Native Women’s Association of Canada: A comprehensive analysis of the federal government’s National Action Plan to address violence against Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people finds little progress has been made over the past year to reduce the shocking number of murders and disappearances.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) assessed the National Action Plan and the accompanying Federal Pathway which were made public on June 3, 2021 – two years after the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls issued its final report declaring the violence to be part of an ongoing genocide.

In Canada’s MMIWG2S National Action Plan: Annual Scorecard released Thursday, NWAC tracked the commitments made by the government in its plan, assessing the implementation of actions that were intended to meet seven short-term goals and to state the next steps necessary to meet the Inquiry’s 231 Calls for Justice.

While some progress has been made over the past 12 months on some of actions, little or none has been made on others. The following is a summary of NWAC’s analysis of the progress made by the government over the past 12 months toward meeting the 30 actions contained in its National Action Plan, broken down by goals and next steps

1. Achieve transformative changes in attitudes, behaviours, and knowledge within the broader society. Both actions saw some progress. There have been funding commitments, but little has actually been done to achieve transformative change.
2. Keep families and survivors at the centre of the process for ending the violence, and provide them with concrete support. Two of three actions directed toward this goal saw some progress, while ONE saw little or none. There have been funding commitments, but little has been done to directly support survivors and families.
3. Support the delivery of programs and services by Indigenous organizations, including at the grassroots level, to address all forms of gender- and race-based violence. The two actions in this section have seen some progress. Funding has been directed toward violence prevention, housing, and other areas that have resulted in some positive momentum.
4. Address the broader root causes of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people. FOUR actions in this section saw some progress, while two saw little or none.
5. Develop a national Indigenous human-rights accountability mechanism that includes Treaty and Constitutional Rights. There has been no action on any of the three goals in this section. There has been no creation of oversight bodies or a national task force, and transparency and monitoring have been sparce.
6. Support a paradigm shift in policies and systems across Canada which defines transformative change in justice, health and wellness, human security, culture, and Indigenous human rights that include inherent, Treaty and Constitutional rights. This section saw three actions with some progress, and one action with little or no progress. We have seen some action through legislation, as well as through funding, but more action is still needed.
7. Establish a culturally appropriate Indigenous data infrastructure reflective of Indigenous women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, based on Indigenous data sovereignty and culturally rooted and distinctions-based indicators. This section saw two actions with little or no progress, and one action with some progress. Overall, improvement to data collection is unclear but we have seen a funding commitment, as well as increased reporting on corrections.

Immediate next steps

Three of the eight promised next steps have seen some progress, while five have seen little or none. This is largely due to a lack of monitoring and transparency.

For full details click the following link:

https://nwac.ca/assets-knowledge-centre/FEDERAL_ANNUAL_SCORECARD_ACTIONPLAN_2022_2022-06-03-132116_mfnq.pdf