Saturday, July 30
National inquiry sought over missing and murdered aboriginal women
BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JULY 29, 2011
Robert William Pickton is shown in this file photo arriving at the Supreme Court of B.C. in New Westminster prior to the selection of the jury.
Photograph by: Stuart Davis, PNG
VANCOUVER -- The Native Women's Association of Canada is calling for a national inquiry into the growing number of missing and murdered aboriginal women after feeling shutout from B.C.'s Missing Women inquiry.
"The government of B.C. has shut us out of the British Columbia Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, and now we have no confidence that it will be able to produce a fair and balanced report," NWAC President Jeannette Corbiere Lavell said in a statement issued today.
"The decision of the BC government to restrict funding for counsel primarily to police and government agencies demonstrates how flawed and one sided this process has become."
Her comments came after B.C. Attorney General Barry Penner has repeatedly rejected calls for funding for 13 groups who have been granted standing at the Missing Women inquiry, including the NWAC.
The attorney general has only granted funding for a lawyer to represent the families of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton.
The inquiry's mandate is to probe why it took police so long to catch Pickton, especially after the serial killer was charged years earlier with the attempted murder of a woman who was stabbed but managed to flee Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, where he was known to slaughter pigs.
The Missing Women inquiry also expanded its mandate to probe the problems of investigations involving multiple homicides such as those along the Highway of Tears in northern B.C.
A large proportion of the missing and murdered women in the Highway of Tears and Pickton investigations were aboriginal.
Inquiry commission Wally Oppal, a former B.C. attorney general, had asked the government to include funding for two native groups and 10 others, saying it was crucial because the police agencies involved in the probe will be represented by their lawyers at the inquiry.
"The Commissioner made it very clear that he considered our participation throughout the hearing process to be vital to a fair and full examination of the issues. I am deeply disappointed that we are unable to bring forward the voices and concerns of Aboriginal women and girls to this inquiry as we had planned," the NWAC president said.
NWAC now plans to seek the support of all Canadian governments, and all Canadians, for a national inquiry that can effectively examine violence against aboriginal women and girls, and to allow the full participation of aboriginal women.
The announcement comes a day after a number of first nations groups and organizations disappointed with the provincial government's decision not to fund their legal expenses have withdrawn from participating in B.C.'s Missing Women Inquiry.
The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and the Native Courtworkers and Counselling Association have told Oppal they will not be participating in the inquiry that is examining the police investigations conducted between Jan. 23, 1997, and Feb. 5, 2002, into women reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, many who became victims of Pickton.
NDP critics Jenny Kwan and Leonard Krog said Penner's decision could jeopardize the commission's capacity to fulfill its mandate.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said earlier this week that the government appeared from the beginning to have put a low ceiling on the funding available for the inquiry.
"In truth the decision and sheer hypocrisy of the Christy Clark government have effectively slammed the door on this inquiry," he charged.
Darlene Shackelly, executive director of the Native Courtworkers and Counselling Association, said the organization couldn't afford to pay a lawyer to do necessary research in order for the association to present a brief to the commission.
"We don't want to interrogate the police, but we have issues concerning the way attempts were made to keep track of people," she said.
Lori-Ann Ellis, the sister-in-law of Cara Ellis, one of Pickton's victims, said today she is mad and frustrated about the lack of funding for many of the people who were "in the trenches" with the women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where Pickton preyed on women and took them back to his farm.
"If we keep closing the door on these groups, it's not a public inquiry, it's a sham," she said. "We want the full story to come out."
Ellis pointed out that Cara Ellis' blood was found on Pickton's clothes when he was originally arrested in 1997 and charged with attempted murder.
She added if police would have done their job properly in the first place, there would be no need for a public inquiry and people would not be complaining about how much money the inquiry will cost.
nhall@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Friday, July 29
National inquiry sought over missing and murdered aboriginal women
BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN JULY 29, 2011 2:03 PM
Robert William Pickton is shown in this file photo arriving at the Supreme Court of B.C. in New Westminster prior to the selection of the jury.
