But she survived, which gave the long-time Edmonton advocate a unique insight into the thousands of Indigenous women who have not survived in Canada.
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“We don’t want the commissioners sending out to one police agency to investigate something in their particular way and to another agency (where) they’ll investigate it in their way”, Weighill said.
Today, Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, along with Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Patty Hajdu, Minister of Status of Women, announced the five commissioners who will lead the Inquiry as well as the Terms of Reference for the National Inquiry.
“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”.
Though the federal government has launched the commission, each province has agreed to allow the commissioners to look at all jurisdictions, including whether local law enforcement or governments played a part. The team has the power to issue subpoenas, force witnesses to testify and it will make recommendations. The measures are created to ensure families of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls feel connected to the inquiry process as it proceeds.
A year later, it said 32 aboriginal women had been murdered and 11 more disappeared since it first reported on the issue.
Ending violence against Indigenous women and girls is a priority for our government.
It’s expected to be completed at the end of 2018.
According to reports by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, aboriginal women represent 4.3 percent of the total female population, but 16 percent of all female murder cases are from the country’s indigenous population.
“How well the inquiry can actually serve that goal is going to depend to a large degree on the co-operation that it receives from the provincial and territorial governments, from policing services – and questions remain about that”.
Even though everyone from police leaders to provincial and territorial governments to indigenous leaders have pledged to support the work of the inquiry, the challenge will be to let the chips fall where they may when the panel releases its findings and recommendations.
It is hoped some of that may may change with the announcement Wednesday that Canada’s federal government is handing over the reins of its long-awaited inquiry into Canada’s most enduring mystery-of-the-missing to five new commissioners.
Activists are also calling for an end to what they call “systemic racism”.
INTERNATIONAL: “IT’S BEGUN” (Jezebel, 8/3/16) – There will be a lot of international women’s sports news happening soon!
Williams, who works with women and victims of violence, said she’s not sure she’s ready to embrace this inquiry. “We know that the inquiry cannot undo the injustices that indigenous peoples have suffered over decades, but we can review what has happened in the past, reflect on our present circumstances and chart a path moving forward”.
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.
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Women are routinely oppressed and subjected to violence, she said.
