Colonial Harm, Policing, and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

Introduction

In August of 2024, the Government of Canada released its third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (WPS).[i] The new plan shows significant improvement from previous plans in its acknowledgment of gendered violence domestically. It also recognizes the ongoing legacy of colonialism.[ii] However, the plan does not frame the role of police in perpetuating colonial harm as a WPS issue. This omission is concerning given the shockingly high incidents of violence against Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people that police fail to respond to, investigate, or solve.[iii] By framing police complicity in everyday colonial violence as a WPS issue, and by implementing the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Calls to Justice, the Government of Canada can demonstrate meaningful progress towards combating everyday gendered colonial violence.

Statistics: Gender-based Violence against Indigenous Women

Canadian government agencies report that Indigenous women are disproportionately impacted by gender-based violence. Indigenous women are at least six times more likely to be victims of homicide than non-Indigenous women.[iv] 43% of Indigenous women reported being sexually assaulted at least once after age 15, compared to 30% of non-Indigenous women.[v] Indigenous women are also significantly more likely than non-Indigenous women to be victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), with 61% of Indigenous women being victims of IPV compared to 44% of non-Indigenous women.[vi] Thus, gender-based violence is a serious security threat facing women, especially Indigenous women, in Canada. As reported by Dubravka Šimonović, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, serious flaws in Canada’s criminal justice response to violence against Indigenous women is an outgrowth of the reality that  “Indigenous women face marginalization, exclusion, and poverty because of institutional, systemic, multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination that have not been addressed adequately by the state.[vii]  Failing to address these threats reproduces familiar patterns of colonial negligence and devaluation of Indigenous women’s lives, contributing to the violence and insecurity Indigenous women experience.

Everyday Colonial Violence: Findings from the 25th Anniversary Symposium

The milestone symposium for the 25th anniversary of Women, Peace and Security: Confronting Backlash and Barriers - from the Global to the Local, highlighted some of the greatest security issues facing women, both in Canada and beyond. A key finding was the complicity of police in everyday violence, especially with respect to the crisis of MMIWG2S+. Speakers highlighted that police are often distrustful, dismissive, and discriminatory towards victims and communities who report violence and disappearances.

Sheila North, former journalist, documentary filmmaker, and Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, reflected on dozens of conversations she’s had with families of victims and survivors. She explained how “the underlying common thread among all [MMIWG] stories is police and how they regarded the situation” (North 2025). Police routinely wait days or weeks to investigate missing women and girls. She documented how police dismiss demands for action, telling families and friends that victims “are on vacation” or “on a drunken bender” without evidence to support these claims (North 2025).  Eagle Feather Media editor-in-chief, Kerry Benjoe (2025), shared a personal story to illustrate how police fail to protect Indigenous women and girls experiencing intimate partner violence. When she was first assaulted by her partner, the police waited 2 weeks before interviewing her assaulter. In this time, she lost hope that she could rely on the police for help, despite their supposed role as protectors (Benjoe 2025). Retired RCMP Sgt. Karen Pelletier revealed her experience of discrimination from within the institution, stating, “at my work, I always had a white member wanting to cast me out. They said – you will always be an Indian woman, and that’s what you will be” (Pelletier 2025). These testimonials speak to a well-documented pattern of systemic devaluing of Indigenous women by the police, even including their own (Indigenous) members.[viii] Pelletier explained how she witnessed first-hand police failing to serve Indigenous women, despite her efforts to be “a people’s cop. Never a cop’s cop. It’s a constant fight” (Pelletier 2025).

Not only do police routinely fail to respond to violence against Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people, in some cases, they also enact violence against them. For example, Amnesty International has indicted Canada for its ongoing criminalization and repression of Wet’suwet’un land defenders resisting the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in B.C. (Amnesty International 2023). Drawing on witness testimony from several militarized raids by the RCMP on unceded territory of the Wet’suwet’en, Amnesty concluded that the Canadian government has committed human rights abuses against land defenders by subjecting them to arbitrary arrest, violence, harassment, surveillance, denying their right to peaceful assembly and their exercise of constitutionally protected Indigenous rights.  These abuses qualify as WPS issues because women constitute the majority of Wet’suwet’un land defenders, and they are specifically targeted, threatened, and criminalized by the RCMP, Forsythe Security and CGL employees (Amnesty International 2023).  State violence against Wet’suwet’un land defenders illustrate the complicity of police in enacting colonial violence, especially against Indigenous women.

Policy Recommendations

Although Canada’s Third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security cursorily acknowledges domestic security issues, it does not frame the everyday colonial violence facing Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit individuals as a WPS issue. Gender-based violence, and the role of police in failing to respond appropriately to it, constitutes a multifaceted security threat to Indigenous women perpetrated by both state and non-state actors. To properly account for the everyday security risks associated with the Canadian police and justice systems, it is essential that the WPS Agenda frames gender-based colonial violence as a core WPS issue and pressures the Government of Canada to take action to address it. Canada cannot pride itself on being a WPS leader if it does not work to address the complicity of police in everyday colonial violence impacting Indigenous women.

We recommend that future WPS national action plans call attention to the root causes and systems that create everyday colonial violence, thereby working to protect Indigenous women and girls, and upholding Canada’s international commitment to protecting rights and ensuring security. Canada’s WPS commitments must include:

1. Mandating police agencies to implement key Calls for Justice in the Final Report on MMIWG, particularly section 9.1-9.11. outlining the Calls for Police Services  to standardize the investigation of MMIWG, investigate and hold accountable police who mistreat, discriminate against, or otherwise fail to serve Indigenous peoples, and further involving Indigenous peoples in the police service, both as members and advisors.[ix]

2. Calling on Public Safety Canada to fund and implement meaningful inclusion initiatives, such as Indigenous-administered policing services and “diversity threshold” targets of 30%, which represents the “tipping point” in institutional culture change.