Photograph by: Stuart Davis, PNG
VANCOUVER -- The Native Women's Association of Canada is calling for a national inquiry into the growing number of missing and murdered aboriginal women after feeling shutout from B.C.'s Missing Women inquiry.
"The government of B.C. has shut us out of the British Columbia Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, and now we have no confidence that it will be able to produce a fair and balanced report," NWAC President Jeannette Corbiere Lavell said in a statement issued today.
"The decision of the BC government to restrict funding for counsel primarily to police and government agencies demonstrates how flawed and one sided this process has become."
Her comments came after B.C. Attorney General Barry Penner has repeatedly rejected calls for funding for 13 groups who have been granted standing at the Missing Women inquiry, including the NWAC.
The attorney general has only granted funding for a lawyer to represent the families of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton.
The inquiry's mandate is to probe why it took police so long to catch Pickton, especially after the serial killer was charged years earlier with the attempted murder of a woman who was stabbed but managed to flee Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, where he was known to slaughter pigs.
The Missing Women inquiry also expanded its mandate to probe the problems of investigations involving multiple homicides such as those along the Highway of Tears in northern B.C.
A large proportion of the missing and murdered women in the Highway of Tears and Pickton investigations were aboriginal.
Inquiry commission Wally Oppal, a former B.C. attorney general, had asked the government to include funding for two native groups and 10 others, saying it was crucial because the police agencies involved in the probe will be represented by their lawyers at the inquiry.
"The Commissioner made it very clear that he considered our participation throughout the hearing process to be vital to a fair and full examination of the issues. I am deeply disappointed that we are unable to bring forward the voices and concerns of Aboriginal women and girls to this inquiry as we had planned," the NWAC president said.
NWAC now plans to seek the support of all Canadian governments, and all Canadians, for a national inquiry that can effectively examine violence against aboriginal women and girls, and to allow the full participation of aboriginal women.
The announcement comes a day after a number of first nations groups and organizations disappointed with the provincial government's decision not to fund their legal expenses have withdrawn from participating in B.C.'s Missing Women Inquiry.
The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and the Native Courtworkers and Counselling Association have told Oppal they will not be participating in the inquiry that is examining the police investigations conducted between Jan. 23, 1997, and Feb. 5, 2002, into women reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, many who became victims of Pickton.
NDP critics Jenny Kwan and Leonard Krog said Penner's decision could jeopardize the commission's capacity to fulfill its mandate.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said earlier this week that the government appeared from the beginning to have put a low ceiling on the funding available for the inquiry.
"In truth the decision and sheer hypocrisy of the Christy Clark government have effectively slammed the door on this inquiry," he charged.
Darlene Shackelly, executive director of the Native Courtworkers and Counselling Association, said the organization couldn't afford to pay a lawyer to do necessary research in order for the association to present a brief to the commission.
"We don't want to interrogate the police, but we have issues concerning the way attempts were made to keep track of people," she said.
Lori-Ann Ellis, the sister-in-law of Cara Ellis, one of Pickton's victims, said today she is mad and frustrated about the lack of funding for many of the people who were "in the trenches" with the women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where Pickton preyed on women and took them back to his farm.
"If we keep closing the door on these groups, it's not a public inquiry, it's a sham," she said. "We want the full story to come out."
Ellis pointed out that Cara Ellis' blood was found on Pickton's clothes when he was originally arrested in 1997 and charged with attempted murder.
She added if police would have done their job properly in the first place, there would be no need for a public inquiry and people would not be complaining about how much money the inquiry will cost.
nhall@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Thursday, July 28
Key witness unsure if he’ll attend missing-women probe
ROBERT MATAS
VANCOUVER— From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jul. 27, 2011 4:44PM EDT
A former Vancouver police officer who was expected to be a key witness at the Missing Women Inquiry says he may not show up if the B.C. government continues to refuse to pay his legal bills.
Kim Rossmo was one of the first police officers to say that a serial killer was preying on women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Senior Vancouver officers dismissed what he said and serial killer Robert Pickton continued to pick up and murder women for several more years.
Mr. Rossmo, who is now recognized as a leading specialist in geographic profiling, was expected to testify at the Missing Women Inquiry about how police responded to reports of the murdered and missing women in the years before Mr. Pickton was arrested.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Rossmo said he is thinking of staying in Texas, where he now works.
