The federal government is preparing to mark the end of its work to shape the design and scope of the inquiry examining missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada.
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Speaking at a ceremony announcing the makeup of the inquiry at Canada’s Museum of History, Carolyn Bennett, the minister of Aboriginal Affairs, called on the commissioners to investigate the systemic causes of violence, “including racism, sexism and the sustained impact of colonialism”.
Pledging to do an “unflinching” examination of the root causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls, three federal ministers on August 3 announced who will sit on their long-awaited Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Woman and Girls.
The federal justice department is devoting $11.7 million over three years so that provinces and territories can establish family information liaison units within their existing victims services departments.
After years of delay, the federal government announced a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau has implemented one key promise of his manifesto and has ordered an investigation into the missing and murdered women, as well as the root causes of violence that has led to more than a thousand deaths.
A 2014 report and an update a year ago by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police identified 1,049 murdered and 172 missing aboriginal women between 1980 and 2012.
A National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls will get underway next month.
Indigenous women represent four percent of Canada’s population but 16 percent of homicide victims.
“We know that many reports sit on a shelf gathering dust”.
Advocacy group the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) noted that it has been calling for such an inquiry for over a decade as it praised the latest news.
Five commissioners will be responsible for carrying out the probe.
Buller was named to the provincial court bench in 1994 after a law career that included serving as commission counsel for the Cariboo-Chilcotin Justice Inquiry into how indigenous people are treated by the legal system. “Specifically, we heard that policing and child welfare systems need to be examined”, Bennett said, adding, “We do believe that this next phase will honourably reflect what we heard in the pre-inquiry”.
In particular, she is hopeful the inquiry will examine and address First Nations police services.
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Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde said he is confident chiefs will co-operate in the process, noting his organization has passed resolutions among its leaders to support the inquiry. The commission also includes Brian Eyolfson, a First Nations and human rights lawyer, Marilyn Poitras, a constitutional and Aboriginal law expert, Qajaq Robinson an Igloolik, Nunavut-born lawyer in Ottawa who is fluent in Inuktitut and Michèle Audette a long time Quebec activist and former president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Farther, in doing little to unpack Canada’s colonial legacy, which is embedded in the country’s institutions, the “focus is on healing and reconciliation, which downplays uncomfortable truths and hard decisions (that are required) to make change”.
