Liberal government to announce plans for inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women
NationalPost.com – Canadian Politics
December 8, 2015. Mark Kennedy, Postmedia News
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will publicly put his commitment to resolving aboriginal issues at the top of his priority list in the coming days as he meets with indigenous leaders and delivers some high-profile speeches.
The blitz begins on Tuesday, when Trudeau delivers a speech in Gatineau to a special meeting of chiefs from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the country’s largest aboriginal group.
Also Tuesday, the Liberal government will announce its plans to press ahead with an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women — with the first phase involving a consultation on how the inquiry should work and how far its mandate should extend.
The plans are expected to be short on details. Some key questions include what the mandate will be and how many commissioners will be in charge of the inquiry, which is expected to last up to two years and cost $40 million.
In the House of Commons on Monday, Trudeau stressed his commitment to improving the lives of aboriginals.
“For Indigenous Peoples, life in Canada has not been — and is not today — easy, equitable, or fair.”
On his pledge to establish a national inquiry into missing women, he said it would be “responsible and responsive (and) informed by all the broad stakeholders that are concerned about this.”
“We need such an inquiry to provide justice to the victims, to provide healing for the families, and to ensure that as we go forward this tragedy is ended.”
On Dec. 15, Trudeau will deliver another major address — this time at an event in Ottawa where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will deliver its final report on the residential schools saga.
Also next week, Trudeau will meet with leaders from five national aboriginal organizations as part of his campaign pledge to launch a new, “nation-to-nation” relationship with indigenous people.
The five organizations are the AFN, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Metis National Council and the Native Women’s Association of Canada.
This builds on a highly symbolic move Trudeau recently made when he travelled to Paris and asked AFN national chief Perry Bellegarde to join with provincial premiers in the Canadian delegation on the trip.
“There’s a lot of hope,” Bellegarde said in an interview Monday about how chiefs are reacting.
“It’s a new relationship between the prime minister of Canada and his cabinet with Indigenous Peoples. He wants to really move towards reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples.
“Now we’ve got to put the meat on the bones. We’ve got to make sure that there are key strategic investments in the next federal budget.”
The new tone marks a significant shift from the former Conservative government. Then-prime minister Stephen Harper did not attend any of the AFN’s assemblies.
As well, when the TRC released its summary report last June, Harper did not attend the event and only issued a non-committal news release.
By comparison, Trudeau has promised to implement all the TRC recommendations that fall under federal jurisdiction.
That includes: establishing an inquiry on missing women, implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and eliminating the education “funding gap” that discriminates against aboriginal children taught on reserves.
TRC chair Justice Murray Sinclair said in an interview Monday that his group’s voluminous report next week will provide much more detail.
“We now have a government that wants to pick it up. That’s very clear that they want to be a government that leads the charge on reconciliation.”
Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu admits the plan is in the “very beginning stages” and the Liberals have no pre-conceived ideas about what the inquiry should look like.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says he’ll be disappointed if the Liberals don’t make a firm commitment today to a national inquiry to investigate the phenomenon of missing and murdered aboriginal women.
Interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said she supports the inquiry — a stark contrast from her predecessor, who frequently rebuffed demands for further study.
Hajdu will join Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould for an inquiry-related announcement in Ottawa, although no further details have been provided.
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