TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that his government will launch an investigation into murdered and missing aboriginal women and girls, stressing the need for a stronger relationship with the country’s indigenous communities.
The decision by Trudeau, a Liberal, marked another policy reversal from his predecessor Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
Harper refused to authorize a public inquiry even though a police report last year said a disproportionate number of female homicide victims in Canada are aboriginal. That report came days after a United Nations watchdog called for an inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women.
Trudeau has made working with the aboriginal community to rectify ongoing issues a priority. He said those touched by the tragedy of murdered and missing aboriginal women have waited long enough.
“The victims deserve justice, their families an opportunity to heal and to be heard,” he said during a speech Tuesday. “We must work together to put an end to this ongoing tragedy.”
Last year’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police report said aboriginal women represent 4.3 percent of the total female population but that 16 percent of all female homicide victims are from First Nations, as Canada’s indigenous people are called.
The police reviewed cases from 1980 to 2013 and found 1,181 aboriginal women fell into the missing or murdered category — almost double earlier estimates. Of those 1,181 women, 164 were missing and 1,017 murdered.
Trudeau received a standing ovation after speaking at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly in Gatineau, Quebec. He is the first prime minister in recent memory to attend the event hosted by the Assembly of First Nations. The national advocacy organization represents aboriginal communities, which includes more than 900,000 people living in 634 First Nation communities across the country.
“You have made a great start in changing the relationship, Prime Minister,” said Perry Bellegarde, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. “I see that change has already begun,”
Under Harper, the Canadian government had tense relations with the aboriginal community.
One sore point has been how to deal with the legacy of residential schools. Some 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were taken from their families and forced to attend government schools over much of the last century. The children were not allowed to speak their native languages and were forced to convert to Christianity. Many were beaten, verbally abused and up to 6,000 were said to have died.
Harper made a historic apology in 2008 to residential school survivors.
But he has been faulted for failing to implement the recommendations of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to reduce the number of indigenous children in state care, eliminate gaps in education and employment, protect indigenous languages and launch a probe into murdered and missing aboriginal women.
Trudeau said Tuesday that his government would implement all 94 recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“What’s needed is nothing less than a total renewal between Canada and First Nations people,” he said.
