RCI | English : Reports

Heavily armed police officers are combing through the bush and swamps surrounding the remote Indigenous community of York Landing in northern Manitoba, following a reported sighting of two teenage murder suspects who have been on the run for nearly two weeks.

Officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s national police force, are responding to a tip that two men fitting the descriptions of Bryer Schmegelsky, 18, and Kam McLeod, 19 were spotted Sunday afternoon around 5 p.m. local time in the small Cree community, about 90 kilometres southwest of Gillam, Manitoba, which was the focus of a massive manhunt for the last week.

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“Based on the information received, the RCMP immediately deployed multiple resources to the community, including the Emergency Response Team, police dog services, containment team members, major crime services and air services assets,” RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Julie Courchaine told reporters Monday.

“Officers searched the York Landing area throughout the night and continue their efforts today.”

The Royal Canadian Air Force is also assisting today with the search, she added.

“Officers on the ground have not made contact with the individuals, as such, the RCMP is not yet in a position to confirm that these are the wanted suspects,” Courchaine said.

Police officers do door-to-door searches in York Landing, Man. (Gilbert Rowan/CBC)

It is critical that residents of York Landing remain vigilant and stay indoors as much as possible with their doors locked, and to report anything suspicious by calling their local police immediately, RCMP officials tweeted Monday.

Schmegelsky and McLeod have been charged with second degree murder of Leonard Dyck, 64, and are suspected of gunning down two tourists, Australian Lucas Fowler, 23, and his American girlfriend Chynna Deese, 24, in Northern British Columbia.

The couple’s bodies were discovered on July 15 about 20 kilometres south of Liard Hot Springs, a popular tourist destination in the far north of the province.

Dyck’s body was found July 19 at a highway pullout about two kilometres from a burned-out camper truck, discovered the same day, near the community of Dease Lake, B.C.



Police say the pair then stole a car and drove nearly 3,000 kilometres east before ditching their getaway car in the bush near Gillam.

It’s unclear how the two suspects got from Gillam to York Landing.

Manhunt for fugitive teens moves to wilderness of northern Manitoba

The manhunt switched to York Landing Sunday afternoon after a member of Bear Clan patrol group, an Indigenous neighbourhood protection group, spotting what he believed to be the men near the landfill and water-treatment plant in York Landing.

Travis Bighetty told CBC News he and his partner spotted two "tall, slender individuals" moving very quickly — possibly spooked by the sound of their truck.

"They fit the description of what was given in the RCMP report," Bighetty said. "It didn't click right away, it took a few moments."

Police have asked the public not to disclose on social media where their officers were located.

With files from CBC News

Canada has become the latest country to ratify a UN treaty that seeks to combat the global illegal fishing industry by denying port access to fishing vessels engaged in the multibillion illicit trade, federal officials announced Friday.

The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, known as PSMA, enters into force in Canada as of July 20, Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and his parliamentary secretary, Sean Casey, announced Friday.

United Nations experts estimate that one in every five fish caught around world every year, about 26 million tonnes of fish, comes from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, valued at $10 - $23 billion US annually.

“It’s an indicator that we’re part of an international effort to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, which it really is a scourge on our economy,” said Casey in a phone interview with Radio Canada International. “And it’s a scourge on many of the species that are being fished.”

EN_Interview_3-20190719-WIE30Under the terms of the agreement, federal officials are granted additional powers to deny port entry and use of port services for vessels carrying illegally harvested fish, Casey said.

It also allows for sharing of information between states and sets inspection priorities and guidelines for training inspectors, he added.

The PSMA, signed under the auspices of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2009, entered into force internationally in June 2016.

Canada ratifies international moratorium on commercial fishing in the High Arctic

Ottawa takes aim at illegal fishing and discarded fishing gear

According to FAO, the goal of the agreement is to “prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing by preventing vessels engaged in IUU fishing from using ports and landing their catches.”

The agreement reduces the incentive of such vessels to continue to operate while it also blocks fishery products derived from IUU fishing from reaching national and international markets, the UN agency says.

Canada initially signed the agreement in 2010 but it wasn’t until 2015 that the Parliament passed the PMSA Implementation Act, which included various amendments to the federal fisheries legislation, the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act (CFPA), to align it with the PSMA, Casey said.

