If inquiry into fate of aboriginal women isn’t justified after death of Tina Fontaine, then when?

The death of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine, who was pulled from a Winnipeg river over the weekend and left a community reeling from the loss, has re-launched a contentious call for a public inquiry into the wave of aboriginal women who go missing or are murdered in Canada.

The call itself in not necessarily contentious, as the need for an inquiry has become all-too evident among those who are not in a position to launch the investigation.

The contention comes from the number of times Canadian First Nations, with the support of key officials and international human rights groups, have called for an inquiry and had those calls ignored.

Fontaine was reported missing on Aug. 9 and her death was confirmed over the weekend, when her body was pulled from the Red River. CBC News reports that she had previously run away from foster care. Police say they are treating her death as a homicide, but won't release details about how she died or whether she was sexually assaulted.

More than 1,000 people gathered in Winnipeg to focus on mourning her death, but elsewhere those outraged by the tragedy, another tragedy, were preparing to fight to stop the next one.

Fontaine's death prompted another call for the federal government to launch an inquiry into the spate of aboriginal women reported missing or found dead in Canada.

“This is a national disgrace, a national tragedy and a travesty of justice for Aboriginal women and is an issue that all Canadians have to take ownership of,” Michèle Audette, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, said in a statement.

“With the ever increasing number of missing and murdered Aboriginal girls and women, there is an obvious need for a National Public Inquiry - nothing else will do.”

This is the third time, at least, in the past year that the public has called for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.

In February, 26-year-old Loretta Saunders, an aboriginal woman from Labrador, was killed while in the process of writing a thesis on the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women.

The governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, as well as the opposition parties in both provinces, called for an inquiry to be held. Aboriginal groups held demonstrations in Ottawa and across the country, petitions were filed, pressure mounted. But the inquiry so many wanted never came.

An inquiry appears just as unlikely in this case and the response otherwise has been rather underwhelming.

The Canadian Press reports that the province's children's advocate will investigate Fontaine's death and whether social services failed her, as they do with any such case.

But the public may never know the result of such an investigation, with the final report being given only to Manitoba's medical examiner, the ombudsman and the minister of family services.

That may be the only answers anyone gets. Fontaine is not here to offer insight, her family is unable.

A Native Women's Association of Canada's fact sheet states that there are 582 cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women as of March 31, 2010. There have been more since, some estimates reach over 1,000.

No death is the same, but many of the circumstances are shared. It is in those circumstances where answers can be found, and through that understanding a plan can be formed.

The Native Women's Association of Canada continues to call for an inquiry. And they are not alone. The Canadian Human Rights Commission joined the call. A United Nations watchdog has previously expressed concern about the Canadian government's "strained" relationship with the country's First Nations, and called for an inquiry, estimating the number at nearly 1,200 aboriginal women murdered or missing in the past 30 years.

The Liberal Party of Canada has again urged the government to launch an inquiry. The NDP similarly called for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, calling Fontaine's death a national tragedy.

"There must be justice for this young woman and all missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Victims, families and communities deserve answers,” Status of Women critic Niki Ashton said in a statement.

The Conservative government, however, has declined to consider it in the past and are doing so again. Last year, amid a similar call, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said inquiries tend to go over time, over budget and the results have limited utility.

This time, Justice Minister Peter MacKay stated it was "time to take action, not to continue to study the issue." In short, the issue will be handled through justice programs and the national missing person's index.

When something has gone notably, fatally and systematically wrong, it is of course best to jump into action by doing the same things you have already been doing.

After all, it was only three months ago that the RCMP released statistics about the plight of aboriginal women, finding that while the make up only 4.3 per cent of the population, they account for 16 per cent of female homicides and 11.3 per cent of missing women.

There is a general sense that a national inquiry is a fool's errand, a waste of time or something that can be handled through less grandiose means. But federal inquiries hold an important place in our democracy. It is an official review, guaranteed a level of independence that cannot be hidden from the public.

Their intention is to establish the facts and set recommendations - a series of long-form fixes, not slapdash resolutions. Systematic problems can often only be matched by systematic solutions.

No one is opposing the notion that aboriginal women have historically received short shrift. They often battle through tough economic circumstances, and fight against a system that many argue is part of what keeps them down.

Canada doesn't need an inquiry to rehash of all that, but it certainly needs a plan on how to stop it. Piecemeal politics hasn't gotten the problem fixed so far. Without an inquiry, there is little faith a solution will be found.

Will we get answers, or is this just another aboriginal woman dead, whose fate was all-but preordained once the deck began stacking against her?

A 15-year-old girl found dead in the water. Is she enough? Are all the women that came before her enough?

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