One chance to get inquiry into murdered, missing Indigenous women right, says advocate

[Dawn Lavell-Harvard, Native Women’s Association of Canada president, speaks while Shelley McIvor of the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action listens on Jan. 31, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang]

The president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada is urging those awaiting the public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women to be patient.

Some Aboriginal leaders expressed frustration this week that details of the inquiry have yet to be released.

Others are angry that preliminary terms of reference suggest the inquiry will not focus on police conduct in the more than 1,200 cases of missing or murdered indigenous women across the nation.

But Dawn Lavell-Harvard says the process is still unfolding and it’s too soon to pass judgment.

“It’s important to do this right because we get one chance at this,” she tells Yahoo Canada News. “It’s more important to get it right than to meet a particular deadline.”

The federal government announced the inquiry in December.

Lavell-Harvard is frustrated that the terms of reference were leaked to media this week, because she says it’s premature.

“We’re so disappointed that this leak has created a lot of confusion and disruption and disrespected families. This was supposed to be a families-first process,” she says.

“It’s disrupted this entire process midstream.

“It’s still being worked on.”

At the annual general gathering of the Assembly of First Nations this week, regional chief Shane Gottfriedson said the launch of the inquiry is dragging on.

But Wally Oppal, the former B.C. attorney general and judge who presided over the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in that province, says the federal government faces many challenges in organizing such a sweeping inquiry.

“This is a very difficult issue and what we need to do is be inclusive and get the advice of the Aboriginal communities that have long been victims of injustices and violence and do this thing fairly.”

The federal inquiry should draw on previous reports and investigations, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and his own, completed in 2012.

The B.C. inquiry, which stemmed from the murders committed by serial killer Robert Pickton, included 93 days of testimony and nearly 100 witnesses.

Oppal says it was the most difficult thing he’s ever done, in a long career that included dozens of homicides as a special prosecutor, many years as a judge and five public inquiries.

“At the root of this is poverty, drug addiction, alcoholism, violence against women and education and all those social issues that render vulnerable women susceptible to unlawful activities, most of all susceptible to violence,” he says.

“I think this inquiry that they’re doing now on a national level is attempting to address a lot of these issues.”

The preliminary terms of reference leaked to media suggest the national inquiry will not focus on police conduct and Oppal says that is understandable.

His own report looked very closely at police conduct in the Pickton investigation — and the conclusion was damning.

“It’s quite clear that the police didn’t pay attention to the women; didn’t pay attention to the families,” he says. “They, in fact, were insulting to many of the families.”

But to delve into police conduct on a national scale, in individual cases, would be unmanageable, he says.

“That can lead to an inquiry that will be endless,” he says.

“Inevitably what’s going to happen is the police are going to say that’s an ongoing investigation and we can’t say anything regarding an ongoing investigation and we can’t help the inquiry because it would be improper, legally, for us to do that.

“I’m not taking sides here as to who’s right and who’s wrong, but I can understand why the government is doing what it is doing.”

He also understands the frustration of those who want answers from police.

“I think it’s open for them to invite the police to ask them what are you doing? What are your policies? How do you intend on addressing these issues of systemic violence? That’s what they should do.”