3. Considerations

There are a number of over-arching considerations that are key to shaping engagement that are respectful and effective. Some of these are briefly outlined here, prior to discussing the models, as they are important to keep in mind when reviewing each model.

Intersectionality: An intersectional approach recognizes the multiple and intersecting identities and experiences of people on the basis of race, culture, language, gender, faith, disability, income, geography and many other factors. It also highlights that social, economic, political and legal systems impact them differently, depending on where they are situated in this complex array of identities and the interaction of these systems. This includes recognitions of the diversity of identities within each of the four designated communities and their intersection with each other. For example, the Black community includes those with their roots in many different nations and cultures, both those who have lived in Canada for many generations and those who have arrived more recently. The Indigenous communities include three distinct peoples: First Nations, Inuit and Métis, and the diverse experiences of those living in their home communities and those in urban settings.

Systemic oppression: Recognize systemic factors that shape the experience of each community with the criminal justice system, including their experience as victims of crime. These include historical injustices that have intergenerational impacts. Many of these historical forms of harm continue today in some form, including in legislation, policy and institutional practices. Some of these are described below.

Colonialism and intergenerational trauma in the Indigenous communities, including the impact of the residential school system and the disruption of Indigenous cultures (language, laws, governance, relationships, knowledge and practices) inflicted widespread suffering, and the police and criminal justice system played a significant role in those attempts to eradicate or assimilate sovereign peoples. Many of these systemic forms of discrimination continue today, including in the Indian Act and other legislation, in the child welfare system, and in the social and institutional legacies of these practices.

Systemic racism: Historic and current systemic racism against the Black and racialized communities, including historical practices of slavery, legal separation and exclusion, disenfranchisement and other discriminatory practices, have contributed to entrenched disadvantage.

Misogyny: Systemic oppression. Economic, social and legal discrimination against women, the spread of toxic masculinity and the perpetuation of these harms over time has contributed men’s violence against women and children and has made women’s lives more precarious and more vulnerable to that violence.

The submission of the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre to the Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Events describes some of the many and interconnected dynamics of oppression that affect gender-based violence. These are summarized in their statement below and are set out in more detail in their submission:

African Nova Scotian and Indigenous women, girls, and non-binary people face high rates of gender-based violence because of factors including but not limited to colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Intersecting systems of oppression flowing from disability, economic marginalization, criminalization, and rural location can further increase a person’s risk of facing gender-based violence. They also affect each individual’s experience of and response to gender-based violence. In addition, power, privilege, and silencing create conditions where gender-based violence can occur unchecked. (Fifeld et al, n.d.)

Cain et al note the impact of historical racism on the current vulnerability of Black women to sexual violence:

It is impossible to separate the current lived realities of sexual violence for African Nova Scotians from the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and ongoing systemic racism.

The rape of black women to the castration and sexual control of black men during enslavement has led to intergenerational trauma and destructive racial stereotypes. Canada’s history of enslavement, racial segregation and oppression of African Canadians has left a legacy of systemic racism in Nova Scotia.

Systemic racism, including poverty, disproportionate incarceration, discrimination and lack of representation in employment and educational institutions, combined with intergenerational trauma and racial stereotypes make African Nova Scotians more vulnerable to sexual violence. (Cain et all, 2021)

Collective impact of grief: The Indigenous and Black communities in particular have experienced high levels of violent death and these take place within communities whose members are strongly interconnected. Sharpe et al have characterized a global pandemic of homicide grief in the Black community.

Grief from homicide is a global phenomenon. A pattern of structural racism and systemic inequities have shaped Black homicide deaths and have increased the prevalence, susceptibility, spread, and impact of homicide grief for Black communities throughout the global diaspora. A complex interplay of structural vulnerabilities has constituted a worldwide pandemic of homicide grief for Black communities. (Sharpe et al, 2024)

A news article in Canada highlighted the work of Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard to provide grief training in the Black community in Nova Scotia using a cultural lens, following the killings of seven Black men in Halifax (Colley, 2017).

For the First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, there are also high levels of grief from the many men, women and children lost to violence. The movement to honour the over 2,000 missing and murdered Indigenous women has led to Red Dress Day, which is a collective opportunity to mourn and remember the losses. The grief and sorrow are felt in the community related to the many forms of loss, whether residential schools, the taking of children into the child welfare system in massive numbers and the abuses they suffered there, or the high rates of violent death and incarceration of Indigenous men and women.