3. Call on the Canadian Government to respect the duty of police services to recognize and respect the constitutionally protected and inherent rights of Indigenous peoples to their lands.

4. Call on Public Safety Canada to implement stronger independent, civilian oversight of investigation of allegations of human rights violations and abuses committed by the RCMP, CSIS, and privately contracted security services against Indigenous land defenders and their supporters, including the unlawful use of force, harassment, intimidation, surveillance, searches and seizures.

5. Call on the Government of Canada to federally mandate criminal justice responses for all provinces and territories for survivors, including trauma-informed sexual assault training for police officers and prosecutors on rape myths, legal standards of consent, and the specific needs of Indigenous, racialized, transgender, Two-Spirit, and disabled women and girls.

Conclusion

Because Canada’s security and justice systems both sustain and generate violence against Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit peoples, the safety of these individuals remains a constant risk. These realities also represent glaring omissions in Canada’s commitments to the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda. Everyday forms of colonial violence— from police inaction in cases of IPV and MMIWG2S+ to their use of violence against land defenders—stem directly from colonial neglect and devaluation of Indigenous women by government, including justice and policing, institutions. The Government of Canada, along with these institutions, must take concrete, accountable steps to address these structural harms. Integrating the Calls for Justice for Police Services and demanding improved investigations into police and criminal justice responses to Indigenous activism and gender-based violence are essential steps toward building a more inclusive Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Canada, and help to address ongoing colonial violence.

Bibliography

Amnesty International. 2023. ‘'Removed from our Land for Defending it’: Criminalization, Intimidation and Harassment of Wet’suwet’un Land Defenders.” Amnesty International Ltd. https://amnesty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/wetsuweten-report.pdf

Benjoe, Kerry, 2025. “Priorities and Lessons on the Crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls” Confronting Backlash and Barriers from the Global to the Local: The 25th Anniversary of Women, Peace and Security. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, June 19, 2025.

Michel Bastarache, Broken Dreams, Broken Lives: The Devastating Effects of Sexual Harassment on Women in the RCMP, Final Report on the Implementation of the Merlo Davidson Settlement Agreement (Ottawa: Merlo Davidson Settlement, November 11, 2020). https://www.rcmp- grc.gc.ca/wam/media/4773/original/8032a32ad5dd014db5b135ce3753934d.pdf

Bettinger-Lopez, Caroline and Ezer, Tamar, Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Gender-Based Violence: Domestic and International Perspectives (Chapter 19) (September 22, 2020). In Handbook of Policing, Society, and Communication (ed. Howie Giles, Edward Maguire, and Shawn Hill), Rowman and Littlefield, Forthcoming , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3697459 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3697459

Government of Canada. 2024. “Ending gender-based violence against Indigenous peoples.” Women and Gender Equality Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/women-gender-equality/gender-based-violence/ending-gbv-indigenous.html

Government of Canada. 2024. Foundations for Peace, Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2023-2029. Global Affairs Canada. https://www.international.gc.ca/transparency-transparence/assets/pdfs/women-peace-security-femmes-paix-securite/2023-2029-foundation-peace-fondation-paix-en.pdf

Government of Canada, 2025. “Intimate Partner Violence.” Women and Gender Equality Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/women-gender-equality/gender-based-violence/intimate-partner-violence.html

North, Sheila. 2025. “Priorities and Lessons on the Crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls” Confronting Backlash and Barriers from the Global to the Local: The 25th Anniversary of Women, Peace and Security. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, June 19, 2025.

Oppal, Wally. Forsaken: The Report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry (Victoria: Distribution Centre-Victoria, 2012).

Pelletier, Karen. 2025. “Priorities and Lessons on the Crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls” Confronting Backlash and Barriers from the Global to the Local: The 25th Anniversary of Women, Peace and Security. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, June 19, 2025.

Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Volume 1b. 2019. Canada. https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1b.pdf

Endnotes

[i] Government of Canada. 2024. Foundations for Peace, Canada’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2023-2029. Global Affairs Canada.

[ii] Ibid: 22.

[iii] Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Concluding Observations on the Combined 8th and 9th Periodic Reports of Canada, CEDAW/C/CAN/CO/8-9 (New York: United Nations, November 25, 2016), 7. http://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3802136.

[iv] Government of Canada. 2024. “Ending gender-based violence against Indigenous peoples.” Women and Gender Equality Canada.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Government of Canada, 2025. “Intimate Partner Violence.” Women and Gender Equality Canada.

[vii] Dubravka Šimonović, Visit to Canada: Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, A/HRC/41/42/Add.1 (Geneva: United Nations, June 3, 2019), para. 75, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3840224?ln=en.

[viii] Wally Oppal, Forsaken: The Report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry (Victoria: Distribution Centre-Victoria, 2012); Michel Bastarache, Broken Dreams, Broken Lives: The Devastating Effects of Sexual Harassment on Women in the RCMP, Final Report on the Implementation of the Merlo Davidson Settlement Agreement (Ottawa: Merlo Davidson Settlement, November 11, 2020); Bettinger-Lopez, Caroline and Ezer, Tamar, Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Gender-Based Violence: Domestic and International Perspectives (Chapter 19) (September 22, 2020). In Handbook of Policing, Society, and Communication (ed. Howie Giles, Edward Maguire, and Shawn Hill), Rowman and Littlefield.

[ix] Reclaiming Power and Place, 2019.