“I have more to offer them than they have to offer me,” said Mr. Rossmo, a research professor at the Center for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation at Texas State University in San Marcos.
“I don’t have a horse in the race any more, like the various interest groups there,” he said in an interview. “My role is just to provide the facts. I’m more than willing to do that, but I am dismayed by events of the last year. I do not know what to think any more.”
Mr. Rossmo said he would like to have legal representation at the hearing to protect his reputation. He said he was concerned that some witnesses at the inquiry “might not be bound by the truth” and will give a totally distorted representation of the facts. He dismissed as unrealistic a suggestion from Attorney-General Barry Penner that commission counsel could act on his behalf.
Mr. Rossmo also wondered whether the inquiry would achieve anything. If the government is already refusing to provide funding, how likely is it that the government will commit funds to implement recommendations that come out of the inquiry, he asked.
He said he would likely decide in the fall whether to participate.
Earlier Wednesday, two prominent aboriginal groups formally withdrew from the inquiry, adding to a growing list of groups who have decided they cannot participate without government funding for legal representation at the hearings.
“The decisions and sheer hypocrisy of the Christy Clark government have effectively slammed the door to this Inquiry,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, stated in a news release.
Terry Teegee, vice-chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, also said in the release the inquiry was an opportunity for Ms. Clark’s government to demonstrate that the safety of first nation women and their families matter to the government. “With the full involvement of all the participants, this inquiry, and the full and meaningful implementation of its recommendations, could have been a small but significant measure of justice,” he stated.
The two aboriginal organizations informed inquiry head Wally Oppal Wednesday that they would not participate in the inquiry.
The B.C. government appointed the inquiry last October to look into the investigation of the murdered and missing women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and into why Mr. Pickton was not arrested earlier. Commissioner Oppal had recommended government funding for lawyers for several women and aboriginal groups.
At issue is whether the groups would have the resources to cross-examine police witnesses and review thousands of pages of internal police documents that will be available at the hearing. Although the government refused to pay the legal bills of the groups, the RCMP and police will be represented by taxpayer-funded lawyers.
Grand Chief Phillip stated that the UBCIC had been concerned about the inquiry since its inception. “Initially, the UBCIC was deeply troubled by the extremely narrow and restrictive terms of reference, the tight timelines and was shocked by the unilateral appointment of BC’s former Attorney-General Wally Oppal as Commissioner,” Grand Chief Phillip said. “From the start, it appeared there was an incredibly low and impenetrable funding ceiling for this inquiry,” he added.
He expressed support for families of women who were murdered and those who had pushed for an inquiry. “We continue our commitment to them and to work with them to ensure justice will one day be served. We will not abandon them.” Grand Chief Phillip said.
Monday, July 25
Aboriginal group quits B.C.’s Missing Women Inquiry - The Globe and Mail
Aboriginal group quits B.C.’s Missing Women Inquiry - The Globe and Mail: "Published Sunday, Jul. 24, 2011 10:37PM EDT"
Retired RCMP blood-spatter expert pleads guilty to perjury
BY KEITH FRASER, POSTMEDIA NEWS JULY 25, 2011 4:07 PM
A retired Mountie has pleaded guilty to perjury arising from his testimony at the trial of a mother accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter.
VANCOUVER — A retired Mountie has quietly pleaded guilty to perjury arising from his testimony at the trial of a mother accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter.
After entering the plea in Vancouver Provincial Court, former staff-sergeant Ross Spenard received a nine-month conditional sentence over a month ago.
Spenard testified as an expert in bloodstain analysis at the May 2009 trial of Charlie Rae Lincoln, who was charged with the second-degree murder of her daughter Hope in the remote coastal town of Bella Bella.
The officer was exposed in court as the author of a damning forensic report that was later called "not scientifically sound" by other experts.
Spenard, who was an RCMP officer for 32 years and testified at the trial of serial killer Robert Pickton, had initially claimed the report was written by another police officer.