Josh Laughren, executive director of conservation group Oceana Canada, welcomed the news of ratification.

"Illegal fishing is a serious problem, it's like organized crime, it's a multi-multi-billion dollar industry that both harms ecosystems and depletes resources, hurts honest fishermen and it's a threat to global food security," Laughren told Radio Canada International in a phone interview. "This one important way, a tool that we have to crack down on illegal fishing."

Laughren said he also wants to see Canada's continued support for new technologies designed to track fishing vessels globally, such as Global Fishing Watch.

New tool to track illegal fishing, foster sustainability

"And then if we can match that with things like boat-to-plate traceability, those are the key pillars to help track and crack down and force an end to illegal fishing," Laughren said.

While NATO allies have beefed up their cyber defences, the best guaranty of safeguarding Canada’s upcoming federal elections against possible Russian interference is the country’s free and independent press, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday.

Speaking to reporters at a Canadian military base near Ottawa, Stoltenberg said NATO has created a centre of excellence in Estonia where in April it conducted the world’s largest cyber security exercise designed to not only learn how to protect the alliance’s cyber infrastructure but also safeguard against interference with democratic institutions.

NATO could invoke collective defence if attacked in cyberspace, Stoltenberg warns

NATO wants to keep the Arctic an area of low tensions, Stoltenberg

The best defence against Russian disinformation campaigns is having a free and independent press that can understand and uncover attempts to spread fake news, Stoltenberg said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Canadian Forces Base in Petawawa.

EN_Interview_3-20190715-WIE30“What we need is critical journalists, who ask difficult questions, who check their sources, and that’s the best way to be able to protect the free and open democratic processes,” Stoltenberg said when asked what NATO can do to assist Canada in safeguarding its federal election in October against Russian interference.

“The best response to propaganda is not propaganda but the best response to propaganda is the truth, and free and independent press is an extremely important part of that,” he added.

Stoltenberg also praised Canada for boosting its defence spending, for its role in leading the NATO battle group in Latvia and the alliance’s non-combat mission in Iraq, which will be led by a female general for the first time.

Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg inspects the troops at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ont. on Monday, July 15, 2019, as he is joined by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. (Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will continue commanding a NATO training mission in Iraq until November 2020 to help build sustainable defence and security institutions, the Liberal government announced in June. Canada was originally intended to end its leadership role in the non-combat advisory and training mission this fall.

Brig.-Gen. Jennie Carignan, who will be promoted to the rank of Major-General, becoming the highest ranking woman in combat arms trade, will take command of the mission from Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin this autumn.

Canada extends and boosts its contribution to NATO mission in Latvia

Canada to head new NATO mission in Iraq

Canada and several other NATO nations are facing pressure from the Trump administration to increase defence spending to reach the goal of 2 per cent of defence expenditures as share of the GDP.

Trudeau said Canada has boosted its defence spending by nearly 70 per cent over the last four years.

Despite increases in defence spending by the Liberal government, Canada’s 2019 defence expenditures were projected to be about 1.27 per cent of its GDP, according to the latest statistics compiled by NATO.

Canada also falls significantly short of another key NATO yardstick when it comes to how much money from its defence budget goes to acquiring new equipment. In 2019, Canada was projected to spend 11.2 per cent of its defence budget on new equipment compared to the NATO goal of 20 per cent.

The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has added two international neo-Nazi groups to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist organizations as part of new measures to combat online hate, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced Wednesday.

Blood & Honour and Combat 18, which have a presence in Canada, are the first far-right extremism groups to be included on Ottawa's terror list, Goodale said.

“This is an important step in Canada’s efforts to combat violent extremism in all forms,” Goodale said at a news conference in Regina, Saskatchewan.

“It will help facilitate the laying of terrorism charges against perpetrators and supporters of terrorism and it will also help block the flow of financial resources to terrorist groups when such groups use Canada’s financial system.”

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According to the government list of terrorist entities, Blood & Honour (B&H) is an international neo-Nazi network whose ideology is derived from the National Socialist doctrine of Nazi Germany.

While B&H mostly deals with propaganda, notably by organizing concerts to galvanize supporters and recruit new ones, Combat 18 (C18) represents the armed wing of the movement and has conducted attacks, including bombings and murder, in North America and across Europe.

The number 18 in the group's name stands for Adolf Hitler and corresponds to the numerical position of the letters "A" and "H" in the alphabet.

