Families want inquiry reboot
Relatives push for MMIWG commissioners to step down, say voices aren’t being heard
WINNIPEG— Cries from frustrated families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls grew louder Wednesday as advocates in different parts of the country called for a reboot of the study following the resignation of a Métis commissioner.
Bridget Tolley, who has spent 16 years searching for answers in the death of her mother, Gladys, said she was about to meet with members of the inquiry at a Toronto hotel when she learned Marilyn Poitras, one of five commissioners named last summer by the Liberal government, resigned from her position.
The focus of the meeting was an open letter released by a coalition of advocates in May who argued the commission needed to shift its approach and suggested it was in “serious trouble.”
Yet, there was no mention of Poitras’ departure during the discussion, Tolley said in an interview Wednesday.
“We waited for them to bring it up but they didn’t,” she said. “We all knew about it, too.”
Tolley and a number of others want a major overhaul of the two-year $53.8-million study designed to examine the root causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls.
Beverley Jacobs, a former president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, said she was supportive of the inquiry in the beginning but doesn’t have it in her to back something that may cause harm to families.
“Why can’t the rest of the commissioners accept that this isn’t working and that they really need to take a look at themselves and understand that there’s no trust, and if there is, there’s very, very little from very few families?” she said.
In Winnipeg, advocates called for the remaining four commissioners to step down.
“We think that it would be in the best interests of the Indigenous women of Canada that the current commissioners be brave and . . . step down,” said Sandra Delaronde, cochair of a coalition of Manitoba relatives of missing and murdered women. “The national inquiry, in its current form, is not hearing the voices, is not inviting the consultation . . . of the families and those that work on a daily basis with families.”
Delaronde said families don’t want the inquiry scrapped, but changes are required, including new commissioners who are related to victims or who have worked closely with victims’ families.
Betty Rourke, whose sister and daughter were killed in separate incidents decades apart, said she watched footage of the inquiry’s hearing in Whitehorse and was shocked.
“It’s almost like you’re on trial there,” she said. “We don’t want to have to be sworn in, you know? Because we’re going to tell the truth.”
The coalition said it wants a separate commissioner for Manitoba.
Lead commissioner Marion Buller said Tuesday it will be up to the federal government to decide if a replacement for Poitras will be named, adding the commission remains focused on its “tremendously important work.”
Métis National Council president Clément Chartier, who said his mother was “viciously violated” and beaten to death in1961, wants a quick decision on whether another commissioner is required.