IMPORTANT NOTICE
I would like to advice you,
due to unforeseen difficult circumstances there will be no
further updates on the Highway of Tears website until
further notice.
I have and will always honour those Families who have
Missing Loved Ones and whom I have tried to be there for
since 2005.
Please check back for further information.
A combination of the
law, police tactics and bad attitudes among officers has
forced street-level sex workers out of sight where they are
easy prey for predators such as Robert Pickton, a
prostitution expert told the public inquiry into the serial
killer's case on Thursday.
John Lowman said police
in Vancouver have engaged in a decades-long campaign to move
prostitutes out of residential neighbourhoods and upscale
areas of the city and into the industrial and commercial
areas of the Downtown Eastside, where Pickton spent years
hunting his victims.
That eventually meant
sex workers were in isolated areas out of sight of both
police and local residents, making it easy for predators to
target the women with impunity, said Lowman, a criminologist
at Simon Fraser University.
'The law itself encourages
an adversarial relationship between street-involved women
and the police.'—Criminologist
John Lowman
"Women are spread out in
an area like that in back alleys and pushed off the main
streets, they're a much easier target for a misogynistic
predator pretending to be a client," Lowman, the first
witness at the hearings, said during his testimony.
"I don't think it was
the intention of anybody to make this a more dangerous area
or the situation worse, but I think that's exactly what it
did."
Commissioner Wally Oppal
is examining why the Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to
catch Pickton as he murdered sex workers from the Downtown
Eastside in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as the
decision by Crown counsel not to prosecute Pickton for
attempted murder after an attack in 1997.
Lowman said a
number of factors converged to make life for impoverished,
drug-addicted street prostitutes, many of them aboriginal,
particularly dangerous by the time Pickton began bringing
them to his farm in nearby Port Coquitlam to be butchered.
Reduced chances of arrest
Under pressure from the
city and residents, Vancouver police spent years displacing
street-level sex workers away from residential areas — even
those in the Downtown Eastside itself — into the deserted,
poorly lit and scarcely policed industrial areas nearby. Sex
workers knew if they stayed in such areas, which served as
unofficial red-light districts, they could reduce the chance
they would be arrested, he said.
Criminologist
John Lowman says authorities have helped push street
prostitutes into dangerous situations. CBCAt
the same time, local courts were imposing conditions on sex
workers ordering them to stay off the main strolls in the
Downtown Eastside, forcing them to side streets and or back
alleys where they were even more isolated.
And Canada's
prostitution laws encouraged police to view sex workers
primarily as criminals, making it more difficult for
prostitutes to come forward if they were abused, fostering
dismissive attitudes among some officers, Lowman said.
He has interviewed sex
workers during his research who recalled being ridiculed by
police officers when reporting assaults, and harassed while
on the streets. For example, some sex workers were taken on
"starlight tours," in which officers drove them across the
city and dropped them off with little way to find their way
back, he testified.
"The law itself
encourages an adversarial relationship between
street-involved women and the police," said Lowman.
He said that reality
exposed sex workers to people like Pickton, who appeared to
have picked up women from the Downtown Eastside with a plan
to kill them from the outset.
Lowman said
Pickton fits the description of a classic predator, which he
describes as a man who hates women and poses as a client to
attack or kill sex workers. Lowman contrasted that with a
client who might attack a sex worker in the heat of the
moment during a sexual encounter.
Premeditation presumed
"In your opinion,
Pickton would have planned, ahead of time in a premeditated
manner and formed that intent at the time he was picking up
the woman?" commissioner Wally Oppal asked Lowman.
"The likelihood that he
may have done that five times or 10 times or 49 times, the
idea that he didn't premeditate it sounds rather unlikely to
me."
Pickton was arrested in
2002 and eventually convicted of six counts of second-degree
murder. The jury declined to convict him on the more serious
charge of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in
prison with no parole for at least 25 years.
The remains or DNA of 33
women were found on Pickton's farm, though he boasted to
police that he killed a total of 49.
The inquiry's terms of
reference focus specifically on the actions of police and
prosecutors, but a number of advocacy groups have urged
Oppal to look at broader issues affecting sex workers in the
Downtown Eastside such as poverty, drug use and prostitution
laws.
Lowman's testimony
alternated between discussing how police in Vancouver treat
sex workers and debating the actual law -- two areas that he
said were intertwined.
"Fundamental changes
need to be made at every level," said Lowman, who has
publicly advocated for decriminalization.
"It's written through so
many layers of our reaction to these women that we need to
change it all in order to change the parts."
Oppal is also conducting
a less-formal set of hearings known as a study commission to
examine broader issues surrounding missing women, including
the so-called Highway of Tears in northern B.C.
BY NEAL HALL,
VANCOUVER SUN OCTOBER 12, 2011
5:54 PM
Elder
Eugene Harry of the Squamish Nation blesses the proceedings
of the missing women's inquiry in Federal Court in Vancouver
on Tuesday. Commissioner Wally Oppal's mandate includes
finding fault, if necessary.
Photograph
by:Ian Smith,
PNG, Vancouver Sun
Here is the opening statement given by
Cameron Ward in court, Tuesday, who is representing 18
families of the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton:
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chantler and I act for the
families of the following 18 women who went missing on
Vancouver’s downtown east side (“DTES”) and were later
linked to convicted murderer Robert William Pickton:
Dianne Rock, Georgina Papin,
Marnie Frey, Cynthia Dawn Feliks, Cara Ellis, Mona Wilson,
Helen May Hallmark, Dawn Crey, Angela Hazel Williams,
Jacqueline Murdock, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury, Elsie
Sebastian, Heather Bottomley, Andrea Borhaven, Tiffany Drew,
Angela Jardine and Stephanie Lane
Their family members, many of
whom have attended here today, live throughout British
Columbia, in places such as Prince George, Sparwood,
Rosedale, Coldstream, Campbell River, Victoria, Fanny Bay,
Surrey and Chilliwack. Some live across the country, in
Edmonton, Calgary, and North York, Ontario, or across the
border in Washington state.
These families and others
demanded a public inquiry into why it took the law
enforcement authorities so long to arrest Pickton and put a
stop to his horrific crimes. Now that the public inquiry has
finally arrived, we intend to do everything we possibly can
to help the Commission fulfill its mandate.
As Mr. Vertlieb pointed out in
the course of his thorough opening remarks, that mandate
includes conducting a thorough factual review of two related
subject areas:
1) The conduct of the missing
women investigations, defined as the police investigations
conducted between January 23, 1997 and February 5, 2002
respecting women reported missing from the DTES.
2) The decision of the Attorney
General’s Criminal Justice Branch to stay charges against
Pickton of attempted murder, assault with a weapon, forcible
confinement and aggravated assault that had been laid
against him in respect of events that occurred on March 23,
1997.
We perceive that this inquiry
should primarily serve the families and respect the memory
of their lost loved ones. Because the missing women were
ignored by society for far too long, I am going to take the
liberty of spending a few minutes to introduce now each of
them to you. Every person on this list was once somebody’s
child, somebody’s little girl:
THE MISSING WOMEN
1. Dianne Rock was adopted into a
warm and loving family at the age of four, in Welland,
Ontario. By the age of 28, she was the mother of five
children. She was married and worked as a care aide to
mentally handicapped adults before her life took a turn for
the worse in 2001. Dianne was last seen in the DTES on
October 19, 2001 and was reported missing one month later.
2. Georgina Papin was born into a
well-known family on the Enoch Cree First Nation reserve,
southwest of Edmonton. By the age of 35 she had seven
children. Georgina disappeared from Vancouver’s downtown
east side in March, 1999, leaving behind a large extended
family.
3. Marnie Frey had a “typical”
childhood in Campbell River, raised by her loving father and
adoptive mother. Marnie moved to Vancouver in 1997 but
maintained regular and frequent contact with her family. She
went missing in August of that year, only days after calling
her parents on her 24th birthday. Her disappearance was
reported to police immediately.
4. Cynthia (or Cindy) Feliks was
raised primarily by her adoptive mother Marilyn, and
attended Lord Byng High School on Vancouver’s west side. She
had one daughter, now in her twenties, and many friends when
she suddenly disappeared from the DTES in November of 1997.
The police told Cindy’s family she “must be around” and
would “likely just show up”.
5. Cara Ellis was born and raised
in Calgary. She moved to Vancouver in her early 20s, and,
despite no end to the troubles she encountered here,
maintained close contact with her family back home. Cara
vanished in early 1997, and the subsequent report of her
disappearance was shrugged off by the VPD.
