MMIWG - Genocide Postscript

This is more of an suspicious concern of mine. It goes beyond the Report, and to the way it has been used. 

Trudeau holds a copy of the Report presented to him
by the commissioners of the National Inquiry.

When I was listening to the public speeches given at the MMIWG presentation of its Final Report (found here), I couldn't help but feel a sense of subversion. Here we were: witnessing a crowd of people with the Prime Minister sitting in the front row, all listening to the Chief Commissioner speak of her findings. She spoke of the violence and neglect faced by women, girls  and 2SLGBTQQIA Indigenous peoples - the repetition of that acronym is distracting and borders on irritating, as she trips over its clunkiness in attempting to maintain political posture. Then she drops the bomb: 'this is genocide', and the crowd cheers. She smiles and nods in recognition. The Prime Minister applauds, tentatively.

Now, I find the cheers suspect. I don't think they're cheering the fact that a genocide has been uncovered. I don't think they're cheering that their communities have experienced crimes against humanity. I don't think they're cheering their entrance into a club that involved Rwanda, the Holocaust, Indonesia, and myriad other horrible mass murders and targeted exterminations. I think they were cheering the signalling: they're were cheering the fact that they can call Canada genocidal to its face. 

In a recent Leger Poll, 44% per cent of respondents agreed with the National Inquiry's conclusion that the MMIWG situation was an 'ongoing genocide', while 37% disagreed.

Do these folks who agree with the genocide charge understand that there are legal consequences that come with that? Do they understand how serious the crime of genocide is? Do they understand that it is an internationally recognised crime against humanity? Or do these people think it is just some conscious-raising exercise to tacitly accept the term and reflect on it so as to atone for the crimes of their forefathers? Or perhaps even the crimes of other peoples' forefathers?

This wasn't a recognition of the truth: it was a catharsis - and these can be very different things.