Days after a throne speech heralding a more transparent and responsive government, the Liberals made good on their election promise to hold an inquiry into the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women.
The inquiry will happen in two phases: in the first, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould says government will consult victims’ families, aboriginal organizations and front-line workers to determine what the inquiry needs to accomplish. The second phase, the inquiry itself, should be announced in the spring, said Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous Affairs.
While statistics are hard to come by, in 2014 the RCMP said there were nearly 1,200 documented cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls between 1980 and 2012. A 2015 report from the UN found indigenous women were five times more likely than non-aboriginals to die a violent death.
"The victims deserve justice, their families an opportunity to be heard and to heal. We must work together to put an end to this ongoing tragedy," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. The party’s platform put the cost of an inquiry at about $40 million over two years.
Wilson-Raybould said this report won’t simply sit on a shelf.
"Doing better requires openness and the ability to listen. We have heard this loudly and clearly, and we have heard that this cannot be just another report," she said.
In a written statement, AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde welcomed the announcement. "After years of denial and deflection, it is my hope we can make real strides in achieving justice for families and achieving safety and security for all our people.”
The CBA is also happy to finally see action taken on the file.
In a 2012 letter to then-Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and again in a 2013 resolution passed by CBA council, the CBA called on the government to do what it can to end the “intergenerational cycles of violence” against aboriginal women and call an inquiry into the issue.
In March 2014, then-Justice Minister Peter MacKay said “the biggest mistake that we could make on (the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women) would be to spend more time studying it.” Current Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose, however, says the Liberal government is doing the right thing.
And while there are those who argue that inquiry money could be better spent improving police forces and other services, it is safe to say that support for an inquiry that will expose the roots of the endemic problems that give rise to intergenerational cycles of violence, and offers realistic solutions, is widespread and strong.
“It is important that the Inquiry be comprehensive, properly funded, aimed at solutions and committed to the implementation of identified solutions,” says Aimée Craft, former chair of the Aboriginal Law Section.
“It must be responsive to the needs of families and communities that have and continue to suffer. It must also be able to consider the experiences of indigenous women and girls, their experience of systemic racism and aimed at preventing further and future harm. What one might look to as guiding principles for the inquiry include: assurances that all life will be viewed as equally valuable; that nothing in the experience of indigenous women and families will be excluded from the process and that the premises of continuing social inequality and colonialism will be acknowledged.”
“There's not going to be one easy fix," said Native Women’s Association of Canada president Dawn Lavell Harvard recently. "But because this is a systemic problem involving child welfare, the police forces, corrections, all of those institutions need to be reviewed."