated $10 million to the RCMP to increase their investigative capacity on missing person’s cases in general through the creation of the National Police Support Centre for Missing Persons.

Only a portion of the centre’s work, and therefore the money, will go specifically toward cases involving Aboriginal women.Another disappointment was that, despite the Conservative government’s praise of Sisters in Spirit (SIS), the recent $10 million announcement to address the issue of violence against Aboriginal women left SIS out. The main voice calling for action on how missing women cases are reported and investigated has been excluded. Many fear this means the end of Sisters in Spirit since the government made it very clear that SIS will not receive any more funding for this project.

Missing women would not be a priority of Stephen Harper's, unless that woman is the CEO of a major corporation.

Time to throw the bums out!