STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.

Canada’s treatment of Indigenous women not a ‘genocide’: Andrew Scheer

Jun 10, 2019 | 9:34 AM

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says “genocide” isn’t the right word to describe what’s been done to generations of Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

Speaking on Parliament Hill, Scheer says the deaths and abuse inflicted on Indigenous women are “heartbreaking” and need addressing, but calling them a genocide would mean inviting international action and scrutiny that aren’t warranted.

The federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls released its final report a week ago.

Commissioners included a long separate argument for why Canada’s “series of actions and omissions” have allowed Indigenous women to be targeted in numerous ways that add up to what they called an ongoing genocide.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not directly answered questions about whether he agrees with that, though he has said he accepts the findings of the report.

After the report was released, the secretary general of the Organization of American States said he wanted to form an international panel to investigate the claim and achieve justice.

The Canadian Press