Missing, murdered women inquiry calls for justice system to review policies

OTTAWA — The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls is calling for considerable legal reforms, including that police services establish standardized protocols to ensure all cases are thoroughly investigated.

It’s also calling for the creation of standardized response times to reports of missing Indigenous persons, as well as women and girls experiencing violence.

The inquiry report — due for public release at a ceremony in Gatineau, Que., on Monday — is the result of a years-long study by commissioners who were asked to probe systemic causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls and make recommendations on resolving them.

It says policing representatives acknowledged the “historic and ongoing harms” that continue to affect First Nations, Metis and Inuit families, as well as the need to make changes to how non-Indigenous and Indigenous police work to protect the safety of Indigenous people.

The report concludes that colonial violence, racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia against Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people has become embedded into everyday life, resulting in many Indigenous people growing up being normalized to violence.

It says Canadian society, on the other hand, shows an “appalling apathy” to addressing the issue, in what the report says amounts to “genocide.”

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett says she cannot speak to specifics in the report before its formal release, but adds the government has always wanted to ensure the families and survivors are not let down.

The Canadian Press