Need for inquiry cited by human rights body as missing and murdered aboriginal women numbers high enough to question law enforcement's effort
Paul J. Henderson
The Times
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
A United Nations (UN) human rights body has called for an investigation into the 500-plus missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada, and local MP and Minister of Indian Affairs Chuck Strahl said he would address the issue.
In what is being called a rare step, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) called on Canada to set up an inquiry to look at the failure of law enforcement agencies to investigate properly, and to "take necessary steps to remedy the deficiencies in the system."
The UN CEDAW committee has asked Canada to respond to its recommendations within one year, and to recognize "the gravity of the documented disappearance and murders of 511 Aboriginal women and girls from communities across Canada."
In response to the CEDAW report issued Nov. 7, the B.C. First Nations Leadership Council and the National Assembly of First Nations called on the government to conduct a full public inquiry.
During a conference call with local media Thursday, Strahl said he had met with Beverly Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, about the matter, and that he would work with her to address the situation.
"Whether that needs to be a formal inquiry on this or not, we've agreed to work with Ms. Jacobs and several other departments," he said.
When asked if the government would meet CEDAW's timeline, Strahl said he agreed to address the issues, but that he had just met with Jacobs Nov. 27 so it was too early to confirm.
And while he didn't suggest an inquiry was out of the question, Strahl did say that it wasn't something his department would undertake.
"I'm not going to launch an inquiry because it would have to come from the Justice Department," he said.
Local Sto:lo member Ernie Crey whose sister Dawn's remains were found at Robert Pickton's Coquitlam pig farm said he was happy to see B.C.'s top aboriginal leaders taking a stand on the need for an inquiry into the thousands of missing aboriginal women.
"Here in B.C. the disappearance of dozens of woman, many of them aboriginal, remains a mystery," Crey told the Times. "Once the Pickton case is wrapped up, there needs to be an inquiry into what happened on the Downtown Eastside (DTES) over the last two decades. How did so many women go missing from right under the noses of the Vancouver Police Department (VPD)? Even after the community raised the possibility that a serial killer might be stalking the DTES, the VPD scoffed at the idea. British Columbians want to know what went wrong and what can be done to make sure such a horrible thing never happens again in B.C."
© Chilliwack Times 2008
Tuesday, December 2
Canadian soldier Trevor Greene defies all odds
Shelley Lipke
Staff writer
December 1, 2008
Movie poster
In the CTV Original Documentary Peace Warrior
Saturday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m.
This intimate, one-hour documentary offers an exclusive look into Captain Trevor Greene’s courageous struggle to recover from a horrific axe attack in Afghanistan.
Former Will & Grace star Eric McCormack provides narration.
In March 2006, Captain Trevor Greene was ambushed from behind and struck in the head with an axe that plunged deep into his brain as he sat down to talk to villagers in Afghanistan.
News of the horrific attack made headlines across Canada, as the Canadian officer who went to the war-torn country to spread peace was instead left fighting for his life. In the exclusive CTV original documentary, Peace Warrior, Vancouver filmmaker Sue Ridout provides intimate access to Greene’s remarkable journey as he first fights to survive the near-fatal attack, and then struggles to reclaim some measure of his former life.
Of all the stories to emerge from Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, the axe attack on Captain Greene is among the most shocking. Beloved by friends and family for his larger-than-life personality, Greene, a 41-year-old reserve officer from Vancouver, was attending a routine village meeting or “shura” north of Kandahar when he was attacked by a young Afghani. Greene regularly attended these meetings as he travelled around Afghanistan with an army platoon, helping the Afghan people rebuild their country.
Greene was not expected to live. He spent the next year in Vancouver General Hospital, nearly dying several times. Doctors predicted that he would never come out of his coma, let alone speak or have any movement again. Amazingly, he proved them all wrong.
With the unwavering love and support of his fiancée, Debbie, and from a deep desire to be an active father to their young daughter Grace, Greene eventually transferred to a brain injury rehabilitation program in Alberta, where he made inspiring progress.
Through candid interviews with friends, family and fellow soldiers who witnessed the attack, Peace Warrior builds an intimate portrait of a man whose strong will and positive attitude, combined with his peak physical and mental shape before the attack, allow him to surpass everyone’s expectations, despite his devastating brain injury.
