Resiliency Lodge is Focus of NWAC’s Plan to Address Genocide Against Indigenous Women

The Native Women’s Association of Canada is not sitting idle, waiting for governments and others to respond to the Calls for Justice of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls.

On June 1, two days before the second anniversary of the release of the Inquiry’s final report, NWAC released its action plan Our Calls, Our Actions.

It is a document outlining 65 measures NWAC will take that align with the Inquiry’s 231 Calls. As prescribed by the Inquiry Commissioners, the measures are costed, they have timelines, they are goals that can measured.

Central to the NWAC plan is the creation of Resiliency Lodges across the country that replicate what the association has already built in Gatineau, Que., and is planning to open next year in New Brunswick.

They will be places of healing, but also centres where Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people can reconnect with their culture and learn skills that can lead to economic independence.

NWAC Leaders had hoped that the federal government would release a national action plan of its own on June 3, one that would complement what NWAC is doing to end the violence that the National Inquiry found to be a genocide.

Unfortunately, the government instead released a hollow Pathways document that makes no commitments other than to say it will act at some undetermined point in the future. There are no costed measures, no timelines, and no measurable goals. The government is offering nothing more than a plan to have a plan.

For that reason, NWAC is appealing to international bodies to force the Canadian government into action.

The Calls for Justice of the National Inquiry are not recommendations, they are legal imperatives. And no country that is found to be the place of a genocide can ignore the violence that is taking place within its boundaries.

NWAC is committed to carrying out its own plan. But it is also committed to force the Canadian government to create and implement the action plan that was demanded by the National Inquiry. Too many lives hang in the balance to tolerate inaction.