But under cross-examination by defence lawyer Matthew Nathanson, he admitted to misleading the court.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice John Truscott told the jury that Spenard was the "perfect example" of a person who clearly lied under oath and violated his oath to tell the truth.
"That conclusion is so clear and convincing, and so serious, that I suggest you should consider his evidence to be completely tainted and without any value whatsoever," said the judge.
The RCMP began a code of conduct review when the force learned of the allegations after the trial, it was revealed when the perjury charge was laid in January.
When Spenard retired in 2010, that review came to an end. Police said a review of all of Spenard's bloodstain pattern analysis files had been conducted and no significant concerns had surfaced.
Under the terms of the conditional sentence imposed by Provincial Court Judge Malcolm MacLean on June 24, Spenard will be under house arrest for three months and then under a curfew for three months.
Perjury, a criminal charge not frequently prosecuted, carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail.
The jury in the Lincoln trial eventually found the 23-year-old mother guilty as charged.
She received the mandatory life sentence with the minimum of 10 years of parole ineligibility.
The jury heard that she had been drinking and was in a jealous rage against the child's father, Philip Blaney, because she suspected he was having an affair with another woman. She stabbed her daughter and slashed her a number of times.
Lincoln has appealed her conviction and the appeal is scheduled to be heard in the B.C. Court of Appeal on Sept. 15.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Sunday, July 24
Handling their sister’s memory
BY PAMELA ROTH ,EDMONTON SUN
FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2011 7:19:31 MDT PM | UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2011 7:31:04 MDT PM
Lisa Bigjohn had a dream of reuniting with her baby sister, who was trying to escape from a life of drug addiction and prostitution on the streets of Vancouver’s east side.
That day never came.
The life of her sister, Mona Lee Wilson, was cut short at the age of 26 when she went missing and fell into the hands of a serial killer known for luring poor and homeless women from Vancouver’s east side to a pig farm on the outskirts of the city.
Even though it’s been nine years since Wilson’s death, Bigjohn and her brother, Jayson Fleury, trying to ensure their sister’s memory — and those of other women like her — isn’t forgotten.
“She got ripped out of my life. It really hurt me. There’s a lot of pain to live with,” said Bigjohn, who used to live in Abbotsford, B.C., but now lives in Edmonton. “It’s been a long process of healing.”
Whenever another aboriginal woman goes missing in western Canada, it sends a chill down the spine of Bigjohn and Fleury, and they re-live the nightmare all over again.
“When I see a very young girl standing around and I know what she’s trying to do, it scares me inside to know who will pick up that girl and do something to her,” said Bigjohn, who’s inviting all family members and friends of missing murdered women and children to a memorial for her sister.
“Other people look at them as just a piece of garbage. We want to make other families aware that these people were once here, they were somebody. No matter what they do to survive, they are human beings.”
A feast and memorial for Wilson will take place Saturday, July 30, at the Londonderry Building, 14010 74 St., from noon to 5 p.m. The family hopes to make the memorial an annual tradition.
Contact with their sister ended abruptly when Wilson went missing in November 2001. Four months later, Bigjohn and Fleury were swept into a roller coaster of emotions when they learned their sister’s remains had been found on Pickton’s pig farm in suburban Port Coquitlam.
Her head, hands and feet were found in a garbage can in the slaughterhouse next to Pickton’s trailer. Her skull had been “expertly bisected.”
Both Bigjohn and Fleury attended some of the court proceedings for Pickton, originally charged with killing and butchering the remains of 26 woman. In order to simplify the case, he was only tried on six counts, including Wilson. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years — the longest murder sentence available under Candian law.
Fleury believes Wilson’s death could have been prevented, but he claims nobody seemed to care about an aboriginal woman living on the streets, so she fell through the cracks.
“She had a few mistakes and other than being judged, she needed help,” said Fleury. “She was a caring, loving person.”
She was put into foster care in the Vancouver area as a toddler. By 14, she was on the streets and a heavy drug user.
Several years passed before she reached out to her siblings.