Bad Date The Lost Girls of Vancouver's Low Track by Trevor Greene
Closing Bigger - Trevor Greene, Author, Journalist, Entrepreneur
http://www.closingbigger.com/page141.htm
Hazel8500 Blog
http://hazel8500.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/captain-trevor-green-canadian-hero-takes-on-new-mission/
Friday, November 28
Pickton memorial shameless idea
Vancouver Courier
Friday, November 28, 2008
To the editor:
Re: "On hallowed ground," Nov. 21.
I am writing in regards to the article on using the Pickton land for a memorial park.
My name is Lori-Ann Ellis and I am the sister in-law of Cara Ellis, one of the girls awaiting justice in this terrible case. I was so upset when I heard about this idea I felt sick to my stomach. I would no more send my child to play at a park made on the ground of this horrible crime than fly to the moon. To build a park and call it a memorial just draws more attention--all negative. Like the police letting this happen long after Pickton was a person of interest. This man was allowed to get away with these murders and was left unchecked.
I know that my mother in-law (Cara's mom) would not even step on the land where her daughter was murdered in such a degrading way. She is not the only one to feel this way.
If you are going to make a memorial for these girls, one that would honour them, try putting money into projects that help others to get off the streets. Stop closing the rehab centres. Stop the police from looking the other way when something goes wrong. Don't hide the problem during the upcoming Olympics.
The world needs to see what happens when society looks the other way. They need to face and fix the problem, and they are not going to do so by building a pretty park and hiding behind the names of the murdered girls. Honour them by making sure that this will never happen again. That is what we need.
The city that helped to let this problem get so big should step up and build a proper tribute to these girls. Every day on the Downtown Eastside people look away from this problem. You cannot do this by pretending it is not there.
These are the sisters and daughters and wives and mommies of families. We deserve more of a memorial than the land that held their bone fragments.
Shame on you, Vancouver, for thinking such a thing. Shame, shame, shame.
Would you want someone having a picnic on your mom's grave?
Lori-Ann Ellis,
Calgary, Alta.
© Vancouver Courier 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
To the editor:
Re: "On hallowed ground," Nov. 21.
I am writing in regards to the article on using the Pickton land for a memorial park.
My name is Lori-Ann Ellis and I am the sister in-law of Cara Ellis, one of the girls awaiting justice in this terrible case. I was so upset when I heard about this idea I felt sick to my stomach. I would no more send my child to play at a park made on the ground of this horrible crime than fly to the moon. To build a park and call it a memorial just draws more attention--all negative. Like the police letting this happen long after Pickton was a person of interest. This man was allowed to get away with these murders and was left unchecked.
I know that my mother in-law (Cara's mom) would not even step on the land where her daughter was murdered in such a degrading way. She is not the only one to feel this way.
If you are going to make a memorial for these girls, one that would honour them, try putting money into projects that help others to get off the streets. Stop closing the rehab centres. Stop the police from looking the other way when something goes wrong. Don't hide the problem during the upcoming Olympics.
The world needs to see what happens when society looks the other way. They need to face and fix the problem, and they are not going to do so by building a pretty park and hiding behind the names of the murdered girls. Honour them by making sure that this will never happen again. That is what we need.
The city that helped to let this problem get so big should step up and build a proper tribute to these girls. Every day on the Downtown Eastside people look away from this problem. You cannot do this by pretending it is not there.
These are the sisters and daughters and wives and mommies of families. We deserve more of a memorial than the land that held their bone fragments.
Shame on you, Vancouver, for thinking such a thing. Shame, shame, shame.
Would you want someone having a picnic on your mom's grave?
Lori-Ann Ellis,
Calgary, Alta.
© Vancouver Courier 2008
Thursday, November 27
Picktons lose appeal to have notorious property rezoned as farmland
The Canadian Press
November 27, 2008
VANCOUVER, B.C. — The Pickton family has lost a legal bid to change the zoning classification of the notorious pig farm where Robert Pickton killed six women.
Pickton, his brother David and sister Linda Wright asked the Supreme Court of British Columbia to review a decision that reclassified the land as residential - significantly increasing property taxes.
A property assessment review panel ruled in 2003 that the land should be classified as residential and not a mix of residential and light industry, which it had been classified before.
The Picktons wanted the value of the land to be set at less than $1 million, but the panel instead assessed it as residential land with a value of more than $4 million in 2004.
The family argued that those earlier decisions failed to acknowledge that the land was off-limits from February 2002 until about December 2003 as police searched the property for evidence against Pickton.
But B.C. Supreme Court Judge Austin Cullen says the Picktons failed to appeal the earlier decision - which was held up by an appeal panel - and never offered any evidence to suggest the assessment was unreasonable.