6. Mona Wilson was raised in
foster care in Surrey, but was originally from the O-Chiese
First Nation near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. She is
survived by a large family including several siblings. Mona
disappeared from the DTES on November 23, 2001 at age 26 and
was reported missing shortly after.
7. Helen May Hallmark grew up in
Burnaby. She entered foster care in her early teens but
remained close with her natural family. She disappeared
shortly after her 31st birthday in October, 1997. Helen’s
siblings’ attempts to report her disappearance to the VPD
were met with resistance and apathy.
8. Dawn Crey was born into the
Sto:lo First Nation, near Chilliwack, and is survived by a
large family including six siblings, many nieces and
nephews, and her own son. She was raised in foster care, but
always maintained ties with her family. Dawn disappeared
shortly before her 43rd birthday, in November, 2000 and was
reported missing one month later.
9. Angela Williams was raised by
her father in Campbell River. She went missing from the DTES
in December, 2001, and was found murdered in Surrey shortly
thereafter. She had three children. Although her death has
not been attributed to Pickton, Angela is on this list
because the circumstances of her disappearance shed further
light on the quality of the missing person investigations.
10. Jackie Murdock was the
youngest daughter of large family from the Carrier First
Nation in Fort St. James. She was 26 years old when she was
last seen at the corner of Main and Hastings on August 14,
1997, at the age of 26. Jackie is survived a large family
including her parents, siblings and four children.
11. Brenda Wolfe was born and
raised near Lethbridge. She eventually moved to the DTES
where she made many friends and worked at the infamous
Balmoral Hotel. Brenda had two children when she disappeared
in February, 1999, at the age of 31.
12. Andrea Joesbury was born in
Victoria, and was raised by her mother until the age of 16,
when she moved to Vancouver. She was last seen in June, 2001
at the age of 23. Andrea left behind her grandparents,
parents and siblings, and a young daughter.
13. Elsie Sebastian was born into
the Pacheedaht First Nation near Port Renfrew and was a
survivor of the Alberni Indian Residential School. She
disappeared from the DTES in 1992. Elsie left behind two
daughters, two sons, and a large extended family.
14. Heather Bottomley was born
and raised in New Westminster, where she enjoyed a happy and
normal childhood. In her teenage years a boyfriend led her
to life on the DTES. She had two children, and was last seen
April 17, 2001, at the age of 24. Heather was reported
missing in November of that year.
15. Andrea Borhaven was born in
Langley, and was raised by her mother and stepfather in
Armstrong. Her mother last heard from her in January, 1997,
and reported her disappearance to the VPD later. Andrea was
26 years old.
16. Tiffany Drew was raised in
Port Alberni and Nanaimo by her parents. After she moved to
Vancouver in 1998, she remained close with her aunt, who now
has custody of Tiffany’s three children. Tiffany vanished
from the DTES in 1999. Her family met resistance when trying
to report her missing to the Vancouver Police.
17. Angela Jardine was born in
Sudbury, Ontario, and moved to Sparwood with her parents at
the age of 12. At the age of 19 she moved to Vancouver. She
was last seen by her social worker in December, 1998 – and
when she failed to come home to Sparwood for Christmas, her
family contacted the VPD. Angela was 28 years old.
18. Stephanie Lane grew up in
East Vancouver with her parents and younger brother. While
in high school, she was a straight-A student. She
disappeared from the downtown east side in January, 1997,
and was reported missing to the VPD within weeks. Stephanie
was 20 years old, and had recently given birth to her only
son.
These missing women were all
little girls once, and they could have been anyone’s
daughters. Each of them loved their families, and were loved
by their families right back. While many young women had
fallen into the grip of drug addictions and were forced to
sell their bodies to supplement meager welfare payments,
they had homes and friends and kept in frequent touch with
their parents, siblings and other relatives.
Many occasionally returned to
their families for special occasions like Christmas,
birthdays and weddings or simply for a home-cooked meal and
temporary respite from the life they lived in the DTES.
However, their lives were on the DTES. It was their home and
the only place where they felt they could survive.
Other than sometimes catching up
with their relatives, these women rarely left their circle
of friends, fellow addicts and dealers – and were often
caught in a vicious cycle of highs and lows. We expect that
many of the friends and family members of the missing women
will testify that they got the brush-off when they reported
them missing to the VPD. They were told that they must have
gone on holiday, gone travelling or that there was another
reasonable explanation for their absence. That was patently
nonsense – addicted women who rely on welfare cheques to
survive simply can’t leave their home turf, even if they
wanted to. We expect that their families will describe the
experience of fearing that something terrible may have
happened to their loved one, the experience of taking their
concern to the police and being told by a perfect stranger
that their child or close relative was probably just off on
holidays, or had gone travelling without letting them know,
or will turn up soon. They will try to convey how
presumptuous, insulting, condescending and offensive those
comments were.
We expect that the evidence will
reveal that the police, to the extent they even noticed,
were full of disdain and contempt for the missing women and
their families. These weren’t “nice girls” from the west
side of Vancouver, where people drive expensive cars and
where nondescript houses change hands for millions of
dollars. They were poverty- stricken, drug- addicted, poorly
–educated, predominantly native sex trade workers from the
DTES, where people don’t own cars but offer to wipe the
windows of those who pass through. These are people who are
forced by circumstance to sleep in alleys or bedbug infested
flophouses and scrounge for pocket change just to survive
from one day to the next. The police and most of the rest of
society, if the truth be told, couldn’t have cared less what
happened to these women.
THE FAMILIES’ VIEWS
For a period of at least five
long years leading up to February 5, 2002, the date the
police accidentally stumbled upon evidence at the Pickton
farm, dozens of women vanished from right under the noses of
the VPD and were murdered right under the noses of the
Coquitlam RCMP, even though both police forces had plenty of
information pointing to Pickton as a prime suspect. The
families want to know why Pickton wasn’t stopped sooner.
They want to know if he had accomplices who may still be
walking the streets and preying on other victims.
The families believe that the law
enforcement authorities responsible for protecting the
public and keeping our communities safe appear to have
failed miserably in their duties. They believe that these
institutions, although they had millions of dollars of
taxpayers’ funds at their disposal, turned a blind eye to
the issue of the missing women, either because of absolute
indifference, breathtaking incompetence or possibly for more
sinister reasons. Whatever factors may have led to the five
year delay in charging Pickton, and we intend to find out
exactly what they were, the families of the missing women
are absolutely outraged by what happened in this case. They
believe that the authorities are culpable in the deaths of
over a dozen women because their negligence enabled Pickton
to literally get away with murder for more than five years.
Make no mistake about it, our clients believe that the VPD,
the RCMP and the CJB and perhaps others have the blood of
their loved ones on their hands.
The facts already in the public
domain are truly shocking and have led our clients to the
inescapable conclusion that both the VPD and RCMP completely
botched the handling of the missing women investigations. We
anticipate that the additional evidence to be adduced at
these hearings will show that the conduct of both police
forces was inexcusable and egregious.
We expect that the evidence will
show that the police investigations suffered from the
fundamental technical and operational failures highlighted
by Mr. Vertlieb in his opening remarks. In summary, these
included:
- The police failed to
acknowledge the possibility of a serial killer preying on
the DTES, despite the overwhelming evidence, and failed to
warn the public of this possibility;
- they failed to share
information between departments, or even within their own
review teams;
- they failed to follow the basic
principles of major case management, and lacked adequate
training in major case management;
- they failed to conduct
effective or sufficient surveillance on their primary
suspects;
- they failed to follow basic
leads, such as interviewing family members and friends of
the women reported missing;
- they failed to conduct a proper
interview of Pickton in 2000, when he voluntarily attended
the Coquitlam RCMP detachment, and they failed to follow up
that poor interview with a consensual search of his farm;
- they failed to adequately
prioritize resources despite the scale of the unfolding
tragedy;
But beyond these technical purely
technical failings, we expect that the evidence will show
that the police had a bad attitude- they showed an enormous
lack of understanding of, or prejudice towards, the
population with whom they were dealing:
- they failed to understand the
cycle of dependence of drug-addicted sex workers, and
naively assumed they were transient;
- they failed to deal effectively
and appropriately with tipsters and witnesses who happened
to be drug users; and
- they failed to give sufficient
or any value to the evidence brought by friends, family
members and social service providers that women had
disappeared;
In short – it seems the police
often didn’t believe the families, the friends and the other
concerned citizens who came forward to report the sudden
disappearance of women from the DTES. Why were they
apparently so callous and indifferent? Was it because the
women had the nine characteristics that Mr. Vertlieb listed?
