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One year later, only half of Pickton inquiry recommendations complete or underway

Pig farmer Robert Pickton was convicted of six murders in 2007. Investigators have said the remains or the DNA of 33 women were found on his farm in Port Coquitlam.

The horror of serial-killer Robert Pickton's bloody crimes has receded little in the decade since his arrest.

The suburban Vancouver pig farmer is serving a life sentence for murdering and dismembering six women he picked up on the city's seedy Downtown Eastside, but he's thought to have killed dozens more before he was finally caught.

The outrage over botched and initially half-hearted police efforts to find the person preying on the poor and drug-addicted women, many of them aboriginal, yielded an inquiry headed by former B.C. attorney general and Appeal Court-judge Wally Oppal.

The inquiry uncovered systematic police failures that allowed Pickton to remain at large, notably the negative attitude towards the women, mostly drug-addicted prostitutes. If they hadn't been denizens of the Downtown Eastside, it's likely police would have done more to investigate their disappearances.

The Missing Women Commission's report last November made 65 recommendations aimed at preventing a repeat the mistakes that left Pickton free to kill for years.

[ Related: Pickton inquiry report released amid torrent of criticism ]

Just under a year later, The Canadian Press reports the B.C. government has implemented or started to implement only 28 of the 56 that fall within its jurisdiction.

The province issued a status report this week on its initiatives so far.

"The cases of women who were murdered or are missing will not be forgotten," Attorney General Suzanne Anton wrote in a forward to the report.

"This was a tragedy for the families and friends of these women and for our province. Our opportunity now is to continue to make changes to help ensure something like this never happens again."

Progress is being made, she said, in the way police investigate such crimes, while governments at all levels are working to reduce violence against vulnerable women.

Oppal played down the pace at which the government was moving on his recommendations.

"I'm as impatient as anyone else, having lived with this for a better part of three years, but I'm trying to change a system that's been in operation for a long time," he told CP.

"Change, if it's going to be meaningful and significant change, doesn't come as quickly as some of us would like to see. I'd like to see it being done quicker, but on the other hand, you have to be realistic about it."

[ Related: Vancouver police, RCMP insist they acted reasonably in Pickton case ]

CP noted the province moved quickly to fulfil Oppal's urgent recommendation to boost funding for the WISH drop-in centre on the Downtown Eastside, which serves sex workers.

It also acted on Oppal's recommendation to appoint an adviser to oversee implementation of the report and work with the Downtown Eastside community, First Nations and murder victims' families. However that appointee, former B.C. lieutenant governor Steven Point, resigned in May has hasn't been replaced.

One urgent recommendation that remains unfulfilled is providing transportation for women – mostly aboriginal – who hitchhike along Highway 16, in the B.C. Interior. It's been dubbed the Highway of Tears because women regularly are killed or murdered.

A number of other recommendations were not mentioned in the status report, CP said.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark reaffirmed the government's commitment to implement all of Oppal's recommendations but pleaded for patience.

"We're trying to get, as quickly as we can, to fulfilling all of those recommendations, which we said we would do," she told reporters Wednesday, according to CP.

"These problems have been going on for years and years and years. I think it's fair to expect that a durable solution will take a little bit of time."

[ Related: Bobby Jack Fowler Highway of Tears investigation stalled ]

Critics were not sympathetic.

"I think they have failed to address many of the recommendations coming out of the missing women inquiry, and I don't see that this report has in any way shown us how they're going to move forward," NDP women's critic Maurine Karagianis told CP.

"I would also hope that the next time they put out a progress report, they've demonstrated real progress."

Lawyer Jason Gratl, who represented community interests at the inquiry, told CP he interprets the status report as an admission of failure.

"Reading between the lines, the report admits that the Oppal recommendations, save for the funding for the (WISH drop-in centre), have not been implemented," said Gratl, who's suing Pickton, the Vancouver police and RCMP on behalf of the children of six women whose DNA or remains were found on his farm.

"Some of recommendations, they say they're working on, but very few details are offered. In some cases, the province is ignoring them entirely."

Whatever the final report card on Oppal's recommendation shows, the push to reduce the threat to vulnerable women likely won't diminish.

First Nations leaders have been demanding a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women across Canada, a move endorsed by the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people during his visit to Canada last month.

“I concur that a comprehensive and nationwide inquiry into the issue could help ensure a co-ordinated response and the opportunity for the loved ones of victims to be heard and would demonstrate a responsiveness to the concerns raised by the families and communities affected by this epidemic," James Anaya, an American human rights lawyer, said according to CP.