Government refuses to set up task force on Aboriginal women

Despite the fact that there are over 582 missing/murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose said that the federal government will not be setting up a specific task force to deal with the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

After a two-day meeting held in Gatineau, Quebec for women’s status ministers, Ambrose announced that while she sympathizes with Aboriginal women, the government will not be taking specific action on this issue at the present time. Instead, Ambrose insisted that there was already “very good concrete measures to deal with this issue.” Ambrose was referring to the funding Ottawa allocated to the RCMP in the 2010 budget to create a national database for all missing persons and increased wire-tapping.

This has happened despite the fact that Statistics Canada just released new information showing how in 2009, the rates of violence against Aboriginal women in the 15-34 year old category was exponentially higher than that of the general population.