Did the police conclude, because these women were
poverty-stricken, poorly educated residents of the DTES,
many of First Nations heritage, many addicted to drugs, many
involved in the sex trade, many with criminal records, that
they simply didn’t matter and their disappearances were of
no consequence?
The families feel that the RCMP
should be singled out for special scrutiny by this
Commission, given the following facts which we expect will
clearly emerge in the course of the hearings:
The RCMP was responsible for
policing the relatively small suburb of Port Coquitlam,
where the remains and DNA of the missing women were finally
found at a farm owned by the three Pickton siblings, Robert
William (Willy”) Pickton, David Francis Pickton and Linda
Louise Wright, just a short drive east on the Lougheed
Highway from the Coquitlam detachment.. A Hell’s Angels
clubhouse was right across the street from the Pickton farm
and just around the corner from these two properties was
Piggy’s Palace, an infamous hangout operated by Willy
Pickton’s brother Dave on land also owned by the three
Pickton siblings.
It has been reported that Piggy’s
Palace was notorious as a “wild party place with drugs and
prostitutes” and that it was frequented by the Hell’s
Angels, off-duty police officers and city officials. The
Coquitlam RCMP must have been intimately familiar with
Piggy’s Palace and the Pickton brothers’ activities,
especially since we believe that the evidence will reveal
that a long time friend of the Pickton family worked in a
civilian capacity within the detachment.
Earl Moulton, the officer in
charge of the Coquitlam RCMP detachment at the relevant
time, must have known of the unsavoury activities occurring
at Piggy’s Palace. We expect that he will testify and
describe Piggy’s Palace as an illegal after hours “booze
can” and say that “the nature of their clients and such was
that we didn’t want that going on and we took some steps to
interfere”.
These steps apparently included
an action commenced by the City of Port Coquitlam in the
B.C. Supreme Court on October 24, 1996, five months before
Pickton allegedly attempted to murder the sex trade worker
referred to as “Anderson”. The Picktons defended that court
action and the litigation ensued until December 31, 1998,
when the City obtained an interlocutory injunction from Mr.
Justice Scarth that restrained the Picktons from using the
premises at 2552 Burns Road, Piggy’s Palace, “for the
purposes of holding a dance or party or for the assembly of
persons for entertainment, recreational, charitable or
cultural purposes.”
This two year period during which
the City was trying to shut Piggy’s Palace down in the
courts was a critical time because it was then that the RCMP
received information from several sources that Pickton was
involved in harming or killing sex trade workers.
If everyone knew of the wild
activities going on at the Picktons’ property involving
Hell’s Angels, sex trade workers and drugs, if off-duty
police officers had been frequenting the place, and if a
long time friend of the Pickton family worked in a civilian
capacity for the Coquitlam RCMP, then how could the police
fail to put two and two together when the information about
the Pickton’s connection with missing DTES women began
coming in?
Consider this: In August of 2010,
Bill Hiscox, the tipster that Mr. Vertlieb referred to,
received some of the $100,000 reward that had been offered
by the Vancouver Police Board and Province in 1999 “for
information leading to the arrest and conviction of the
person or persons responsible for the unlawful confinement,
kidnapping or murder of” 31 listed missing women.
Mr. Hiscox had come forward in
August of 1998 with information that Willie Pickton, a Port
Coquitlam pig farmer, was a “sicko” who had killed Sarah
deVries, had women’s purses and identification in his
trailer, had said that he could “easily dispose of bodies by
putting them through a grinder” and that “he might be
responsible for all the missing girls.” Mr. Hiscox had made
the effort, out of a sense of public duty, to telephone
Crimestoppers, Ms. deVries’ friend Wayne Leng and the VPD
with this information. The VPD considered it credible and
passed it on to the Coquitlam RCMP, right away, in August of
1998.
When the Coquitlam RCMP got that
information, the first thing they did, obviously, was to
check their records on Pickton. That led them to their file
involving the attempted murder of a DTES sex trade worker
the year before. The RCMP had the evidence gathered in March
of 1997 in their possession, including still photographs and
video of the inside of Pickton’s trailer as well as clothing
and other items that they had seized from him and kept in an
exhibit locker. (When the RCMP finally got around to
checking Pickton’s clothing for evidence, in 2004, seven
years after they had seized it, they found DNA from two of
the missing women, Andrea Borhaven and Cara Ellis).
Although more informants
independently came forward with information similar to what
Hiscox had reported, the RCMP failed to take any number of
steps that could have stopped Pickton in his tracks.
Unfortunately, tragically, unbelievably, Pickton was able to
continue taking women from the DTES to Port Coquitlam farm
where he butchered them on his farm, unhindered by the
police, from August of 1998 until February of 2002, a period
of over three and a half years. How could this possibly
happen?
Both the VPD and the RCMP have
conducted internal reviews of their handling of the case.
Deputy Chief LePard wrote that the VPD’s investigation
lacked “urgency and priority” and suggested that inadequate
resources and lack of a regional police force structure
contributed to the mistakes that were made. He also pointed
fingers at the RCMP, stating, “those in positions of
authority in the Coquitlam RCMP and the Provincial Unsolved
Homicide Unit must bear primary responsibility for the
failure to effectively manage the investigation”. To the
VPD’s credit, LePard at least had the decency to tender an
apology of sorts to the families at a press conference he
conducted on August 20, 2010.
For their part, the RCMP, in an
astonishing display of hubris, have bristled and expressed
indignation at any suggestion they may have made any serious
mistakes along the way. We expect that RCMP Superintendent
Nash will testify that he characterized portions of LePard’s
review as “objectionable”, “inflammatory”, “disturbing”,
“biased”, “unfair”, “insulting”, “misleading”,
“distasteful”, “offensive”, “completely without merit” and
“bizarre”. Don Adam, a retired RCMP investigator who started
working on the case in January of 2001 and was the first
witness to testify at Pickton’s trial, even went so far as
to have a lengthy and largely self-congratulatory opinion
piece published in the Vancouver Sun in November of 2010,
after this inquiry had been announced. Adam’s commentary
cannot be allowed to remain in the public record
unchallenged and we look forward to having the opportunity
to question him about the steps he and his team took or
didn’t take in 2001.
While infighting, personality
clashes and lack of communication may have contributed to
the police investigations’ problems, we will be taking issue
in the strongest possible terms with any suggestion that a
lack of resources was a factor. Wayne Leng, a concerned
citizen with no investigative training and no funding, using
his spare time and his own money, arguably did more in three
months to solve the case than the VPD and RCMP did with
their combined money and manpower in over five years. On
this issue of allegedly inadequate VPD resources, we
observed at least 11 uniformed VPD members downstairs at the
entrance to this building this morning, presumably
dispatched to ensure the peaceful protest outside didn’t get
out of hand. That is ironic, because that is at least eight
more officers than the number of members the VPD assigned to
the missing women cases in the first few phases of their
investigation. We expect the evidence to reveal that
Canada’s national police force and the municipal police
department of this country’s third largest city both had
ample funds and human resources at their disposal to enable
them to do a competent job on the missing women
investigations. The resource issue, if there was any,
appears to us to have been one of misallocation, not
inadequacy.
OBJECTIVES / LACK OF LEVEL
PLAYING FIELD
The families of the missing women
want this inquiry to produce things that have eluded them
for far too long: the truth, some justice and
accountability.
Our task of trying to help the
Commission find the truth will be a challenge. This forum is
not anything like a level playing field. In fact, it will be
more like a mountain to climb, a mountain more daunting than
Everest. The law enforcement authorities have had the
advantage of virtually unlimited resources at their
disposal, in terms of money, lawyers and time. The RCMP and
VPD, reasonably concluding they would need to defend
allegations of negligence, first consulted their civil
litigation lawyers about these matters almost a decade years
ago. We’ve been looking at documents and preparing in
earnest for just a few months.
Everything we have seen to date
suggests that the VPD and RCMP are determined to keep a
tight lid sealed on much of the evidence. Documents have
been vetted and heavily redacted and we had to sign strict
undertakings before we could look at the edited documents.
It’s obvious to us that many classes of important records
still haven’t been revealed, although the other lawyers
involved in these hearings have undoubtedly spent millions
of tax dollars preparing for this day.
We intend to fight tooth and nail
to ensure that every relevant record, every scrap of paper,
every piece of audio, video or photographic evidence, is
available for our scrutiny and use at the hearings. In
short, we plan to use all the means at our disposal to
ensure that the lid is pried off this scandalous case and
that all the relevant facts, no matter how shocking or how
damning they may be, are exposed to the spotlight of public
scrutiny.
