AFN chief leaves premiers' meeting without support for murdered women inquiry

BY ALISON AULD, THE CANADIAN PRESS JULY 25, 2012

Premiers and aboriginal leaders prepare for a meeting in Lunenburg, N.S. on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 as part of the annual Council of the Federation gathering. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

LUNENBURG, N.S. - National Chief Shawn Atleo left a meeting Wednesday with Canada's premiers without their full support for a public inquiry into violence against aboriginal women and girls.

The chief of the Assembly of First Nations met with the premiers and other native leaders in Lunenburg, N.S., where they discussed aboriginal education, housing, health care and ways to ensure natives have a seat at the table when it comes to sharing resource-based revenues.

He urged the premiers and the federal government to support his calls for a national inquiry into missing and slain aboriginal women, who are five times more likely to experience violence than any other group in Canada.

"This is a moment of reckoning. This is a defining moment in this country," Atleo said.

"We're calling on these premiers to take what we see as being absolutely necessary and take a significant leadership role."

Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter, who hosted the meeting, said the matter was discussed and a consensus was reached to "watch what was happening" in other provinces.

But he wouldn't offer unequivocal support for Atleo's call for an inquiry, adding that another meeting on violence against aboriginal women is to be held in November in Manitoba.

"The gravity of the situation is not to be diminished and we understand very much the desire to get to the bottom of these things," Dexter said.

"But what I'm saying is there are other things that are already underway."

British Columbia is holding its own inquiry into the death and disappearance of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and how the police handled the investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton.

Betty Ann Lavallee, national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, said that while the premiers didn't fully back a national inquiry, they did promise to support measures to combat violence against women and girls.

"I think in their own way, they are saying they endorse it," she said after the meeting. "Where we're at today on this issue from where we started a couple of years ago is tremendous."

Ottawa has also resisted calls for an inquiry despite persistent pleas from aboriginal leaders to initiate some type of probe into the issue that has beset native communities across the country.

First Nations researchers have estimated that there are more than 600 aboriginal women who have gone missing over the past two decades, and that problems of violence against aboriginal women are profound, on reserve and off.

The issue has been debated in aboriginal circles for years, but has taken on significant momentum since the arrest last month of Shawn Cameron Lamb, accused in a string of killings involving aboriginal women in Winnipeg.

It also became a rallying point for candidates competing last week for the post of national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. The chiefs passed an emergency resolution urging all levels of government to take action.

The premiers signed a personal pledge to live violence-free and promote safety and security among Aboriginal Peoples, joining more than 1,300 aboriginal leaders and delegates who signed it at the AFN meeting.

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DNA not being used in new database for missing persons and unidentified remains in Canada

BY ADAM MILLER, THE CANADIAN PRESS JULY 22, 2012

Lindsey Nicholls, 14, is pictured in this RCMP handout photo. Judy Peterson has been a proponent of a national database to help identify missing persons and unidentified remains her daughter, Lindsey Jill Nicholls, went missing in 1993. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ HO

A national database to help identify missing persons and unidentified remains is more than a year away, but families and experts say that DNA is the missing piece of the puzzle that the initiative needs.

Judy Peterson has been a proponent of such a database since her daughter, Lindsey Jill Nicholls, went missing in 1993.

"I think the DNA databank is just the missing piece," she said from her home in Sidney, B.C. "I believe it will happen, I just can't understand why it's taking so long."

Peterson started a petition in 2003 called Lindsey's Law, calling for DNA from missing persons and unidentified remains to be added to the National DNA Data Bank, which was set up in 2000 to help police with their investigations.

Melanie Alix's son Dylan Koshman went missing in Edmonton in October, 2008 and she too has been petitioning the government for such an addition to the data bank.

"I'd give my life to find my son," she said from her home in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Alix and her husband gave DNA samples to police in Edmonton after her son's disappearance, but they were not accessible to law enforcement in other provinces because there is no national DNA database for missing persons and unidentified remains.

A new index called the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains would store descriptive information on these cases and allow for them to be compared nationally for the first time when it launches in late 2013, but it won't include DNA.

The federal government has been resistant to amending the National DNA Data Bank to include the thousands of missing persons and hundreds of unidentified bodies across the country. It cites privacy concerns and high costs.

Ray Boughen, Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, said that costs could be lowered if DNA from these cases was voluntarily incorporated into the existing database for convicted offenders and crime scenes.

"It's voluntary, no one is going to grab anyone by the throat and say we're going to take your DNA," he said from Regina.

Boughen presented Alix's petition to the House of Commons on Feb. 1 and in June he re-submitted three different petitions related to the databank amendment with close to 8,000 signatures.

Vic Toews, the federal Minister of Public Safety, responded to the initial petition and said the government "accepted in principle" the recommendation, but added it continued to raise "a number of complex legal, privacy, financial and practical considerations."

As of June 30, the data bank had assisted in more than 23,000 investigations, including more than 1,600 murder cases, and contained more than 325,000 DNA profiles from convicted offenders and crime scenes.

According to the RCMP's Canadian Police Information Centre, there were 6,838 people listed as missing as of March 31, but there is no recorded number of unidentified remains in cemeteries and morgues across the country.

Andrew McCallum, Chief Coroner of Ontario, said numbers change on a daily basis but about 1,000 of those missing were from Ontario, in addition to 108 unknown bodies.

