“We had walks, we had meetings, we discussed, we looked so often”, Wolfe said through an interpreter. The call was traced to Grand Rapids, Man., six hours from the family home.
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Specifically, we heard that policing and child welfare systems need to be examined. Yet somehow her tragic death acted as a catalyst, producing a drum beat of demands from across Canada for an inquiry into Canada’s national shame of murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls. Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has stressed the need for the inquiry to be done properly, meaning the federal government is open to the possibility that the commissioners need more than two years to finish their work.
“Just because there are only a few number (of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls) here in the Atlantic, they’re not willing to put a commissioner or get a commissioner from this area?”
“It’s about time”, Patricia Doyle-Bedwell, an associate professor of Indigenous Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said in reaction to the federal government’s announcement. Families were asked to rate the quality of the police investigation in each case, on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being excellent. The average rating was 2.8.
And delivering recommendations that will effectively address the issue will not be easy.
Now she hopes the inquiry, announced to be starting on September 1, will not only help keep that progress going, but also remind everyone that the issue is still very much a current one.
“The Federal Inquiry is a step forward and we recognize the efforts to bring healing, closure, and a sense of security”.
“I’m glad the families’ calls have been answered, their efforts have come to fruition and that the inquiry is actually proceeding”, said Chantel Henderson, a member of Montreal’s Missing Justice solidarity collective.
Past inquiries have highlighted problems and laid out solutions, but Palmater says they haven’t all meant change. “Their lives matter and they’re not any less than anybody else”.
We know why our women are going missing. He and others have been combing the bottom of the Red River in Winnipeg with large hooks dangled off the backs of boats since 2015 as part of Drag the Red, an initiative dedicated to finding evidence that could help solve cases of missing or murdered people.
“A 2014 study by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found that almost 1,200 aboriginal women were murdered or went missing between 1980 and 2012”.
The five will hold sessions across Canada and will have the power to compel witnesses to testify and documents turned over to them, as well as listening to the stories of indigenous families who have suffered losses.
“We’re hoping we won’t have to wait three years and we won’t have to wait for the recommendations to take place”, she said.
Van Mackelbergh added that with the RCMP report on missing and murdered aboriginal women, a lot of issues were already addressed. 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.
“I can assure the indigenous population that the police will cooperate with all facets of the inquiry“.
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According to NPR, the investigation will begin at the beginning of next month, and will continue through 2018, with an estimated budget of $53.9 million Canadian dollars (more than $40 million U.S.).
