Canada’s probe into fate of indigenous women stalls

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada

Canada’s national inquiry into thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women has been bogged down by federal government red tape, the inquiry’s commissioners said in an interim report released Wednesday.

The report is a searing indictment of the Liberal government, claiming it took eight months to set up offices. In addition, requests from staff for materials to do the job were subjected to long delays.

“We have faced several obstacles from a bureaucratic and procedural and policy perspective in getting our national inquiry up and running and mobilized all across Canada,” Marion Buller, head of the inquiry’s five commissioners, said at a news conference.

The inquiry was established Sept. 1, 2016, to look into what the Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimated to be 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous women between 1980 and 2012. But the Native Women’s Association of Canada said in 2016 the number could be as high as 4,000.

The commissioners travel across the country to listen to details of families and friends of missing and murdered indigenous women.

Buller, British Columbia’s first female Indigenous judge, indicated the inquiry is unlikely to finish its fact gathering by a Nov. 1, 2018, deadline.

“We need enough time to do the job properly, to hear from families and survivors who want to speak to us, to hear from institutions about their policies and procedures, and to hear from experts in human rights and other topics,” she said.

The interim report suggested the federal and provincial governments establish a national police task force to whom the inquiry could refer families to reopen cases and review investigations.

Buller said at the beginning of the inquiry she would insist on a review of police conduct and “investigate the investigators”.

At the news conference, commissioners said those who have appeared before the inquiry say what indigenous groups have claimed all along – that racism may have played a part in investigations being less than thorough.

“Indigenous women and girls are suffering violence,” Buller said. “That somehow has become normalized, and that is a national tragedy.”

The Trudeau government allotted CAN$53.8 million over two years for the inquiry.