“A lot of people never understand who she was and how she had to survive,” said Bigjohn. “She reached out to me. She used to call me and tell me and share a lot of her lifestyle with me here and there. She had a lot of problems she was trying to run away from to get to a better life.”
pamela.roth@sunmedia.ca
@SUNpamelaroth
EDMONTON SUN
http://www.edmontonsun.com/2011/07/22/handling-their-sisters-memory
Friday, July 22
No more funds for missing women inquiry: B.C.
The Canadian Press
22 July 2011 08:05
VANCOUVER - The B.C. government simply can't afford to pay the legal fees of groups wanting to participate in the Pickton inquiry but who are not relatives of the serial killer's victims, the attorney general's office has advised the man heading the inquiry.
Commissioner Wally Oppal had written B.C.'s attorney general earlier this month saying it's unfair for the government to require groups representing sex trade workers, First Nations and Downtown Eastside residents to pay their own legal fees.
But David Loukidelis, the province's deputy attorney general, responded in a brief letter to Oppal that the province doesn't have the money.
"The government has limited financial resources," he wrote in a letter released by Oppal's office on Friday.
Loukidelis explained the ministry is having a tough time meeting its requirements, including paying for court administration staff, sheriffs, Crown prosecutors and a full complement of Provincial Court judges.
"The attorney general does not believe that public funding of multiple teams of lawyers for inquiry participants, other than the families of missing and murdered women, is a higher priority than such other matters," he said.
Oppal will oversee hearings examining why Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to catch Robert Pickton as he spent years preying on sex workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, until his arrest in 2002.
Pickton was eventually convicted of six counts of second-degree murder, although the DNA from 33 women was found on his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C. He told police that he had killed 49 women.
Oppal will also conduct a less-formal study commission into broader issues of missing and murdered women in the province, including in the north along a stretch of road known as the Highway of Tears.
Oppal had said in his eight-page letter that the funding should be spread more broadly than just victims' families.
"Failure to fund the participant organizations would leave disenfranchised women and victims in a clearly unfair position at the hearing,'' Oppal wrote.
He recommended that 13 participants get public money to cover legal fees to participate in the inquiry.
Loukidelis responded that the Public Inquiry Act doesn't require public funding for participating groups.
He also rapped Oppal, saying the commissioner — a former judge and former attorney general — was overstepping his bounds by even recommending the funding be provided.
"The commission's terms of reference do not require such funding, nor do they authorize the commissioner to make recommendations regarding such funding."
Loukidelis said the attorney general's office believes the inquiry can be conducted in such a way that participants shouldn't require lawyers.
As well, he noted that Oppal can use lawyers working for the commission to play an active role in examining documents and prompting evidence.
But Oppal had already dismissed that suggestion, calling it "untenable."
He said the range of opinions among sex trade workers, First Nations and community activists in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is simply too vast for one lawyer to represent them all.
Oppal did not comment on the letter Friday.
Thursday, July 21
One woman’s disappearance became a focus
Doug Ward
Vancouver Sun
CREDIT:
Sarah de Vries is shown here reading to her daughter, one of her two children.
" Will they remember me when I'm gone, or would their lives just carry on? "
From the journal of Sarah de Vries, 29, who vanished in the spring of 1998.
She had worked as a prostitute on the Downtown Eastside and was last seen on the corner of Princess and Hastings.
- - -
She wasn't forgotten.
The quote from her journals kicked off a feature in The Vancouver Sun on March 3, 1999 -- a two-part story by reporter Lindsay Kines about de Vries and the disappearance of sex-trade workers.
The fate of de Vries and of other missing women on the Downtown Eastside eventually shocked a city and a nation.
A cluster of disappearances sparked a police investigation and media coverage that culminated in the 2002 arrest of Robert (Willie) Pickton, who is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 22 for the murder of six women. He is to face a second trial in connection with the first-degree murder of 20 additional women.
Prostitutes have always experienced violence in Vancouver, and newspaper accounts about murdered sex-trade workers were not uncommon in the '70s and '80s.
But de Vries' disappearance in 1998 was part of an alarming rise in the number of missing sex-trade workers. She was one of 16 women reported missing in 1996, 1997 and 1998.
