Among the government’s top priorities, he said, will be the creation of a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.
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The federal government under Prime Minister Trudeau is moving quickly to honour campaign promises made to Canadians during the election.
Mr Trudeau promised increased funding for programming and a review of laws on indigenous peoples.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he’ll be disappointed if the Liberals don’t make a firm commitment today to a national inquiry to investigate the phenomenon of missing and murdered aboriginal women.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be looking for a fresh start with Canada’s indigenous people on Tuesday when he addresses a group of First Nations leaders.
Last year’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police report said aboriginal women represent 4.3 percent of the total female population but that 16 percent of all female homicide victims are from First Nations, as Canada’s indigenous people are called.
An elder stands beside Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he was presented with a blanket at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly in Gatineau.
“The extent of violence against Indigenous women and girls is not an indigenous problem”, Wilson-Raybould, herself an indigenous woman, said.
“We know it’s time to end the violence, we know it’s time to end that violence in our communities and amongst our families and communities”.
Almost 1,200 indigenous women who were murdered or went missing between 1980 and 2012, according to an RCMP report released a year ago.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Minister Bennett said the national inquiry’s first step would be consulting with families, followed by national aboriginal organizations and service workers.
The Canadian government forced more than 150,000 First Nation children to attend these schools from the 19th Century until the mid-1990s.
For this reason, we will continue fundraising for our own independent First Nations-led inquiry process that will focus on Ontario families and communities.
“In partnership with Indigenous communities, the provinces, territories, and other vital partners, we will also fully implement the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, starting with the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The victims deserve justice, their families an opportunity to be heard and to heal”, Trudeau said in prepared remarks for a speech to the Assembly of First Nations.
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“There’s a lot of stories that need to be told and the circumstances are unique because they’re from different territories and from different tribes”, said Simard-Chicago.