In January 2012, four B&H members in Tampa, Florida, were convicted of the 1998 murder of two homeless men who were killed because the group considered them “inferior,” according to the federal list.

In February 2012, members of B&H and C18 firebombed a building occupied mostly by Romani families, including children, in Aš, Czech Republic.

B&H was founded in the United Kingdom in 1987 and grew during the 1990s, establishing branches throughout Europe by the end of the decade.

B&H established a fully-fledged Canadian operation in 2010.

Three other groups linked to the Iranian regime — Al-Ashtar Brigades (AAB), Fatemiyoun Division (FD) and Harakat al-Sabireen (HaS) — also have been added to the list.

Goodale also announced $1 million in funding for a United Nations initiative called Tech Against Terrorism, which helps the global information technology industry tackle terrorist exploitation of its tech and supports smaller companies in protecting their users and reputations.

The money will be used to create a digital repository that will notify smaller social media and Internet companies when new terrorist content is detected to help them in quickly removing it, Goodale said.

With files from CBC News

Washington and Tehran have reached a dangerous impasse as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to obliterate parts of Iran if it attacked “anything American,” with Iranian officials calling White House actions “mentally retarded,” says a Canadian expert on Middle East politics.

Trump on Monday signed an executive order imposing sanctions against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior figures, with punitive measures against Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expected later this week.

The moves came after Iran shot down a U.S. drone on June 20 and Trump called off a retaliatory air strike minutes before impact, saying too many people would have been killed. It would have been the first time the United States had bombed the Islamic Republic in four decades of mutual hostility.

On Tuesday, however, Trump tweeted: “Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”

Bessma Momani, Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, said the latest flare-up in deeply personal attacks is indicative of the escalation between the U.S. and Iran.

“The Iranians obviously want to get relief from the international sanctions,” Momani said in a phone interview.

“At the moment 80 per cent of the country is under economic sanctions, people are struggling, the regime is hurting and all of that is basically pushing them to try and hit, not perhaps the Americans directly, because they are smart enough not to do that, but to provoke the U.S.”

(click to listen to the full interview with Bessma Momani)

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A game of chicken?

FILE - In this Thursday, June 13, 2019 file photo, an oil tanker is on fire in the sea of Oman. A series of attacks on oil tankers near the Persian Gulf has ratcheted up tensions between the U.S. and Iran -- and raised fears over the safety of one of Asia’s most vital energy trade routes, where about a fifth of the world’s oil passes through its narrowest at the Strait of Hormuz. T(AP Photo/ISNA, File)

Provoking the U.S. includes everything from hitting oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, through which up to one-fifth of world’s oil shipments pass, to shooting down a U.S. spy drone, which the Iranians claim was in their international waters, Momani said.

“It’s really a way of trying to hit the Americans but not directly and not militarily in a way that would escalate matters, but in their mind hopefully to induce them to negotiate a way out of the sanctions,” she said. “Of course we see the reverse happening with the Americans: they are pushing for even more sanctions.”

In a televised address on Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the new sanctions against Khamenei would have no practical impact because the top cleric had no assets abroad.

Rouhani, a pragmatist who won two elections on promises to open Iran up to the world, said the White House’s actions were “mentally retarded” - an insult that other Iranian officials have used in the past about Trump, but a departure from Rouhani’s own comparatively measured tone over the years.

Crippling sanctions

President Donald Trump speaks before signing an executive order to increase sanctions on Iran, in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, June 24, 2019, in Washington. Trump is accompanied by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, left, and Vice President Mike Pence. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

The United States has imposed crippling financial sanctions against Iran since last year when Trump withdrew from a 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers under which it curbed its nuclear program and won a removal of sanctions in return.

Human rights activists in Canada say they welcome new guidelines for Canadian diplomats working abroad aimed at enabling the work of human rights defenders around the world by ensuring their safety and security.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, announced Monday the launch of Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders.

The guidelines offer practical advice for Canadian diplomats working around the world, and in Canada, to support human rights defenders who seek help.

“In many parts of the world, human rights defenders are at risk as a result of their courageous work and their willingness to speak truth to power,” Freeland said in a statement. “Canada and the international community need to be strong supporters of these brave individuals.”

Human rights defenders must be able to act freely and without any interference, intimidation, abuse, threats, violence or reprisal, she added.

