Two federal government ministers say they are hearing countless stories of hurt, pain and mistrust of public institutions as part of a pre-national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett were in Saskatoon Wednesday as part of the pre-inquiry.
Wilson-Raybould says the feedback they are receiving from Indigenous victims of violence and their families is they have little faith in public institutions such as the justice system.
“We’ve heard again the unequal application of the justice system,” she says.
Bennett says the pre-inquiry has also heard a significant level of mistrust expressed in both police and media.
The Liberal government announced the national inquiry shortly after getting elected last fall.
However, the government says it wants to ensure it gets the inquiry right by first seeking input from victims and their families.
“When the commission is launched, if the families can feel that they’ve been properly listened to, when they can see their fingerprints on the blueprint of the inquiry, we will feel we have done well,” Bennett says.
The ministers are currently in the process of consulting with Indigenous victims of violence and their families in a series of closed-door meetings across the country.
Prior to Saskatoon, the government held pre-inquiry meetings in a number of locations including Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Regina.
The Liberals have committed to launching the full inquiry sometime in 2016.
The whole process will take about two years and cost $40 million.
A 2014 RCMP report estimates 1,181 Indigenous women were either killed or went missing between 1980 and 2012.