Kines's first stories on missing prostitutes were about Janet Henry, who vanished in 1997. A year later, Kines wrote a news story about other missing women, including de Vries.
A friend of de Vries, Wayne Leng, told Kines there was growing concern in the Downtown Eastside about the disappearance of many other women involved in drugs and the sex trade.
"This was the first hint I had that there were more missing women. It's what prompted me to start asking around the Downtown Eastside," Kines, who is now a Victoria Times Colonist reporter, said in an interview Monday.
"Then I found that the police were concerned about the number who were missing."
In September 1998, the Vancouver police department set up a team of officers to review unsolved missing women cases dating back to 1971. Vancouver police geographic profiler Kim Rossmo began reviewing missing women files.
And the media, including The Vancouver Sun, began to profile prostitutes who had disappeared. The phrase "missing women" became a familiar phrase as reporters attempted to give the alarming statistics some humanity.
In a two-part report in 1999 entitled Missing on the Mean Streets, which included his profile on de Vries, Kines reported: "With each passing month, the list of the disappeared continues to grow.
"Vancouver police have 20 outstanding files on missing 'street-involved' women since 1995 -- 11 from last year alone."
Kines's stories were confirming what was being said on the street, recalled Elaine Allen, who worked at a drop-in centre for prostitutes in the late '90s.
"The women at the drop-in centre were talking back in 1998 about friends and relatives who had gone missing."
And they were talking with a sense that nobody was listening, recalled Allen.
"There was no sense that help was on the way or that anybody in authority was listening."
But reporters such as Kines were listening and their coverage helped turn the case of the missing women into a major issue.
"There's no question that the stories put tons of pressure on the mayor and the police chief," Allen said.
DeVries' friend Leng similarly said that Kines's early coverage helped place the spotlight on the missing women and the police investigation.
Leng praised Kines and other Sun reporters for "handling the issue carefully and not sensationalizing it." He said The Sun helped the public see the victims as "missing women" as opposed to prostitutes with drug habits.
"Many people looked at prostitutes as throwaways who deserved what they got. But those of us who knew them -- we knew they were so much more. Sarah [de Vries] was a wonderful person."
In 1999, the police added detectives to a team of officers investigating the disappearances and sought assistance from authorities involved in major serial killer cases in the U.S. Also that year, the Vancouver police board approved a $100,000 reward to aid in the probe.
America's Most Wanted did a show on the missing women case in 1999.
But progress was slow, women continued to disappear and many in the Downtown Eastside believed there would have been a greater public outcry and police response if the missing women had been middle-class rather than prostitutes working in Vancouver's most impoverished neighbourhood.
THURSDAY: The number of missing women continued to climb in the new century. An 11-part Vancouver Sun series in 2001 examined the police investigators' lack of progress. Shortly after the series, more officers were attached to the probe.
You can now listen to every Vancouver Sun story on our new digital edition.
Free to full-week print subscribers or sign up for a 7-day free trial. www.vancouversun.com/digital.
PRELUDE TO PICKTON TRIAL
First of 11 parts
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
How Lindsay Kines and Sun reporters broke missing women story
Thursday, July 7
Editorial: Penner is correct to deny more lawyers
THE PROVINCE JULY 6, 2011
Attorney General Barry Penner, shown here at a B.C. government announcement, has rejected a call to provide lawyers for 12 interested parties who wish to testify before the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry
Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, PNG Files
Senator Mobina Jaffer yesterday became the latest in a string of comfortable, publicly funded individuals and groups to hector the provincial government about providing lawyers for 12 interested parties who wish to testify before the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.
Others who agree with her include the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, various native and women’s organizations, NDP leader Adrian Dix and Commissioner Wally Oppal, who is frustrated the lawyer-funding issue is blocking his work.
Attorney-General Barry Penner has denied the request to further burden taxpayers with the cost of even more lawyers.
He must hold firm to that position despite the pressure.
The groups that wish to participate in the Oppal Commission — various native, women’s and Downtown Eastside organizations — should of course be heard. Their input is critical. But that doesn’t mean they all need lawyers — particularly publicly funded ones. If they truly believe they do, then they should hire them with their own money.
