Statement from the Native Women’s Association of Canada
The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) respects freedom of expression. People must be free to ask difficult questions, conduct research, challenge accepted views and learn from one another. That freedom includes speech we may find uninformed, misinformed, ignorant or deeply distasteful. Academic freedom matters, and honest inquiry should be met with evidence and discussion.
There is a serious distinction between offensive speech and the forms of hate propaganda addressed by Canadian criminal law. NWAC supports laws against the public incitement and wilful promotion of hatred toward identifiable groups, including Indigenous peoples. We must recognize what is at stake: when words repeatedly portray people as less worthy of dignity and safety, they can make discrimination seem acceptable, cruelty seem justified, and violence seem permissible. Violence does not begin only when someone is attacked. It can begin when others are taught to believe that the person being attacked matters less.
For Indigenous peoples in Canada, racism has never been solely a matter of individual attitudes. Governments used laws and policies to control where Indigenous people could live and travel, suppress cultural practices, and remove children from their families through residential schools in an effort to erase their cultural identities. The Indian Act stripped First Nations women of status when they married men without status and affected their descendants. Some First Nations people who served and sacrificed their lives to protect and defend Canada in wartime were also forcibly deprived of status.
These harms are not confined to the past. Indigenous women and girls continue to face heightened risks shaped by systemic racism, including discriminatory treatment in health and child welfare systems, failures to respond adequately when women and girls go missing or are murdered, and abuses of police power. Practices such as birth alerts and the incidents known as “starlight tours” remind us why institutions must be held accountable, and why Indigenous women must be heard when they describe what is happening to them.
Reconciliation requires the truth to be spoken and heard. It is a process that asks all of us to listen, examine evidence and face discomfort with courage. We can challenge harmful ideas firmly while leaving room for people who are willing to learn and change. As Elders have taught, reason alone cannot reach a heart consumed by hatred; darkness can only be overcome by bringing light.
NWAC calls on Canadians from every walk of life to stand with Indigenous peoples, especially Indigenous women and girls in all their diversity. Learn the history. Listen when people speak about the harm they face today. Challenge racism when you see or hear it, and demand accountability when institutions fail to protect them. Looking away allows harm to continue. Reconciliation asks each of us to choose courage: to speak the truth, defend one another’s safety and act for justice.