Canada’s newly elected Liberal government launched a much-awaited national public inquiry Tuesday into the hundreds of cases of murdered and missing aboriginal women across the country.
The RCMP found in 2014 nearly 1,200 documented cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls between 1980 and 2012.
A 2015 United Nations report found that young First Nations, Métis and Inuit women were five times more likely to die under violent circumstances than their non-aboriginal counterparts.
“The extent of violence against indigenous women and girls is not an indigenous problem, it’s not simply a woman’s issue, it is a national tragedy that requires an urgent and deliberate national response,” Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said at a press conference Tuesday on Parliament Hill.
“I am pleased to announce that the government of Canada is launching its first phase of the inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.”
Meeting families
As a first step, ministers will meet with the families of the murdered and missing aboriginal women in Ottawa with the goal of hearing their views on the design of the inquiry and what it needs to achieve, said Wilson-Raybould.
And over the next two months, they will hear from more families, other indigenous peoples, national aboriginal organizations and a range of front-line services workers and others, she said.
“This inquiry must find the balance between learning from our past, honouring those who we’ve lost, reviewing our present and making concrete actionable recommendations for our future,” said Wilson-Raybould.
Fighting back tears, Lorelei Williams, whose cousin’s DNA was found on serial killer Robert Pickton’s farm in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, and whose aunt is still missing, told CBC News she could hardly believe the long-awaited inquiry will finally happen.
“You know we’ve been fighting for this for so long and it’s got me very emotional,” said Williams who founded Butterflies and Spirit, a group of indigenous women who have used dance to raise awareness of missing and murdered aboriginal women. “Our families are suffering, they’ve been suffering and we’ve just been trying to fight for this.”
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said the first ‘design’ phase of the inquiry will determine the objectives, focus and parameters of the inquiry.
“This phase is about setting the tone for a collaborative inclusive process,” said Bennett. “It will also help to identify potential terms of reference for the inquiry, outline possible activities and participants, and potentially help identify the commissioners.”
To keep the families and the general Canadian public informed about the process, the government plans to create a special website, complete with background information, discussion guides and online surveys, said Bennett.
The first phase should take about two months or “as long as it takes to get it right,” said Bennett, adding she hopes to launch phase two, the actual inquiry, sometime in spring.
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