"The reason that it's a little challenging is the jurisdiction over death is a provincial and territorial responsibility so the federal government can provide funding but it doesn't actually have jurisdiction over these provincial matters," he said.

Yet Peterson, who will face the 19th anniversary of her daughter's disappearance on Aug. 2, is still without closure.

"Maybe her DNA is sitting unidentified in the Crime Scene Index and I would never know," she said.

"Those remains that are sitting in coroner's offices, those are people, they're people's loved ones and they deserve to be identified and the family members deserve to know."

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By going after Galliford, Mounties are fighting dirty again - The Globe and Mail

By going after Galliford, Mounties are fighting dirty again - The Globe and Mail:

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Kelowna high-risk teen missing | VANCOUVERITE

Kelowna high-risk teen missing | VANCOUVERITE

Mounties issue sweeping denial in high-profile B.C. harassment lawsuit

The federal and B.C. governments are denying allegations in a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit that prompted several other female Mounties to come forward with claims of abuse.

BY JAMES KELLER, THE CANADIAN PRESS JULY 17, 2012 5:21 PM

Former RCMP Cpl. Catherine Galliford recently came forward after years of sexual harassment.

Photograph by: Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER -- The Mounties have issued a sweeping denial in a high-profile sexual harassment suit by a British Columbia officer, whose allegations have prompted other women to come forward with their own claims of abuse.

Cpl. Catherine Galliford, who was the force's public face during the Air India and Robert Pickton cases, first outlined her allegations in media interviews last year. She filed a lawsuit this past May.

Her allegations have prompted the RCMP to promise to tackle harassment within the force. In the months since, several other female Mounties have filed cases of their own, including one who says dozens of other officers are prepared to join her in a class-action lawsuit.

Galliford's allegations span nearly two decades, during which she claims her colleagues and superiors sexually assaulted, harassed and intimidated her until she developed post-traumatic stress disorder. She claimed she didn't come forward sooner because she feared retribution.

But the B.C. government and Ottawa filed a joint statement of defence this week denying all of Galliford's allegations.

Instead, the governments paint her as an alcoholic who refused treatment and rejected the RCMP's efforts to keep her away from one of the men she said harassed her. When she finally complained in 2011, her allegations were immediately investigated, says the statement of defence.

"These defendants deny each and every allegation contained in ... the notice of civil claim," says the statement of defence.

"If the plaintiff had concerns about conflict, harassment or intimidation in the workplace or by other members or officers at any time, she was obliged and had opportunities to make a complaint."

While the federal government represents the RCMP, the B.C. government contracts the Mounties for provincial policing and is also named in Galliford's lawsuit.

Her suit also names Const. Marvin Wawia, Supt. Mike Bergerman and Insp. Doug Henderson; Dr. Ian MacDonald, an RCMP-employed physician; and Const. Phil Little, who worked for the Vancouver police but was part of the joint RCMP-Vancouver missing women investigation.

The statement of defence denies all of the allegations involving those officers, with the exception of Wawia, who was the subject of a complaint in the early 1990s shortly after Galliford joined the force.

The two met while Galliford was preparing to join the force. Galliford's lawsuit claims Wawia aggressively pursued her after they met. The governments' statement of defence, however, says the pair were "cohabiting" from December 1990 to March 1991.

The governments acknowledge Wawia was later disciplined after a complaint involving Galliford, though the statement of defence doesn't say what that complaint was about. The statement says after Galliford finished her training, she repeatedly requested to be posted to the RCMP's B.C. headquarters, despite the force's concerns the two officers should not be working together.

Eventually, Galliford married another officer stationed in B.C. and she was transferred to North Vancouver.

The statement of defence says health care staff within the force first heard concerns about Galliford's alcohol consumption in late 2004 and early 2005.

She was referred to a treatment program and agreed to what's known as a "relapse prevention agreement," but the statement of defence says she continued to drink. Because of her refusal to participate in treatment, her case became a disciplinary one, the statement says.

"The plaintiff has failed to follow medical advice in respect to treatment, and in this way caused or contributed to any medical conditions or problems she had or now has," the statement says.

The governments deny Galliford's claim that a medical report provided to an RCMP doctor diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder. Rather, the report merely asked whether she had the condition, the statement says.

None of the allegations contained in either Galliford's lawsuit or the government's statement of defence has been tested in court. Galliford's lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Since Galliford went public, several more women have filed similar lawsuits targeting the RCMP and its officers.

Const. Susan Gastaldo filed a lawsuit alleging she was sexually assaulted by Staff Sgt. Travis Pearson, who maintains they were involved in a consensual affair. An internal disciplinary board accepted Pearson's version of events, but Gastaldo is still pursuing her lawsuit.

Const. Karen Katz has filed two lawsuits. One alleges a colleagues harassed and sexually assaulted her. Her second, filed earlier this month, alleges more widespread abuse during her career.

Cpl. Elisabeth Mary Couture filed a lawsuit last December, alleging harassment and intimidation from her superiors and colleagues.

Janet Merlo, a 19-year veteran of the force, filed a class-action lawsuit in March alleging sexist comments, sexual pranks and derogatory remarks while on the job. Her lawyer has suggested dozens of other officers are prepared to join the case.

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