We have other grave concerns
about the process so far, here on day one of the hearings.
We are very troubled that the provincial government decided
not to fund other groups with standing, leaving us to
shoulder a heavier burden than anticipated. We don’t
understand why we were not consulted by the Commission
before it reached agreements with the VPD, RCMP and CJB
about how the relevant documents would be produced and
vetted. We are concerned with the engagement of the Peel
Regional police to play some role in this inquiry and wonder
why they apparently were given access to the files six
months before we were. We continually feel left out of the
loop in many respects, especially when we learn about
significant Commission business from the media, as we did
again last Friday when we heard radio reports about how long
this hearing process is expected to last.
On this point, the terms of
reference state that the Commission must report its findings
to the provincial government by December 31 of this year,
2011. In our view, it will be absolutely impossible to
complete an adequate inquiry by then. The government simply
must extend the deadline for at least another year if this
is to be a bona fide exercise. We insist, for the families’
sakes, that the government make the decision now to extend
the time frame of this inquiry so we all have some
scheduling certainty as we move forward.
We trust that this evidentiary
hearing process will be thorough, open and transparent, that
there will be no important agreements made with other
participants without our input and that, as important
participants in these hearings, the families will be kept
fully informed through us of any material issues pertaining
to this process at the same time as the other participants
are apprised of them.
NECESSARY EVIDENCE
We submit that the effectiveness
of this Commission’s work will depend on the nature, quality
and quantity of the evidence it obtains. The evidence will
include the records that the Commission obtains through the
use of its statutory powers and then discloses to the
participants, the documents that become exhibits at the
hearings and the sworn testimony of the witnesses who take
the stand.
While tens of thousands of pages
of heavily redacted documents have been disclosed to us, we
feel that many, many more relevant records still need to be
obtained and produced. To this end, we have made a formal
application for the disclosure of some of the additional
records we believe are relevant to these hearings and we
expect to continue with a concentrated effort to have them
brought forward. Some very essential things seem to be
missing from the disclosure to date. For example, we haven’t
got any audio or video files yet, we haven’t seen the VPD’s
missing person files for Cara Ellis, we don’t yet have the
files related to the investigation and closure of Piggy’s
Palace, we seem to be missing copies of many police and
Crown e-mails, the disclosure of police notebooks seems
incomplete, and so on…..We hope to deal with these issue in
a timely way and encourage the continued cooperation of the
participants and others in this endeavour.
As far as witnesses are
concerned, aside from the first handful of witnesses, we do
not yet know with any real certainty who Mr. Vertlieb
intends to call to the stand. We feel that the witnesses who
should testify at this Commission’s hearings, under
compulsion if necessary, should include people from the
following areas:
Vancouver
Community members, activists,
friends and family who tried to bring the missing women to
the attention of the VPD.
City officials, and members of
the Vancouver Police Board, including former Mayor Owen, who
initially dismissed the issue of the missing women and
hesitated to offer a reward for information.
VPD employees, including the
various Chief Constables and upper management personnel,
media relations spokespeople, regular members and civilian
employees who had any involvement with the missing women
investigations.
Social workers from the DTES who
distributed welfare cheques and must have noticed some of
the women’s failure to collect those cheques.
Employees from West Coast
Reduction Ltd. who had the responsibility of checking and
recording the delivery of farm offal to their Vancouver
rendering plant. Their evidence is relevant because that’s
where Pickton said he took some of the women’s remains.
Senior commanders from RCMP “E”
Division headquarters, including the head of “E” Division at
all material times and those members of the JFO, like Don
Adam and Ted vanOverBeek, who started working on the files
in early 2001.
Port Coquitlam/Coquitlam
Pickton’s siblings who co-owned
the farm and Piggy’s Palace, their close associates and
witnesses who reported Pickton’s activities to the police.
All the members of the Coquitlam
RCMP, including civilian employees, who had any dealings of
any kind with the Pickton family or Piggy’s Palace prior to
February 5, 2002.
All other RCMP members who had
any involvement with the missing women investigations.
The victim of the March 23, 1997
attempted murder (“Anderson”), any witnesses to the crime or
its aftermath, the police who investigated that incident and
all lawyers involved in the decision to stay the charges,
including the Crown and defence counsel on the case.
Victoria
Former Attorney General Ujjal
Dosanjh, who participated in meetings with police leaders
and was involved in the eventual decision to offer a reward,
as well as any other provincial government officials who may
have had any involvement in aspects of the missing women
investigations.
CONCLUSION
This Inquiry will have to cover a
lot of ground if it is to be effective. We plan to post
regular inquiry reports on our website, cameronward.com. We
appeal to anyone who may be following these hearings and who
may have helpful information-contact us through the website,
anonymously if they wish, and we will follow their tips up.
We will do everything we possibly can to help this
Commission uncover the truth.
There is a lot at stake in this
process.
The families of the missing women
have decided to participate and put some faith in the
process, even though they are very disappointed that the
other groups who could have helped out have withdrawn. They
considered withdrawing as well, but considered they are in a
unique and different position; if they are to find out
exactly what happened in the past and have their lingering
questions answered, this is the only viable forum that can
give them that opportunity.
Besides looking backwards to
answer the important questions that the families have,
questions like; Why didn’t the police stop Pickton sooner?
Did Pickton really act alone?; this Commission will be
looking forward and considering recommendations that may be
designed to improve the safety of the most vulnerable
members of our communities, First Nations and others, the
drug addicted and sex trade workers among us. The Commission
may consider making recommendations designed to improve
policing in the Province, perhaps concerning the issue of
the appropriateness of regional policing and perhaps
concerning the topical issue of whether it is appropriate
for the RCMP continue fulfilling the role of the provincial
police force in British Columbia.
On behalf of the families of the
eighteen missing and murdered women we referred to earlier,
we look forward to doing everything we possibly can to
assist this Commission with these important tasks.
Former Vancouver police officer Kim
Rossmo in 2000.
VANCOUVER - An inquiry must answer the question of why a
senior Vancouver police officer was not allowed to issue a
public warning that a serial killer was preying on women, a
lawyer said today.
Mark Skwarok, the lawyer representing former senior
Vancouver police detective Kim Rossmo, said his client tried
to issue a public warning in August about the disturbing
number of women who had gone missing from Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside.
But his bosses wouldn't allow
Rossmo to issue his press release, the lawyer said.
"The question for this commission
is why," Skwarok told Commissioner Wally Oppal during the
second day of the Missing Women inquiry.
The lawyer added that most serial
murder cases are solved by some information provided by the
public, and Rossmo hoped his news release would reveal some
new info.
Skwarok also said that Rossmo
sent a memo in 1999 to senior police showing that there had
been a dramatic increase in the number of missing women and
the most likely explanation was that a single killer was
preying on Downtown Eastside prostitutes.
"That memo was largely ignored,"
the lawyer said.
"Why was Rossmo ignored?
"Had senior police officials
listened to him, Pickton would have been caught sooner,"
Skwarok said, prompting applause from the public gallery,
which contained the families of the victims of serial killer
Robert Pickton.
As it turned out, the lawyer
added, "the police investigation as a whole was nothing
short of an epic failure," Skwarok said.
Jason Gratl, the independent
lawyer appointed by the inquiry commissioner to represent
communities in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, said the
provincial government's failure to fund certain groups at
the inquiry was disrespectful and silenced many voices.
"This inquiry is impoverished by
their absence," the lawyer said.
Gratl asked the inquiry to add
the names of former attorney general Barry Penner and
current Shirley Bond to the list of those who failed the
missing women.
He said the inquiry must look
deeply at the policing policies that resisted taking reports
of missing women, resisted making a list of missing women
and resisted investigating properly.
"The investigation of Pickton
only began in ernest after he was caught," Gratl said.
He said the police department had
a policy of criminalizing sex trade workers and drug addicts
as a public nuisance.
Gratl said Vancouver police had
adopted a policy, which was endorsed by civic officials, of
moving street prostitutes into poorly lit industrial areas,
which were more dangerous, and containing them there.
He called them "containment
fields."
The inquiry is spending the first
two days hearing the opening statements of lawyers.
Witnesses are expected Thursday.
Meanwhile, earlier today a
prominent native leader told the inquiry that there has been
systemic discrimination against first nations people in B.C.
and across Canada for years,
While there has been progress
made in recent years, there still are shocking and
outrageous police incidents involving aboriginal people,
First Nations Summit Grand Chief Ed John said.
