Feds to look at oversight on MMIW cases
Missing and murdered Indigenous women inquiry urges national cop task force
Public Safety Canada will review a recommendation from the national inquiry mandated to examine violence against Indigenous women and girls to create an independent civilian-led body that could reopen cases or review investigations.
On Nov. 1, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released its highly anticipated 119-page interim report. One of the 10 recommendations asked the federal government to work with provinces and territories to create a national police task force that could assess or reopen cases, or review investigations.
The next day, Public Safety Canada said it would look at the inquiry’s recommendations.
In an earlier statement, a Public Safety Canada spokesperson said that processes are already in place to deal with the cases of missing and murdered women and girls. Karine Martel said the MMIWG inquiry is mandated to refer families to provincial or territorial police authorities if and when a family might want information about an ongoing or past investigation, prosecution or inquest. Martel also noted that Justice Canada supplemented its victim fund to provide culturally responsive services to family members.
When asked about creating a national cold-case unit that could prioritize cases, Martel said that unsolved cases are not considered “cold” and that homicide and missing persons units work closely with one another to solve unsolved cases. The RCMP has established special units across the country to review these files.
Public Safety Canada — a federal department that, according to its website, deals with issues including national security, border strategies and emergency management — oversees the RCMP.
In a statement, the RCMP said while policing is within its purview, “the creation/implementation/ funding of a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency, pan-Canadian task force is not the RCMP’s decision to make.”
But many families and advocates of missing women have pleaded for years that a lack of trust and confi- dence in officials, such as police and coroners or medical examiners, means an oversight civilian body is needed.
“There are historical pieces that have created this mistrust or created the divide,” said Jennifer Lord, director of Violence Prevention and Safety at the Native Women’s Association of Canada, referring to the high incarceration rate of Indigenous people, racial profiling or simply being followed around in stores by security guards.
Ideally, advocates and family members say, this civilian body would be independent of the police and could investigate or re-examine solved, unsolved, unresolved or missing persons cases for family members. It would be an investigative agency and an avenue for family members to take their loved one’s case to, other than a police authority.
“They all protect themselves,” says Pamela Palmater — a Mi’kmaw lawyer and associate professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University — about Public Safety Canada’s statement about not creating an independent civilian body for family members.
“Public Safety protects police and national security agencies, and police unions protect the police officers. The last thing they want exposed is significant problems in police investigations and police conduct.”
In May 2014, the RCMP reported 1,181 of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and 225 unsolved cases of missing or murdered Indigenous females. Advocates and family members say the number of the missing and murdered is as high as 4,000.
This past summer, the inquiry said they will look into police conduct, refer information about cases to police authorities for police to re-examine and set up a forensic team to review police files.