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'We want justice': Aunt of Nadine Machiskinic appeals to public at AFN meeting

'We want justice': Aunt of Nadine Machiskinic appeals to public at AFN meeting

A two-year battle with authorities investigating the death of Nadine Machiskinic has frustrations boiling over for her aunt.

Delores Stevenson spoke at the Assembly of First Nations' annual general meeting in Regina on Wednesday evening.

Machiskinic, an Indigenous woman and mother of four, died after she fell 10 storeys down a laundry chute at the Delta Hotel in Regina on Jan. 10, 2015.

It took 60 hours after Machiskinic's death for authorities to begin investigating. By then, the area where Machiskinic had been found within the hotel had been cleaned by staff.

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Machiskinic was spotted getting into an elevator with two men shortly before she fell down the laundry chute. It would be an entire year before police began looking for the men. They have not been located.

"We want justice for Nadine and we still don't have answers. We're on an ongoing lawsuit with the Delta Hotel," Stevenson said.

Stevenson has called for a boycott of the hotel.

Earlier this year, the jury for the coroner's inquest into Machiskinic's death concluded her manner of death is "undetermined." That's contrary to the finding of a chief coroner, who concluded it was an accident.

At the time, Stevenson called for the police investigation to be reopened.

Stevenson said Wednesday she wants answers after hotel records, which could have potentially helped in the investigation, were incomplete when provided to police.

"Nobody thought to consider anything except the stereotypes," said Stevenson, who felt her niece was disrespected and disregarded as a drunk Indigenous woman who wandered into the chute.

Regina police chief Evan Bray has said there were mistakes made in the case but was adamant Machiskinic's Indigenous identity was not a factor in the delay.

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