He pointed out that only a few
weeks ago there was an RCMP beating of a handcuffed teenage
first nations girl in Williams Lake and before that the
tasering of an 11-year-old aboriginal boy in Prince George.
He said this is part of the
systemic pattern of discrimination that resulted in the
Indian residential school system, which took children out of
their homes in order to "kill the Indian in the child" as
part of the government's assimilation policy.
The government also tried to
undermine the ancient matriarchal society of first nations
people by demeaning and degrading first nations women.
"They needed to break our
structure down to undermine the authority of our woem," John
told the commission.
He said the result of the
historic breakdown of first nations people permeated all
aspects of life, causing poverty, despair, hopelessness and
violence.
It led to high rates of first
nations people ending up in foster homes, dropping out of
high school, failing to land jobs and being incarcerated in
jails and prisons, he said.
John cited the fact that at the
beginning of the 1990s, seven of 10 first nations teens
failed to graduate from high school.
He said first nations leaders
have made education of youth a top priority and now the
drop-out rate has been reduced to 50 per cent, said John,
who is also a lawyer.
He added that he was deeply
disappointed that the province failed to provide funding for
18 groups that have witndrawn from the inquiry because they
couldn't afford to hire lawyers to cross-examine police
witnesses.
John pointed out that one of the
drop-outs, the Native Courtworkers Association, had almost
40 years of experience dealing with many of the women who
went missing.
He said there has been a deep
distrust of police for years among first nations people,
adding that in his native language, the word for police is
"those who take us."
John also questioned the
credibility and fairness of the inquiry after so many groups
have dropped out.
During his submission, the
inquiry could hear the drums and chanting on the street
below as part of a first nations protest about what they
call a "sham" inquiry.
The inquiry is probing why it
took so long to catch Pickton, who is believed to have
killed dozens of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
He was convicted in 2007 of
murdering six women, four of whom were first nations.
The Crown chose not to proceed on
a second trial involving another 20 women.
'The Vancouver police department
and the RCMP completely botched the handling' of the
investigation into Robert Pickton
B
Y
NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUNOCTOBER
12, 2011
Elder Eugene Harry of the Squamish
Nation blesses the proceedings of the missing women's
inquiry in Federal Court in Vancouver on Tuesday.
Commissioner Wally Oppal's mandate includes finding fault,
if necessary.
Photograph by:Ian
Smith, PNG, Vancouver Sun
The lawyer for the families of the victims of
serial killer Robert Pickton blasted police Tuesday for
their failure to catch the killer sooner.
Cameron Ward, in his opening address to the Missing
Women Commission of Inquiry, suggested the Vancouver police
gave families the "brush off" when they tried to report
their loved ones missing.
"Mr. Commissioner [Wally Oppal], the facts in the
public domain are shocking and led our clients to the
conclusion that both the Vancouver police department and the
RCMP completely botched the handling of the missing women
investigation," Ward said.
"The conduct of both police forces was inexcusable
and egregious," he added.
"They [the families of Pickton's victims] believe
that the authorities are culpable in the deaths of over a
dozen women because the authorities enabled Pickton to
literally get away with murder for five more years," Ward
said.
"Our clients believe the VPD, the RCMP and the
Criminal Justice Branch have the blood of their loved ones
on their hands," he said.
Ward said the VPD, and later the RCMP, treated the
missing women cases with indifference and incompetence by
failing to assign adequate resources.
Police indifference resulted from the fact the
missing women were poverty stricken, poorly educated and
largely drug-addicted sex trade workers, with a large
proportion being first nations women, Ward said.
Police "couldn't have cared less what happened to
these women," Ward said.
He pointed out that the RCMP, tipped by Vancouver
police in 1998 that Pickton was a suspect, failed to conduct
adequate surveillance of the serial killer before he was
caught in 2002.
And the Mounties failed to act on Pickton's offer
in 2000 that police could search his farm, Ward said.
He said the criminal justice branch failed the
families of Pickton's victims in 1998 when it stayed charges
against Pickton of attempted murder, unlawful confinement,
assault with a weapon and aggravated assault.
Pickton was charged with the offences after he
stabbed a prostitute at his Port Coquitlam farm in March
1997. The woman slashed Pickton with the same knife she was
stabbed with before fleeing naked and bleeding onto the
street, where she was picked up by a passing car.
The inquiry is expected to hear evidence that
prosecutors and police deemed the woman uncooperative and
not credible because she was a drugaddicted prostitute from
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
The inquiry is going to hear much about the
Downtown Eastside, one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods
that is plagued by violence, drug addiction, mental health
problems and homelessness.
Pickton picked up his victims and took them to his
farm with hollow promises of drugs, alcohol and money. The
inquiry, which is expected to hear a response today from
lawyers representing the Vancouver police and the RCMP, was
greeted by a protest Tuesday outside at Georgia and
Granville, which blocked traffic as a circle of native
drummers took over the intersection.
The protest, which could be heard in the inquiry
room eight floors above, characterized the inquiry as a
"sham" after 18 groups dropped out because the provincial
government refused to grant funding for legal counsel.
The government decided to fund only the victims'
families, who have two lawyers, compared with 14 for the
police and government.
Several groups dropped out on Tuesday including the
Assembly of First Nations and a coalition of sex trade
workers, including the WISH Drop-in Centre Society, PACE
(Providing Alternatives, Counselling & Education) Society,
and the SWUAV (Sex Workers United Against Violence) Society.
Commission lawyer Art Vertlieb said evidence to be
presented included allegations a civilian clerk with the
Vancouver police missing persons unit was dismissive of
reports of missing women working in the sex trade and
discriminated against first nations women - they were
allegedly rebuffed and not treated with compassion and
respect.
Vertlieb said despite police receiving three tips
in 1998 about Pickton as a suspect, Vancouver police
continued to insist the women were missing and that no
serial killer was preying on women in the Downtown Eastside.
The lawyer told Commissioner Wally Oppal that the
inquiry must answer two key questions: Why was foul play
dismissed and why did police not warn the public?
Oppal's mandate includes finding fault, if
necessary.
Rick Frey, the father of Marnie Frey who was killed
by Pickton, said he was sad to see so many groups withdraw
from the inquiry.
"The way it is now, the families are the only ones
in there being represented," he said outside the inquiry.
Frey believes Pickton did not act alone.
The inquiry was supposed to complete its work by
Dec. 31, but Oppal likely will ask the provincial government
for an extension.
Posted: Oct
11, 2011 4:35 AM PT Protesters have
shut down traffic on West Georgia Street in downtown
Vancouver for the second day in a row to voice their
concerns about the Missing Women Inquiry. Manjula Dufrense
B.C.'s inquiry into the death and
disappearance of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
opened in Vancouver amid the chants of protesters outside,
and the withdrawal of several more advocacy groups.
Commissioner Wally Oppal opened the
inquiry Tuesday morning by saying a key question he wants
answered at the inquiry is whether society's most vulnerable
women are being treated the same as other citizens by the
police and the law.
"We must ask ourselves: 'Is it acceptable
that we allowed our most vulnerable to disappear, to be
murdered?' The question is upsetting. It challenges our
fundamental values. We say that each one of us is equal,
each one of us is worthy of the same protection from
violence. But is it true?"
The inquiry, expected to run roughly
eight months, is designed to look at the police mishandling
of the Robert Pickton investigation and why the women,
particularly those working in the sex trade on the streets
of Vancouver, weren't better protected.
Pickton, a former pig farmer, was
convicted of six murders in 2007. Investigators have said
remains or DNA of 33 women were found on his farm in nearby
Port Coquitlam. Pickton had bragged to police that he had
killed 49.
After his 2007 conviction, Pickton was
sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at
least 25 years.
Earlier reviews pointed to botched police
investigations, a reluctance to act because the victims were
involved in drugs and the sex trade and a long list of other
failures.
Inquiry opens as protesters march outside
Tuesday's hearing opened with a blessing
by an elder from the Squamish First Nation in B.C. and a
moment of silence for the missing and murdered women.
About
100 protesters block traffic outside the inquiry on Tuesday
morning in downtown Vancouver.Tennille
Evelyn/CBC
Missing from the inquiry are more than a
dozen non-profit advocacy groups that were granted standing
but withdrew because they were denied public legal funding.
On Tuesday, four more groups joined the
list of about 20 groups that have alreadypulled
out of the processbecause
of concerns that the inquiry would favour police and
government institutions over street-level voices.
