Calls for inquiry on missing and murdered Aboriginal women

Mishkegogamang’s Tom Wassaykeesic welcomes a United Nations call for an inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women after a recent investigation into his mother’s 1976 death failed find anything new.
“To me, there was no smoking gun,” said the Mishkeegogamang councillor about the Ontario Provincial Police’s 2011 investigation into Sophie Wassaykeesic’s death in Central Patricia, now part of Pickle Lake. “We’re talking about witnesses who are no longer around. Those who are still alive can’t really recollect anything.”
Wassaykeesic and his three brothers were disappointed after meeting with representatives from the Coroner’s office and the OPP in Thunder Bay in late December. The original verdict in Sophie’s death still stands: death by asphyxiation.
“My brother Ernie was asking for closure,” Wassaykeesic said. “He still gets nightmares about 1976 in Central Patricia. He was looking for closure and he never got it.”
Although the OPP investigation did not find a new cause regarding his mother’s death, Wassaykeesic said there are other women from his community who have gone missing over the years.
“My next-door neighbour, his mother disappeared back in 1992 in Sioux Lookout and she has never been found,” Wassaykeesic said. “I’m sure my next-door neighbour wonders what ever became of his mother.”
Wassaykeesic also noted that Rena Fox, a long-time employee of the Office of the Register General in Thunder Bay and his brother Gary Wassaykeesic’s half sister, was found deceased on the outskirts of Thunder Bay in 2003.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Mike Metatawabin and the NAN Women’s Council also welcomed an inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada.
“It is too often that our mothers, daughters, sisters and grandmothers face death in such a tragic way,” Metatawabin said. “The way which all levels of government, including the policing and the justice system, have treated our sisters is horrendous. If these crimes occurred in a middle class suburban neighbourhood, you can be rest assured that an inquest would have been completed years ago.”
In October 2011 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) made the decision to initiate an inquiry, following a call by the Native Women’s Association of Canada and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action. Over the past two decades, more than 600 Aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or been murdered across Canada.
“It’s time we take the government to task on how they treat Aboriginal people and women in particular, especially when Canada has been called to task by the CEDAW,” said Jackie Fletcher, spokesperson for the NAN Women’s Council. “Canada is a signatory to the CEDAW convention, therefore they need to put into action what the convention states and not do what the government of the day proposes.”
CEDAW decided to initiate an inquiry procedure under article 8 of the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women based on information it had received.
CEDAW stated in a Dec. 16 press release it had not decided whether it would conduct a visit at this initial stage of the process, and is currently not in a position to provide additional information in this regard.