'Welcome first step'

Jackie Hansen, major campaigns and women’s rights campaigner with Amnesty International Canada, said the guidelines update a series of recommendations that were issued by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016.

The new guidelines include some stronger details about the expectations of Canadian diplomats to support human rights defenders all around the world, Hansen told Radio Canada International.

“This is so very needed right now because human rights defenders are increasingly under attack all around the world,” Hansen said. “They are subject to smear campaigns, they’re being criminalized, they are subject to arbitrary detention and to violence.”

(click to listen to the full interview with Jackie Hansen)

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Jacqueline Hansen is Amnesty International Canada’s Major Campaigns and Women’s Rights Campaigner. Her work covers a wide range of human rights concerns in Canada and internationally. (Courtesy: Amnesty International Canada)

Knowing that Canada is stepping up its support for these activists is “incredibly welcome,” she said.

Harassed, marginalized and murdered

According to Front Line Defenders Global Analysis 2018, 321 human rights defenders in 27 countries were targeted and killed for their work in 2018.

More than three-quarters of these were defending land, environmental or Indigenous peoples’ rights, often in the context of extractive industries and mega projects.  More than 80 per cent of those killed had previously received a specific death threat.

“Now, that’s only activists who were murdered,” Hansen said.

In addition, thousands of activists around the world have been harassed, marginalized because of their work, and forced to flee the countries of their origin, she said.

“As populism is rising around the world, the space for civil society to peacefully advocate for basic human rights protections is getting smaller and smaller,” Hansen said. “And the activists who continue to do this work to expose human rights violations, and promote protection and respect for human rights are incredibly and increasingly at risk.”

But even in this context some forms of human rights activism are much more riskier than others, she added.

“We know that women’s rights defenders, LGBTI rights defenders, Indigenous rights defenders because of their multiple and intersecting identities are often targeted and at risk of human rights violations both because of who they are and the rights they are defending,” Hansen said.

For Canada’s new guidelines to be effective in helping to protect and support human rights defenders, they will need to be accompanied by a comprehensive implementation plan and increased Canadian funding going directly to human rights defenders and th...

When faced with an existential threat, the humanity will rally together despite geopolitical rivalries and political tensions between superpowers.

That’s the main lesson of a comparative study published in the journal Polar Record, by Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.

The article, titled Cold, dark, and dangerous: international cooperation in the Arctic and space, compares Russian–Western cooperation in the Arctic and space, despite ongoing tensions in Ukraine, Syria and Venezuela.

Whether its climate change or the threat of a potentially devastating asteroid collision, the history of Arctic and space exploration has taught us that countries would come together and put aside their differences, Byers told Radio Canada International.

“What my research shows is that when the going gets really tough, when things are really dangerous, countries will cooperate,” Byers said.

(click to listen to the full interview with Michael Byers)

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Extreme environments

A Canadian snowmobile rides along the Arctic ice in March of 2007 as part of annual Canadian Forces military exercises called Operation Nunalivut (Dianne Whelan/The Canadian Press)

The Arctic and space are remote, extreme environments, where human activity is dangerous and expensive, and these factors seem to push towards international cooperation, said Byers.

His interest in the subject was sparked when he realized that despite spiking tensions between Russia and the West following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, international cooperation in the Arctic continued almost unabated, Byers said.

“And then I noticed that Russian rockets were being used to carry American, European and Canadian astronauts to the International Space Station, which suggested that cooperation in space was also continuing,” Byers said.

'Militarized but not substantially weaponized'

In this photo taken on Wednesday, April 3, 2019, a Russian solder stands guard as Pansyr-S1 air defense system on the Kotelny Island, part of the New Siberian Islands archipelago located between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea, Russia. (Vladimir Isachenkov/AP Photo)

The paper identifies eight different factors that seem to be contributing to the ongoing Russian-Western cooperation in both the Arctic and in space.

“One of the commonalities between the Arctic and space is that both regions are militarized but not substantially weaponized,” Byers said.

“In other words, both the Arctic and space are used heavily by militaries for surveillance and for communication, and sometimes for the transportation of weapons, but significant weapons systems are not actually based there.”

While nuclear submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles prowl under the Arctic ice and strategic bombers regularly patrol the region, they are not permanently based there, he said.