The advocacy groups need to attend, testify and offer their opinions and advice. It is not their role, as some say, to cross-examine other witnesses. The commission’s six staff lawyers, the publicly funded counsel of the families of Robert Pickton’s victims and Oppal himself will do that just fine.
The advocates need to stop harping about funding for lawyers so the commission can get on with its important task.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Tuesday, July 5
Missing women inquiry lacks invaluable voices
JULY 5, 2011 8:01 PM
Vancouver, March 20, 2008 100 INFLUENTIAL SOUTH ASIANS: Mobina Jaffer, a senator. [PNG Merlin Archive]
Photograph by: Jean-Marc Charisse, Vancouver Sun
Many years ago, when several aboriginal women went missing, their loved ones and colleagues sought help from the police. Unfortunately, the police did not heed their plea.
At the time we all remained silent.
After a lot of machinations, some of these cases were brought forward, providing a few families with the justice they longed for. Unfortunately, there were still several families who to this day continue to experience great pain as the cases of their loved ones were never heard in court.
At the time we all remained silent.
At long last, the attorney-general has called for the establishment of a Missing Women’s Commission. This commission will not only give those families an opportunity to express their pain, but also will answer some of their questions about why so little was done to save their loved ones. In addition, the commission will review the process of coordinating investigations into missing women and multiple homicides in British Columbia and recommend improvements that could prevent similar tragedies from reoccurring.
Unfortunately, the commission has yet to be fully established. There are several reasons for this, many of which are logistical in nature. Will we all once again remain silent? Will the families of the missing women be denied legal representation? Will their cries continue to fall on deaf ears?
I commend our government for calling a public inquiry into whether the disappearance and deaths of more than 65 women in British Columbia could have been prevented or resolved earlier by superior police investigation strategies. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more pressing issue than whether the murder and disappearance of our community’s most vulnerable women could have been prevented. It is a tragedy of epic proportion.
Unfortunately, the attorney-general, Barry Penner, has rejected Missing Women Commissioner Wally Oppal’s recommendation that the government fund the legal costs of 12 groups, which he says have a legitimate interest in the work of his commission.
There is no doubt the cost of public inquiries needs to be accounted for. However, costs should be balanced against the need for a fair process and adequate examination of the issues. Most of the interest groups are front-line service providers with no means or capacity to participate in the inquiry unrepresented. It is unrealistic to assume these groups could engage in technical cross-examination of professional witnesses and review the hundreds of thousands of documents without the assistance of counsel.
Yet, it is their perspectives that must be heard if the inquiry is to avoid the same mistakes that were alleged to have been made by the police. Without the presence of these groups, the police evidence would not be rigorously tested and commission counsel would be forced into an untenable position of balancing the need for a fair inquiry with the need to be impartial.
The government is funding a lawyer representing the families of 10 of Robert Pickton’s alleged victims. It argues that the 12 groups that have not received funding will still be able to have their voices heard in the “study” phase of the inquiry if they are unable to participate in the evidentiary hearings. But that’s missing the point.
The 12 groups and the women they represent need and deserve the opportunity, through their legal representatives, to get answers to the questions that have been ignored and deflected for so many years. It’s the least we can do for them. Denying them this opportunity means that many of those questions will continue to go unanswered and we will not move any closer to addressing the real issues confronting marginalized women in poor communities.
I am publicly urging Premier Christy Clark to revisit the issue. As someone who was once the chair of the Family Violence Task Force in British Columbia and a member on the Canadian Panel on Violence against Women, I have observed first-hand the vulnerable positions many aboriginal women are placed in.
As a compassionate and caring society, Canadians over many years have acknowledged the need for investigation into troubling social and policy issues through commissions of inquiry. In most cases they have contributed to healing where harm has been done and to positive policy changes where laws have been found lacking.
The time to act is now. The families of the victims have been suffering for far too long. Let us finally dry their tears.
Mobina Jaffer has served as a Canadian senator for British Columbia since 2001. She is chair of the Senate standing committee on human rights. Her involvement in women’s issues includes serving as chair of the Canadian Committee on Women, Peace and Security from 2002-2005.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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