Suit seeks $600M from RCMP over probes
Mother of missing woman alleges police negligence in MMIW investigations
A proposed $600-million class action lawsuit has been launched by the mother of a missing Indigenous woman from Saskatchewan, alleging the RCMP has been systemically negligent in investigations into murdered and missing Indigenous women across Canada.
Dianne BigEagle, mother of Danita Faith BigEagle, is the named plaintiff in the proposed suit, filed Thursday in Regina by the Merchant Law Group. The action has not yet been certified and, while allegations have not been proven in court, her story is familiar.
BigEagle’s daughter went missing from Regina on Feb. 11, 2007, and “must be presumed to be dead,” reads the claim. BigEagle met with the RCMP more than 50 times and “seemed to listen” on a couple of occasions “but most of the time they did not write anything down and they did not seem to be paying any attention to her,” the suit alleges.
It also states that BigEagle, in a number of group meetings held by the RCMP, was with other families of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Born in 1984, her daughter, if alive, would be 34 today. BigEagle has been caring for her daughter’s two children.
The suit, filed in Federal Court, was brought on behalf of immediate and extended family of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. In the case of murders, the homicide must have been reported to the RCMP and remain unsolved. Missing women must have been gone for more than 30 days and the disappearance reported to the RCMP.
“The unacceptably high rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls is well documented and known both nationally and internationally and has drawn criticism from national and international human rights watchdogs,” reads the lawsuit. “These calls for action have been in practical effect ignored” by the RCMP.
Under a heading of “Systemic Negligence,” the lawsuit alleges that the members of the class have been “subjected to unnecessary and preventable mental anguish through the failures of the RCMP to adhere to RCMP duties, including a failure to properly investigate and prosecute the disappearances and murders of victims.”
The RCMP was not transparent, provided inadequate investigative training to officers and created or tolerated “attitudes of racism” which “created the stereotypical thinking that resulted in inadequate investigations,” the suit alleges. This created mistrust by Indigenous people, which “interfered” with investigations, the claim says, which says the issues are “ongoing” and breach the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
As a result, the proposed action claims class members have suffered and continue to suffer from depression, anxiety, posttraumatic disorder, suicidal ideation, loss of opportunity and loss of income.
The RCMP “defends its track record regarding these women and girls by painting them as being more vulnerable and at a disproportionately higher risk for exposure to these perils,” states the action. It cites RCMP reporting of stats on alcohol or drug consumption before the incident, which “ought to have been an irrelevant consideration.”
An RCMP spokesperson said late Thursday afternoon that the lawsuit had just been received and there had not been an opportunity to review it thoroughly, and that it was too early to address specifics.
Included in the suit are summaries of 36 “high profile” cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls from across the country, including Sharon Nora Jane Abraham, 39, from Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba. She was reported missing in British Columbia in 2004 and linked by forensic evidence to serial killer Robert Picton’s farm. No charges were laid in that case.
Tony Merchant, the lead lawyer on the claim, said the decision to launch the legal action against the RCMP now came after BigEagle and others dropped in on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women and Girls on its recent stop in Regina. BigEagle got the “real sense that this wasn’t going anywhere quickly,” said Merchant. “The inquiry coming to Regina just resulted in ‘enough is enough, this isn’t working.’ ”
BigEagle could not be reached Thursday.
Of the $600 million in damages being sought, $100 million is for punitive damages.
“We’re really asking the court to send a message to the RCMP and policing, generally, that they have to find methods that work, and we prove that what they are doing does not work, statistically,” said Merchant.
The next step for the suit will be collecting stories and plaintiffs, and certification, said Merchant, whose firm has launched class actions around residential schools and the 60s Scoop.