Instead, some of those groups
participated in a protest on the streets below, and their
chanting and drumming could be heard inside the courtroom.
Oppal cautioned everyone watching the
hearings to keep an open mind about what happened and who is
to blame. And above all, to remember that the murdered and
missing women are at the heart of the inquiry.
"Each of the women was a valued member of
her community. Each had dreams. Each had hopes, loves and
fears. Each woman was loved and now each woman is missed,"
said Oppal.
"Individually, the loss of each woman is
heartbreaking. Taken together, the murder and disappearance
of so many women is horrific."
Police missteps hobbled investigation
The first few days of the inquiry will
feature opening statements from various lawyers
participating in the hearing.
Commission lawyer Art Vertlieb began by
laying out the timeline of the various Vancouver police and
RCMP investigations related to Pickton and his victims.
Vertlieb outlined a series of missteps
that hobbled those investigations since the first reports of
women disappearing in the mid-1990s. Most of the problems
Vertlieb identified are already known, primarily through an
internal Vancouver Police Department report released last
year.
The units responsible for looking into
missing women didn't have enough resources; tipsters were
written off as unreliable; turf wars erupted between the
Vancouver police and the RCMP; senior officers repeatedly
rejected advice from their own officers who concluded a
serial killer was at work; and a unit that was preparing to
warn residents of the Downtown Eastside was disbanded, said
Vertlieb.
Vertlieb told Oppal that the hearings
will attempt to determine precisely what happened — and,
more importantly, why?
"This is only our preliminary
understanding of events in the investigation, and of course
these issues are contentious and you will have to consider
all the evidence," said Vertlieb.
Groups withdraw over funding issue
Inquiry terms of
reference:
·
To inquire into and report on the conduct of the missing
women investigations.
·
To inquire into the decision of the Criminal Justice Branch
on January 27, 1998, to enter a stay of proceedings on
charges against Robert William Pickton of attempted murder,
assault with a weapon, forcible confinement and aggravated
assault.
·
To recommend changes considered necessary respecting the
initiation and conduct of investigations in B.C. of missing
women and suspected multiple homicides.
·
To recommend changes considered necessary respecting
homicide investigations in B.C. by more than one
investigating organization, including the co-ordination of
those investigations.
·
To submit a final report to the Attorney General or before
December 31, 2011.
In a letter to commissioner Wally Oppal
issued early Tuesday morning, three women's groups — PACE,
WISH and the Sex Worker's Alliance of Vancouver — said that
without funding they can't continue the work they're
currently doing while also spending hundreds of hours to
participate in the inquiry.
The Assembly of First Nations also
withdrew before the inquiry began Tuesday, citing
"limitations of the inquiry itself and an imbalance and
inequity in legal resources made available to the parties."
"The AFN is no longer confident the
inquiry will bring justice for the families of missing and
murdered women in Canada," AFN national chief Shawn Atleo
said in a written statement.
"We hoped the inquiry would shed light to
uncover truths that could help with the healing process for
the families as well as to begin to point the way forward so
that all women and the most vulnerable have access to
justice. Without equity and balance, systemic issues will
not be brought forward and will therefore not be reflected
in the recommendations of the inquiry."
David Eby, the executive director of the
B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said the credibility of
the inquiry was at stake.
"It brings us into question whether or
not the inquiry can proceed at all with any legitimacy. I
think it's time for the government to intervene. I think
it's time for the government to step up and say how can we
fix this thing," said Eby.
Inquiry will continue
On Tuesday, B.C. Attorney General Shirley
Bond said the inquiry will continue despite the withdrawal
of the advocacy groups.
She said the commission has hired
additional lawyers to address the concerns raised by those
groups, and the families of the missing women deserve
answers.
"All of us have to make sure that we
learn important lessons so that this kind of circumstance
isn't repeated in British Columbia," Bond said.
"But the commission will proceed and, in
fact, there have been additional lawyers provided so that
advocacy groups like the ones that are choosing not to
participate could receive the types of support they are
looking for."
Bond said she hopes the groups that have
withdrawn from the inquiry will reconsider.
With files from The Canadian Press
Police blasted at Missing Women inquiry for failures to
catch killer sooner
Almost four years after serial killer Robert (Willie)
Pickton was convicted of killing six women from Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside, the Missing Woman inquiry began with a
protest outside. BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUNOCTOBER
11, 2011 4:22 PM
A woman chants and cries as she
beats a drum during a protest in front of Federal court on
Georgia and Granville streets in Vancouver, Tuesday, October
11, 2011. The Missing Women inquiry began hearings in
Vancouv
VANCOUVER - The lawyer for the families of the
victims of serial killer Robert Pickton blasted police
Tuesday for their failures to catch the killer sooner.
Cameron Ward, in his opening address to the Missing
Woman commission of inquiry, suggested the Vancouver police
gave families the "brush off" when they tried to reported
their loved ones missing.
He said the VPD, and later the RCMP, treated the
missing women case with indifference and incompetence by
failing to assign enough resources.
That was because the missing women were poverty
stricken, poorly educated and largely were drug-addicted sex
trade workers, with a large proportion being first nations
women, Ward said.
Police "couldn't have cared less what happened to
these women," Ward told the inquiry.
"The pervasive problem was the Vancouver police
department and the RCMP simply had a bad attitude," the
lawyer.
Ward pointed out that the RCMP, tipped that Pickton
was a possible suspect, failed to conduct surveillance on
the serial killer before he was caught in 2002.
And the Mounties failed to act on Pickton's offer
to police in 2000 that they could search his farm.
The inquiry is supposed to complete its work by
Dec. 31 of this year, but the commissioner likely will ask
the provincial government for an extension until sometime
next year.
Almost four years after Pickton was convicted of
killing six women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the
Missing Woman inquiry began today with a protest.
A circle of women on the street at Georgia and
Granville beat on first nations drums and sang songs.
The protest, involving about two dozen people, took
over the intersection at Georgia and Granville streets,
shutting down traffic, before it broke up shortly past noon.
One person held a sign saying, "Justice denied."
The protest was over what is being called a "sham"
inquiry after 16 groups granted standing dropped out because
the provincial government refused to grant funding for legal
counsel.
Another coalition of sex trade workers announced
today it was dropping out of the inquiry.
The coaltion includes the WISH Drop-in Centre
Society, PACE (Providing Alternatives, Counselling &
Education) Society, and SWUAV (Sex Workers United Against
Violence) Society.
The Assembly of First Nations also withdrew from
the inquiry today, bringing the total to 16 groups who have
pulled out to protest the lack of government legal funding
for participating groups.
Rick Frey, the father of Marnie Frey, whose
daughter was killed by Pickton, said he was sad to see so
many groups withdraw.
"The way it is now, the families are the only ones
in there being represented, he said.
Frey said the police and government has 19 lawyers.
"That's not a level playing field," he said.
Frey said he and other families want the truth to
come out about what went wrong with the police
investigations.
He also wants to hear if Pickton had accomplices.
Frey believes Pickton did not act alone..
The inquiry began with a prayers from a first
nations elder, who fanned Commissioner Wally Oppal and
almost two dozen lawyer with a eagle feathers.
"You're going to set our sisters free, our aunties,
our loved ones," the elder said.
"Set our families free," he added.
Lawyers held their hands out, palms up, to receive
the blessing.
The packed inquiry includes families of Pickton's
victims.
"The missing and murdered women are at the heart of
this inquiry," Oppal said.
He said the women were all loved and now are
missed.
"This is the first inquiry of its kind to seek
answers," the commissioner said.
This inquiry is important to make changes to how
investigations are conducted.
The inquiry aims to probe why it took police so
long to catch Pickton, who was arrested in 2002 and
eventually charged with the murder of 27 women.
The charges were divided into two trials, starting
with six first-degree murder charges.
The second trial on 20 charges was never held after
Pickton was convicted.
Pickton admitted to an undercover officer that he
killed 49 women, but he may have killed more.
The DNA of 33 women were found on Pickton's farm in
Port Coquitlam, where Pickton often butchered pigs late at
night. One DNA sample has never been identified.
One murder charge involving an unknown victim,
identified as Jane Doe, had been laid but it was later
stayed by the trial judge.
Oppal's mandate includes probing the mistakes made
by police and finding fault, if necessary.
One of the areas to be probed is the Crown decision
in 1998 to drop attempted murder charges against Pickton,
which stemmed from a knife attack on a women who fled naked
and bleeding from Pickton's farm.
The woman had slashed Pickton with a knife before
she fled with a handcuff dangling from one wrist.
