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Within the first few minutes of the conversation, one thing is clear: it is impossible to understand the impact of COVID-19 on Indigenous people living in Canada without knowledge of the centuries of struggle that came before it, and the racism, oppression, and genocide that they were experiencing already.听听

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On these topics,听听is an authority 鈥� a result of more than 25 years of focus on First Nations issues, studying, volunteering, advocating, and working as a lawyer, Associate Professor, and the Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University. A Mi鈥檏maw citizen and member of the Eel River Bar First Nation in northern New Brunswick, Pam has spoken internationally on Indigenous issues and authored three books on the subject; her latest,听,听just became available for preorder.听

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I spoke with Pam on June 3, the one-year anniversary of the release of the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. On the same day, Pam published an article that shows through statistics that听,听and Chantel Moore, a 26-year-old from Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, was fatally shot by a police officer during a wellness check.听

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And so our conversation started not on COVID, but on injustice.听听

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The interview has been edited for length

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Do you think the pandemic has been shining a bigger spotlight on the issues that Indigenous people in Canada face, or has it been a distraction?听

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To me, COVID-19 has been used sadly as an excuse to deflect from the multiple crisis Canada was in prior to the pandemic. For months, we were in Wet鈥檚uwet鈥檈n Strong protests, that were anti-police violence, anti-police racism, anti-state oppression and breach of Indigenous rights 鈥� but even prior to that, Canada was already in the worst human rights crisis that it has ever faced.听

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The National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls found as a matter of fact and law 鈥� not theory or academic research, but fact and law 鈥� that Canada is guilty of historic and ongoing genocide, that Canada鈥檚 laws, policies, practices, actions and omissions are a direct cause of the crisis level rates of exploitation, disappearance and murders of Indigenous women and girls, and that Canada demonstrates it has a manifest pattern of intention to destroy Indigenous people 鈥� and that hasn鈥檛 changed, despite using different policy names. Everything is still about accessing our lands and resources and essentially assimilating Indigenous people, and they ignore all of the violence and premature death and ill health and poverty conditions as part of that.听

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And so we should all be very concerned about COVID, but every pandemic in history has always disproportionately impacted Indigenous people, and in particular, Indigenous women. Indigenous people were overrepresented in H1N1, in terms of hospitalizations, intensive care, and death, and pregnant Indigenous women were also overrepresented in hospitalizations during that time.

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Considering H1N1 disproportionately impacted indigenous communities in Canada, is anyone looking at those stats right now with respect to COVID?

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Indian Affairs, which is so-called Indigenous Services Canada,[] has been very criticized for not collecting enough data. They were reporting exceptionally low numbers, and so First Nations, knowing that this data was wrong and presenting the worst picture possible reported their own data to Ryerson University鈥檚 Yellowhead Institute 鈥� not all First Nations in Canada, but they got a large group to submit their numbers 鈥� and the numbers were almost three times higher than what Indian Affairs was reporting.

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And that doesn鈥檛 even include all of the First Nations. If you don鈥檛 know where COVID is, who is infected, how can you contact trace that? How can you prevent it? First Nations for the last few months have been complaining that they haven鈥檛 been sent tests. There鈥檚 been no concerted, purposeful, intentional focus on the most at-risk, health-compromised population in this country, which is First Nations people.听

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Knowing that, do you think there has been an appropriate response?

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The COVID pandemic should have resulted in a doubling of the effort to make sure that Indigenous women and girls are taken care of. That simply hasn鈥檛 been the case. There have been outbreaks in prisons, and Indigenous women are the fastest-growing population and already overrepresented in prisons 鈥� they represent 42 percent in federal corrections alone. Indigenous girls represent as high as 98 percent of the youth corrections population.听

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So if you think about institutions and how they鈥檙e natural fermentors of the pandemic because of the overcrowding, lack of hygiene, lack of access to health care, then we know that Indigenous women and girls are at the highest risk because they are overrepresented in all these institutions. It鈥檚 just beyond belief that Canada didn鈥檛 immediately act on Indigenous women and girls with the report, but didn鈥檛 also immediately have a gendered pandemic plan for Indigenous women and girls, to target them first and foremost for protection.听

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What gives you hope in all this?

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I think the hope that I see is the ways in which specifically First Nations and Indigenous women have addressed murdered and missing women and girls, land-based protests and land-based defense, and even this pandemic 鈥� by asserting their own sovereignty. And we may be doing so in an underfunded capacity, in a marginalized, oppressed capacity, in a context of ongoing genocide and pandemic risk 鈥� but we continue to show our strength, and our resilience, and our leadership, and our commitment to our sovereignty as nations, to continue to do this for our people.听

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There are literally a thousand stories of Indigenous women and girls serving their communities. They鈥檙e the most underserved, but they鈥檙e out there volunteering for elders, they鈥檙e cleaning, they鈥檙e bringing supplies, they鈥檙e advocating. They鈥檙e literally on the front line. And there are still women out there on the front lines of land defense and that鈥檚 where I find my hope. In the assertion and defense of our sovereignty and our territory, despite the overwhelming and monumental barriers, and the risk to our lives.

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It鈥檚 really important that we get these stories out, and show Canadians that this is where hope is, supporting Native people in asserting and defending their sovereignty and territory, and the right to make decisions for themselves, that鈥檚 what will get us out of this. Canadians are starting to see that the things that we were advocating for and protesting against were the very same things that were going to benefit Canadians. So when we鈥檙e trying to defend clean water for First Nations, that鈥檚 actually a benefit to all Canadians, because we鈥檙e not going to live very long without clean water or farmable land. And similarly, when we鈥檙e defending human rights and civil liberties, that鈥檚 for everybody. And it鈥檚 a very slippery slope to say it鈥檚 okay to breach those rights for Native people, now it鈥檚 okay to breach those rights for Black people, now it鈥檚 okay to breach those rights for immigrants, now it鈥檚 okay to breach those rights for poor people 鈥� it never ends, and so we have to have an absolute stop against the breach of human rights, and that benefits all Canadians.

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And what can all Canadians be doing to be better allies?

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You don鈥檛 have to be working in a social justice advocacy organization to advocate loudly and strenuously and continuously. If you look at the Wet鈥檚uwet鈥檈n Strong solidarity action, again for most of the large marches and protests and rallies, the majority of them were Canadians, and again politicians took notice of that. So every letter, protest, large behind-the-scenes influence or donation 鈥� all of that makes a difference. But the thing is, it has to be vocal. It has to be aggressive. And when I say aggressive, I don鈥檛 mean violent 鈥� but it has to be pushy, and it has to be continuous, because that鈥檚 the only way it鈥檚 going to work.

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[]The Harper government replaced the minister of Indian Affairs with a minister of Aboriginal Affairs in 2011; the Trudeau government changed it to minister of Indigenous affairs in 2015, and then split the department in two 鈥� to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, and Indigenous Services鈥攊n 2017. It wasn鈥檛 until July 15, 2019, however, that. Many Indigenous activists, including Pam,

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