Robert Pickton was sentenced last December to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years after he was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder.
He was convicted of killing Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.
Pickton's appeal of the six convictions is due to start next March.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Forget memorial idea
The Province
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I disagree with The Province that the Pickton farm should be turned into a memorial park or graveyard if it becomes government property.
If you turn that farm into a memorial, the only one who people will remember is Willy Pickton, not his victims.
And what of the $10-million legal bill? How would that be paid? And how will a memorial park stop poor women from becoming drug-addicted prostitutes? The property should be sold and developed into a commercial site such as a driving range or a big box store. Or it could be filled with organic material and maintained as an organic farm.
Either way, sell it before the property values drop another 30 per cent.
Rick Cheyne, Surrey
© The Vancouver Province 2008
November 27, 2008
VANCOUVER, B.C. — The Pickton family has lost a legal bid to change the zoning classification of the notorious pig farm where Robert Pickton killed six women.
Pickton, his brother David and sister Linda Wright asked the Supreme Court of British Columbia to review a decision that reclassified the land as residential - significantly increasing property taxes.
A property assessment review panel ruled in 2003 that the land should be classified as residential and not a mix of residential and light industry, which it had been classified before.
The Picktons wanted the value of the land to be set at less than $1 million, but the panel instead assessed it as residential land with a value of more than $4 million in 2004.
The family argued that those earlier decisions failed to acknowledge that the land was off-limits from February 2002 until about December 2003 as police searched the property for evidence against Pickton.
But B.C. Supreme Court Judge Austin Cullen says the Picktons failed to appeal the earlier decision - which was held up by an appeal panel - and never offered any evidence to suggest the assessment was unreasonable.
Robert Pickton was sentenced last December to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years after he was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder.
He was convicted of killing Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin and Marnie Frey.
Pickton's appeal of the six convictions is due to start next March.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Forget memorial idea
The Province
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I disagree with The Province that the Pickton farm should be turned into a memorial park or graveyard if it becomes government property.
If you turn that farm into a memorial, the only one who people will remember is Willy Pickton, not his victims.
And what of the $10-million legal bill? How would that be paid? And how will a memorial park stop poor women from becoming drug-addicted prostitutes? The property should be sold and developed into a commercial site such as a driving range or a big box store. Or it could be filled with organic material and maintained as an organic farm.
Either way, sell it before the property values drop another 30 per cent.
Rick Cheyne, Surrey
© The Vancouver Province 2008
Wednesday, November 26
Serial Killer's Farm Should Be Memorial, Say Missing Women's Supporters
By Joan Delaney
Epoch Times Staff
Nov 24, 2008
Supporters of Vancouver's missing women want the farm of Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton turned into a memorial park instead of being developed for big-box stores or condominiums.
They're calling for the 14-acre property to be made into a public cemetery with a memorial wall and gardens in honor of the 69 missing and murdered women from Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside neighborhood.
The Province of British Columbia has had a $10 million lien on the farm since August 2003, about a year after legal proceedings against Pickton began in 2002. The women’s supporters, however, are dismayed that the property could be sold. They say the Pickton farm is a cemetery and should be viewed as such and treated with dignity.
“To sell that property for development is irresponsible. How could we as a society contemplate erasing what happened there?” says Tom Crean, founder and director the Partners in Care Alliance, a non-profit organization that runs a fund for the missing women.
“There are 500 women listed as missing today in western Canada alone. There needs to be a permanent memorial and not just to the 69 women that are missing on the Downtown Eastside. We need a memorial to all of those women—There needs to be acknowledgement,” says Crean.
About two dozen people rallied at the Pickton farm recently in solidarity with the missing women's families and friends who undertook a 70-hour vigil in recognition of the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25.
The proposed memorial would have a “wall of remembrance” inscribed with the names of the murdered and missing women, many of whom are aboriginal.
A pig farmer, Pickton was arrested after police discovered human remains in one of the farm's slaughterhouses. After killing his victims, Pickton dismembered and gutted them, feeding the remains to his pigs.
In an unprecedented investigation, the entire farm was declared a crime scene—the largest in Canadian history. Over 150 investigators and forensics and archeology experts were part of a 21-month search, including 102 anthropology students who painstakingly sifted through every inch of soil.
After an 11-month trial, Pickton was convicted last December of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He still faces murder charges in the deaths on 20 women, most of whom were prostitutes from the Downtown Eastside.
The farm, located in Port Coquitlam, about 40 kilometers east of Vancouver, is currently owned by Pickton and two of his siblings.
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