Police later found the handcuff key in Pickton's
pocket in hospital, where he and the woman were both treated
for their wounds.
The charges against Pickton were dropped because
the victim was considered a junkie prostitute whose
credibility was suspect.
Art Vertlieb, in his opening outline of the
evidence to be heard at the inquiry, said there will be
allegations that a civilian clerk with the Vancouver police
missing persons unit was dismissive of reports of missing
women working in the sex trade and failed to treat first
nations women with compassion and respect.
The inquiry will also hear how the missing person
unit took a long time identifying the problem of long-term
missing women.
Vancouver police received two tips about Pickton in
1998 that "Willie" made comments to people about his ability
to dispose of people and feed them to his pigs.
Another tip was that Pickton had women's purses,
identification and bloody clothing in his trailer home on
his farm, and that Pickton wanted to "finish off" the woman
who had stabbed him and fled his farm.
Vertlieb said despite this contentious information,
Vancouver police continued to insist the women were missing.
The lawyer told Oppal the inquiry will have to
answer these questions:
Why was foul play dismissed and why did police not
warn the public, particularly the women of the Downtown
Eastside?
Between February and August 1999, more informants
told police that a woman named Lynn Ellingsen said she had
witnessed Pickton slaughtering a woman in his barn, Vertlieb
said.
He added that Ellingsen was interviewed and denied
the allegations and denied telling the informants.
Pickton was interviewed by police at one point but
police failed to take him up on his offer for police to
search his farm property, Vertlieb said.
He said at the time, Vancouver police thought the
disappearances of women were historical and were not
ongoing.
That belief changed after the formation of the
joint forces Missing Women task force, which realized women
were continuing to go missing, he added.
Eight more women would be killed by Pickton before
he was caught, Vertlieb said.
The inquiry is going to hear much about Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside, one of the city's poorest neighbourhoods.
It is an area plagued by violence, drug addiction,
mental health problems and homelessness.
Most of Pickton's victims were vulnerable because
they were addicted to drugs and alcohol and involved in the
sex trade.
Pickton picked up the women and took them to his
farm with hollow promises of drugs, alcohol and money.
When Wally Oppal’s missing-women
inquiry opens next Monday, women’s groups say they will
protest outside while top police lawyers argue inside.
Two more key victims’ groups pulled out
of the inquiry on Monday, branding “the sham inquiry” a
“foregone conclusion” since the groups lack legal expertise
and have been denied funding for a lawyer to vet and examine
thousands of police documents.
“They cannot pretend this is justice
for families denied their day in court or for front-line
groups who worked with women who went missing,” said Alice
Kendall of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre (DEWC),
which withdrew on Monday.
“It was very, very painful to withdraw
after we lobbied so hard for this inquiry, but without
safety for witnesses, without women’s and aboriginal groups,
it’s not an inquiry. People on the victims’ side have
nothing.”
The Women’s Memorial March Committee,
which stages a march each Valentine’s Day to the sites of
women’s murders or disappearances on the Downtown Eastside,
also pulled out on Monday.
“It is unconscionable that [Premier]
Christy Clark is demonstrating the same dismissive attitude”
that police took when families and groups tried to report
women missing, said March Committee spokeswoman Lisa
Yellow-Quill.
Both DEWC and the Memorial March
Committee were given full standing but no funding to retain
legal help at the complex inquiry.
Commissioner Wally Oppal’s repeated
request that all full participants get legal funding, not
just the VPD and RCMP, has been ignored by Clark.
Meanwhile, the families of 17 murdered
women will be represented by lawyer Cameron Ward.
The inquiry has asked two pro-bono
lawyers to act for all community groups.
The VPD, Vancouver Police Board, RCMP
and the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch all have lawyers paid
for with public funds.
Oppal will start the evidentiary
hearings Oct. 11 in Vancouver and has pledged to report to
the B.C. government by Dec. 31, 2011.
The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is looking
to hire four lawyers to represent the interests of first
nations women and residents of Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside.
The commission of inquiry came up with the plan
after the provincial government refused to provide legal
funding for 12 of 13 groups who have been granted standing
to participate in the inquiry, which will probe the police
failures during the investigations of serial killer Robert
Pickton.
"In a sense it's a compromise," inquiry spokesman
Chris Freimond explained Friday, "to find another way to
have all the voices heard."
The commission has the resources to fund these
lawyers because some of the investigations that staff
undertook didn't take as much time as previously
anticipated, so savings have been possible, he said.
The commission alerted lawyers for the participants
last week that it intended to hire four lawyers on contract
- two to represent first nations women and two to represent
the DTES community.
The deadline for applications is Monday.
The commission has the authority to engage outside
lawyers to represent these groups under section 7(2) of the
Public Inquiry Act.
While the lawyers will be working on behalf of the
commission and will be paid by the commission, they will
work independently and will not use the commission's offices
or resources, Freimond said.
The B.C. government only agreed to fund a lawyer to
represent the interests of the families of Robert Pickton's
victims. Pickton was the pig farmer who lured women from
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to his Port Coquitlam farms.
Two DTES groups are already opposing the inquiry
commission's proposal.
The Downtown Eastside Women's Centre and Feb 14th
Women's Memorial March Committee issued a statement Friday
saying they strongly objected to the Missing Women
Commission's latest proposal.
"The amicus proposal is an attempt to lend
legitimacy to a fundamentally flawed process by having a few
lawyers who purportedly serve all our interests," the
statement said. "To accept this model would mean to take
away the voices of the women yet again."
Harsha Walia of the DTES Women's Centre said the
proposal is flawed because the new lawyers hired won't
represent specific clients and so they won't be able to
share police documents with the groups.
The commission said Friday in a statement that it
acknowledges that the role of Kim Rossmo is clearly
different from that of the other full participants and
expects the attorney-general may be prepared to fund counsel
for Rossmo.
Rossmo, who now teaches at a university in Texas,
is a former Vancouver police officer who specialized in
serial crime and wanted the force to issue a warning in the
late 1990s that a serial killer might be preying on women.
The police force opted not to heed Rossmo's advice.
The inquiry will begin a study commission in nine
northern communities, Sept. 12 to 22, between Prince Rupert
and Prince George to probe the issue of trying to
investigate multiple cases of murdered and missing women. It
is believed dozens of women have disappeared over the years
along Highway 16, the so-called Highway of Tears.
Robert William Pickton is shown
in this file photo arriving at the Supreme Court of B.C. in
New Westminster prior to the selection of the jury.
Photograph by:
Stuart Davis, PNG
VANCOUVER -- The Native Women's
Association of Canada is calling for a national inquiry into
the growing number of missing and murdered aboriginal women
after feeling shutout from B.C.'s Missing Women inquiry.
"The government of B.C. has shut
us out of the British Columbia Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry, and now we have no confidence that it will be able
to produce a fair and balanced report," NWAC President
Jeannette Corbiere Lavell said in a statement issued today.
"The decision of the BC
government to restrict funding for counsel primarily to
police and government agencies demonstrates how flawed and
one sided this process has become."
Her comments came after B.C.
Attorney General Barry Penner has repeatedly rejected calls
for funding for 13 groups who have been granted standing at
the Missing Women inquiry, including the NWAC.
The attorney general has only
granted funding for a lawyer to represent the families of
the victims of serial killer Robert Pickton.
The inquiry's mandate is to probe
why it took police so long to catch Pickton, especially
after the serial killer was charged years earlier with the
attempted murder of a woman who was stabbed but managed to
flee Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam, where he was known to
slaughter pigs.
The Missing Women inquiry also
expanded its mandate to probe the problems of investigations
involving multiple homicides such as those along the Highway
of Tears in northern B.C.
A large proportion of the missing
and murdered women in the Highway of Tears and Pickton
investigations were aboriginal.
Inquiry commission Wally Oppal, a
former B.C. attorney general, had asked the government to
include funding for two native groups and 10 others, saying
it was crucial because the police agencies involved in the
probe will be represented by their lawyers at the inquiry.
"The Commissioner made it very
clear that he considered our participation throughout the
hearing process to be vital to a fair and full examination
of the issues. I am deeply disappointed that we are unable
to bring forward the voices and concerns of Aboriginal women
and girls to this inquiry as we had planned," the NWAC
president said.
NWAC now plans to seek the
support of all Canadian governments, and all Canadians, for
a national inquiry that can effectively examine violence
against aboriginal women and girls, and to allow the full
participation of aboriginal women.
The announcement comes a day
after a number of first nations groups and organizations
disappointed with the provincial government's decision not
to fund their legal expenses have withdrawn from
participating in B.C.'s Missing Women Inquiry.
