Sereena Abotsway is one of the women who was killed by Robert Pickton.The Canadian Press
Three years ago, Wally Oppal, the former British Columbia attorney-general who led a commission of inquiry into the bungled police investigations of 70 missing women, published an emotional and damning report that had a blunt conclusion.
Mr. Oppal said the missing women – most of whom were indigenous, and some of whom were ultimately confirmed to be victims of the serial killer Robert Pickton – were failed by the police, and by society in general, because they were viewed as "nobodies."
"The term 'nobodies' is a harsh one and I choose to use it deliberately," wrote Mr. Oppal. "The women were persons of no importance or influence. Often they were treated not as persons at all, but as 'sub-humans' – diminished in the eyes of many by their 'high-risk lifestyle.' Like poor women across Canada and around the world, their devalued social status made them the target of predators."
It's now known that the Vancouver Police Department had solid evidence that a serial killer was preying on women in Vancouver's Downtown East Side from 1997 to 2002, but failed to respond properly because investigators viewed the victims – impoverished, drug-addicted women in the survival sex trade – as the authors of their own misery, and not a worthwhile priority.
Canada will soon have another inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, and the question is, will it come to the same shameful conclusion? Or can it find a frame of reference that will allow it to produce useful recommendations and set the country on a new path?
The issue is complicated, but we know how serious it is. Aboriginal women are six times more likely to be murdered than non-aboriginal women, according to figures released by Statistics Canada this week. And while the annual number of non-aboriginal female homicides has dropped dramatically since 1980, for aboriginal women the rate has risen.
Then there is the RCMP's 2014 report stating that 1,181 indigenous women and girls were murdered or went missing between 1980 and 2012. And this week, a Globe and Mail investigation revealed that aboriginal women are seven times more likely to be the victims of a serial killer than non-aboriginal women.
Where it becomes complicated is here: How do you separate this issue from the broader problems of native people in Canada? For example, an aboriginal man is actually three times more likely to be murdered than an aboriginal woman, according to Statscan. Aboriginal men are seven times more likely to be a victim of homicide than non-aboriginal men, 10 times more likely to be accused of homicide and five times more likely to commit suicide. Aboriginals make up 4 per cent of the population, but 23 per cent of the population of federal penitentiaries.
The same Statscan report that says aboriginal women are six times more likely to be murdered also finds that one-third of the people accused of homicide in Canada in 2014 were aboriginal, including 51 per cent of female accused. Another report says First Nations women are seven times more likely to commit suicide than non-aboriginal women. We also know, based on a 2013 report, that 50 per cent of First Nations children in Canada live in poverty, a particularly depressing statistic given that the native population is younger and growing faster than the rest of the country.
The Oppal inquiry has already shown that aboriginal women in Canada – especially those who move off-reserve into urban areas – are among the country's most marginalized people. And the recent report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission demonstrated the degree to which Canada's past policies damaged native family life, and how that damage is still present in native communities.
We know all these things. So what can a new inquiry tell us about a phenomenon that may be a subset of bigger issues? If the goal of the inquiry is to find ways to reduce the disproportionate vulnerability of indigenous women, there are obvious solutions that could do the job quickly: better policing, a better relationship between police and native peoples, more shelters for indigenous women in urban areas, a national campaign to reduce poverty on reserves, better education…. Basically, all the things the federal government and native leaders have been trying to fix, with limited success, for decades.
If the goal is to tell the stories of the lost women – to rehumanize the victims so Canadians open their eyes – there has to be a more effective and lasting way than an inquiry whose recommendations will be reported on and then forgotten.
So what should the goal be? And how to achieve it? We believe the inquiry is needed, because we also believe that the worth of a democratic society is measured by how it treats its minorities and most disadvantaged members. It is clear from the numbers that something terrible is going on among indigenous women. But if there is one thing still missing, it is clarity on how these women are dying, and who is doing the killing. Are there serial killers in Canada who feed on marginalized women and who have found a steady source of prey in urban areas and on remote highways? Are the killers being abetted by a society that is indifferent to the fates of marginalized women?
It is one thing to have a distinct group that is systematically marginalized, and to look away. It is a whole other level of ignorance to allow that marginalization to put members of that group in harm's way and not do a thing about it.
We need this inquiry for a simple reason – to demonstrate that indigenous women are as deserving of the nation's attention as anyone else. It shouldn't have come to this, but it has.