“And in space we have literally hundreds of military satellites, providing communications and surveillance, and even targeting for advanced militaries,” Byers said, “but as far as we know, there are no anti-satellite weapons based in space nor is space used for the deployment of weapons systems aimed at the surface of the planet.”

This commonality reflects the fact that weaponizing these regions would be extremely expensive, he said.

“It would be a major diversion away from the military investments and deployments that Russia and Western countries do elsewhere in the world,” Byers said.

Reliance on 'soft law'

The heads of the eight Arctic nations’ coast guards take part in the Arctic Coast Guard Forum Academic Roundtable at Coast Guard base Boston, June 9, 2016.

The world’s oceans could lose nearly one-sixth of their fish and other marine life by the end of the century if global warming continues on its current path, a new study says.

Every degree Celsius that the world’s oceans warm, the total mass of sea animals is projected to drop by five per cent, according to a comprehensive computer-based study by an international team of marine biologists published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And that does not include effects of fishing.

“What we find is that with the expected climate change under the ‘business as usual scenario’ we are looking into a 17 per cent or more decrease in the ocean biomass at the end of this century,” said study co-author William Cheung, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia.

(click to listen to the full interview with William Cheung)

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While warmer water is the biggest factor, climate change also produces oceans that are more acidic and have less oxygen, which also harms sea life, Cheung said.

Impact beyond marine life

If the world’s greenhouse gas emissions stay at the present rate, that means a 17 per cent loss of biomass — the total weight of all the marine animal life — by the year 2100, according to Tuesday’s study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (iStock)

Oceans are crucial for humanity, he said.

“We’re connected to oceans with all aspects of our life,” Cheung said.

The decrease in the abundance of marine life in the oceans will have major impacts not only on the on coastline communities but also on communities far away from the oceans, he said.

However, the negative changes are expected to hit hardest the tropics, Cheung said.

“What we find is that across the tropical oceans, those that are closer to the equator, we see a widespread and large decrease in the animal biomass,” Cheung said. “And that’s because in those areas we’re seeing a particular decrease in availability of food for marine organisms and some of the organisms are particularly sensitive to temperatures as well.”

We’re already experiencing some of the impacts of ocean warming on particular species, he said.

For example, Atlantic cod off Canada’s and the U.S. East Coast is one of the species negatively affected by rising ocean temperatures, Cheung said.

“We also know that Pacific salmon here on the British Columbia coast some of the decrease in their abundance is also related to the warming waters in the oceans and rivers,” Cheung said.

Overfishing in the world’s oceans can further exacerbate the problem, he added.

Reducing carbon emissions is the way to go

The Syncrude plant at Ft McMurray, Alberta. Cutting carbon emissions is the only way to mitigate the impact of climate change for the world's oceans, scientists say.(Jason Franson/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

But if the world reduces carbon pollution, losses can be limited to only about five per cent, the study said.

“If we can commit to a low-carbon emissions pathway, then we can substantially reduce the impacts we’re projecting for marine life in this century,” Cheung said.

“For example, with our study we project a three to four-times decrease in the impacts on marine life if we are able to go with a low carbon emissions pathway, that is close to what the international community committed to under the Paris Agreement, which tried to limit global warming to below 1.5 degree Celsius relative to preindustrial levels.”

With files from The Associated Press

Human rights groups are sounding the alarm over the world’s “most neglected displacement crisis” unfolding in western Cameroon, where government forces and pro-government militias are locked in a deadly spiral of violence targeting the West African country’s anglophone minority.

"The international community is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the crisis in Cameroon," the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Jan Egeland, said in a report issued on Tuesday.

"Brutal killings, burned-down villages and massive displacement have been met with deafening silence."

Two regions in Cameroon are in the grip of an armed campaign by English-speaking militants seeking independence from the francophone-majority country.

On Oct. 1 2017, they declared the creation of the "Republic of Ambazonia," covering the two English-speaking regions incorporated into post-independence Cameroon in 1961.

The declaration went largely unnoticed outside Cameroon, and "Ambazonia" -- named after a bay at the mouth of the Douala River -- has been recognised by no-one.

Violent crackdown

Cameroonian elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) members patrol the abandoned village of Ekona near Buea in the anglophone southwest region, Cameroon Oct. 4, 2018. (Zohra Bensemra/REUTERS)

The government responded with a brutal crackdown, and the separatists in turn have mounted a campaign of attacks on state buildings, shooting and kidnappings.

