The scrutiny included a stinging rebuke by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, which released a report a year ago concluding the disproportionate amount of violence indigenous women face in Canada – including the high number of deaths and disappearances – constitutes “grave violations” of their human rights.
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The number of missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada has not escaped the attention of members of the worldwide human rights community, who will keep a close eye on a national inquiry they say is long overdue.
Chief commissioner Marion Buller, who is a judge in British Columbia, is a member of the Mistawasis First Nation, while fellow commissioner Marilyn Poitras is a Harvard Law School graduate who teaches at the University of Saskatchewan’s college of law.
The commission is empowered to compel witnesses to testify, as a court is.
The federal government has earmarked $40 million over two years for the inquiry, but Bennett has said this is a placeholder budget and stressed the need to get the process “right”.
“No-one is going to care because we are going to focusing on a national inquiry that is costing us 53 million dollars and 86 cents”. On Wednesday, the federal government released the details of a national inquiry into the disturbing trend, and part of that plan includes the creation of family information liaison units tasked with addressing those long-standing concerns in a culturally appropriate way.
For example, NWAC observed that in the official description of the inquiry, “t$3 here is no mention of the role of the provinces and territories and yet we know that some of the systemic issues will require provincial discussions, namely police services and the child welfare system”.
Smith said when her sister, Claudette Osborne, went missing from Winnipeg in 2008, the police gave them little more than a file number. “Families who say the death of their loved one was called a suicide or an accident or an overdose, as opposed to a murder-those patterns are the kinds of things the commissioners will have to look into”, she said, adding that having both sides “lawyer up” is not the best use of the commissioners’ time.
The commission is independent of government and will choose how to collect its evidence, but the families of victims have asked that it not hold courtroom-style hearing in big cities. One of those many cases is the unsolved murder of Amber Tuccaro.
The federal government has appointed five commissioners to lead the public inquiry, which will begin its work on September 1.
“We will take action together to reach the goal to eliminate, as much as we can, violence against indigenous women and girls”, said Jody Wilson-Raybould, Cananda’s justice minister and attorney general. “But it will also be the unflinching gaze needed to create a country where all girls and women are equally safe”.
“The women were relentless”, Ms.
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“The national inquiry is an important step in our journey on reconciliation with indigenous peoples in Canada”, said Carolyn Bennett, Canadian Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, during a press conference on Wednesday. They were fighting for their families and they are still fighting for their families.