According to the International Crisis Group think tank, 1,850 people have been killed, while more than 530,000 people have been forced from their homes, according to UN figures.

A report by the Cameroon-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (CHRDA), and the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, accused the armed forces of conducting "a deliberate, violent campaign against civilian populations."

Pearl Eliadis, a Canadian human rights lawyer based in Montreal and a co-author of the report, entitled Cameroon's Unfolding Catastrophe, said Cameroon is now the sixth largest source of displaced persons in the world.

Many are fleeing violence as a result of raids on villages and surrounding areas. Men, women, and children have found refuge in forests where they lack hygiene, health services, sanitation, shelter, and food, Eliadis said.

(click to listen to the full interview with Pearl Eliadis)

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The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in January 2019 that 1.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

“We are not exaggerating when we say this is a human rights catastrophe,” Eliadis said in a phone interview with Radio Canada International.

Around a fifth of Cameroon's population of 24 million are English-speakers.

Honrne Waba, 40, who has fled the northwestern village of Njinikom because of violence cooks in the courtyard of the house where she is staying in Yaounde, Cameroon, Oct. 3, 2018. (Zohra Bensemra/REUTERS)

Resentment has long festered at perceived discrimination at the hands of the francophone majority in education, law and the economy.

In recent years, growing demands for autonomy or a return to Cameroon's federal structure were rejected by President Paul Biya, prompting radicals to gain the ascendancy in the anglophone movement.

“Those who have been engaged in criminal activity need to be prosecuted, yes, but that does not in any way excuse barring access to humanitarian aid,” Eliadis said.

“The existence of a separatist element does not in any way excuse the government from activities like razing villages, sending soldiers in in reprisal attacks,

The Liberal government accepts the finding of a national commission of inquiry that the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls across Canada in recent decades amount to an act of "genocide," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.

But Trudeau also urged Canadians to focus on solutions to the ongoing crisis rather than dwell on the past or spend their energy on debates over the definition of genocide.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which presented its final report Monday, found that Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or to go missing than members of any other demographic group in Canada — and 16 times more likely to be slain or to disappear than white women.

Canada complicit in ‘race-based genocide’ against Indigenous women and girls: report

The inquiry report described the deaths and disappearances as “a race-based genocide.”

“We accept the findings of the commissioners that it was genocide,” Trudeau told reporters in Vancouver.

“But our focus is going to be, as it must be, on the families, on the communities that have suffered such loss, on the systems that have repeatedly failed Indigenous women and girls across this country.”

Trudeau said his government will present an action plan in coming months to deal with recommendations made in the report.

'A race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples'

Lorelei Williams, second left, whose cousin Tanya Holyk was murdered by serial killer Robert Pickton and aunt Belinda Williams went missing in 1978, wipes away tears while seated with Rhiannon Bennett, from left to right, Sophie Merasty and Summer Rain Bentham, after responding to the report on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, along with other Indigenous women and allies in Vancouver, on Monday June 3, 2019. (Darryl Dyck/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Entitled Reclaiming Power and Place, the report, presented at an emotional ceremony at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, comes with 231 individual “Calls for Justice” – recommendations directed at governments, institutions, social service providers, industries and all Canadians.

“The truths shared in these National Inquiry hearings tell the story – or, more accurately, thousands of stories – of acts of genocide against First Nations, Inuit and Métis women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual) people,” the report says.

“This violence amounts to a race-based genocide of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, which especially targets women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.”

The report describes Canada as a country at war, where “Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people are under siege.”

Thousands of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA have been lost to the “Canadian genocide” to date, the report says.

Is it a genocide?

Commissioners Marion Buller (left) and Commissioner Michele Audette prepare the official copy of the report for presentation to the government during ceremonies marking the release of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women report in Gatineau, Monday June 3, 2019. (Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The inquiry’s finding of genocide sparked a debate over the use of the term.

Retired Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, who oversaw the 1994 UN mission in Rwanda that failed to prevent that country's genocide, told CBC News he has "a problem" with how the inquiry used the word.

"My definition of genocide, I read it very deliberately at the start of the Rwandan genocide, and it was a deliberate act of a government to exterminate deliberately, and by force and directly,