The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs,
the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and the Native
Courtworkers and Counselling Association have told Oppal
they will not be participating in the inquiry that is
examining the police investigations conducted between Jan.
23, 1997, and Feb. 5, 2002, into women reported missing from
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, many who became victims of
Pickton.
NDP critics Jenny Kwan and
Leonard Krog said Penner's decision could jeopardize the
commission's capacity to fulfill its mandate.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip,
president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said earlier
this week that the government appeared from the beginning to
have put a low ceiling on the funding available for the
inquiry.
"In truth the decision and sheer
hypocrisy of the Christy Clark government have effectively
slammed the door on this inquiry," he charged.
Darlene Shackelly, executive
director of the Native Courtworkers and Counselling
Association, said the organization couldn't afford to pay a
lawyer to do necessary research in order for the association
to present a brief to the commission.
"We don't want to interrogate the
police, but we have issues concerning the way attempts were
made to keep track of people," she said.
Lori-Ann Ellis, the sister-in-law
of Cara Ellis, one of Pickton's victims, said today she is
mad and frustrated about the lack of funding for many of the
people who were "in the trenches" with the women who
disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, where
Pickton preyed on women and took them back to his farm.
"If we keep closing the door on
these groups, it's not a public inquiry, it's a sham," she
said. "We want the full story to come out."
Ellis pointed out that Cara
Ellis' blood was found on Pickton's clothes when he was
originally arrested in 1997 and charged with attempted
murder.
She added if police would have
done their job properly in the first place, there would be
no need for a public inquiry and people would not be
complaining about how much money the inquiry will cost.
The Native Courtworker and
Counselling Association of B.C. withdrew a few days ago from
the public inquiry into the missing women's tragedy.
Other groups have said they also
won't be able to take part in the October hearings into why
more than 60 women have been murdered or gone missing from
the Downtown Eastside.
Kim Rossmo, the former Vancouver
cop expected to be a central witness, said he, too, may not
show up.
The guy who raised the alarm
about a serial killer doesn't get a publicly funded lawyer,
but those who told him to shut up and cast aspersions on his
work do?
The ability of Commissioner Wally
Oppal to conduct a balanced inquiry into the scandal has
been seriously compromised by the government's decision to
withhold funding from 13 needy parties who should be
involved.
Those under scrutiny for failing
to stop the years-long killing spree by Robert Pickton will
have taxpayer-provided lawyers to defend them, ask questions
of witnesses and make submissions to the inquiry.
Those who tried to stop the
carnage, who represent these women, deserve the same.
But Victoria will provide a
lawyer only for the families.
From the start it seemed Oppal
was circumscribed by his terms of reference focusing on what
happened between 1997 and Pickton's arrest in 2002.
Still, there was hope that even
if the inquiry didn't reveal much new information, it would
provide a forum and a stage for those who were ignored and
victimized, acting as a kind of reconciliation commission.
That hope has been dashed.
Attorney-General Barry Penner can't come up with what I'm
told is roughly $1.5 million to provide that opportunity.
How ridiculous.
The public has already spent well
over $100 million on this case but we won't cough up a
pittance to finish it properly?
We have waited almost 10 years
for answers to what went wrong and why neither the Vancouver
police department nor the RCMP were able to protect the most
vulnerable members of our society.
After handing more than $6
million to the BC Rail scoundrels and spending $7 million on
the harmonized sales tax stickmen, the claim of poverty here
is a slap in the face.
Former attorney-general Oppal was
assailed when he took this job nine months ago.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, of
the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, was perhaps his harshest
critic, calling him a Liberal insider and "the worst
possible choice."
But even Phillip acknowledges
Oppal has won over many of those who feared he would oversee
a whitewash.
He reached out to aboriginal and
women's groups.
He recognized the integrity of
his inquiry would be compromised without their
participation.
And he has fought to have their
voices included and heard.
Oppal recommended publicly funded
lawyers for 13 specific parties because without legal help
they would be in an "unfair position."
Victoria initially rebuffed him
but he went back again, arguing forcefully they deserved
funding - and that his staff had negotiated agreements to
contain costs.
Shutting out these groups, Oppal
insisted, would prevent the inquiry from learning about the
experiences and perspectives of these women it so
desperately needs to understand.
Penner shut his ears to the plea
- just as the powers that be were deaf to the warnings from
these groups that a killer was at work.
Plus ça change . Elite lawyers
will represent the police, the police union and Crown
prosecutors who failed to charge and prosecute Pickton.
There needs to be balance. Premier Christy Clark's response?
"Wally Oppal's commission is
providing very valuable information about the past and how
we can make sure that the VPD and other areas of law
enforcement in the Lower Mainland have closed the gaps that
allowed that tragedy to unfold in the streets of downtown
Vancouver.
"If we can find millions of
dollars to spend - and we should - it needs to be about
going forward and making sure women today are protected."
She doesn't get it. We do not
truly know what went wrong, why or how it can be prevented,
In fact, the problems continue.
This inquiry is not about the
past - it is very much about the future and how we go
forward. These women deserve much better than a process
stacked with lawyers representing primarily those whose
failures contributed to their death.
Victoria has badly damaged this
inquiry's hard-won legitimacy.
An aboriginal group that was
close to some of the women who were murdered by serial
killer Robert Pickton has withdrawn from participating in
the Missing Women Inquiry.
The Native Courtworker and
Counselling Association of B.C. does not have the resources
to participate in the inquiry without financial support from
the provincial government, association president Hugh Braker
said Sunday.
The inquiry is to hold hearings
beginning in October into the police investigation of more
than 60 murdered and missing women from Vancouver’s Downtown
Eastside and why Mr. Pickton was not arrested years earlier
than he was. At issue is whether aboriginal and women’s
groups will have their own lawyers to cross-examine police
witnesses and review internal police documents at the
inquiry.
The B.C. government on Friday
turned down an impassioned plea by Commissioner Wally Oppal
to pay for lawyers for the aboriginal and women’s groups.
Mr. Oppal told the government that the groups could not
participate in the hearings in a meaningful way without
funding. Even the Vancouver police recognize the need for
the groups to be represented by legal counsel, Mr. Oppal
told the government.
Deputy Attorney-General David
Loukidelis, in a letter on behalf of Attorney-General Barry
Penner, replied that Mr. Oppal did not have the authority to
recommend funding for the groups and, even if he did, the
government was not required to accept his recommendation.
Mr. Loukidelis stated that the
government does not have the financial resources to fund the
women’s and aboriginal groups. Commission counsel could
ensure that relevant evidence is brought out, he wrote.
Mr. Braker said the native court
workers provided counselling and referral services to some
of the women who went missing and were later murdered by Mr.
Pickton. The group also helped women who have gone missing
and were never found, he said.
“We have some ideas about what
police should have been doing and were not doing, about how
things can be improved,” Mr. Braker said. Without some
government support, the association will be unable to pull
together a submission to the inquiry. “That is not going to
be done,” he said.
Mr. Braker said he was not
surprised by the government’s refusal to fund groups at the
centre of the inquiry. The authorities refused to admit a
problem existed when the women started to go missing, he
said. They refused for a long time to acknowledge a serial
killer was murdering women, and even after Mr. Pickton, they
would not appoint an inquiry to find out what went wrong, he
said. “This government has been dragging its heels on this
issue from the beginning,” he said.
Angela Marie MacDougall,
spokesperson for the February 14 Women’s Memorial March
Committee, said the provincial government was trying to
silence their voice at the inquiry.
“This provincial government has
in so many ways let us know that women’s voices are not
welcome,” she said. “In the absence of our voices, we have
the police exclusively speaking to the experiences of the
women that continue to live with these issues we talk about
and need to be addressed in the inquiry.”
The group has not yet discussed
whether it can still participate in the inquiry without
legal representation, she said.
Mr. Oppal decided he would not
comment further on the funding issue, Chris Freimond, an
inquiry spokesman, said in an interview.
Mr. Oppal is continuing to work
toward the start of the hearings in October, Mr. Freimond
said. “He feels he has done what he could to convince the
government to fund legal representation for the groups whose
participation is important to the work of the inquiry,” Mr.
Freimond said.
The commission will continue with
the hearings regardless of whether aboriginal and women’s
groups participate. “It is not going to stop the commission
from continuing to do its work,” Mr. Freimond said.
VANCOUVER - The B.C. government
simply can't afford to pay the legal fees of groups wanting
to participate in the Pickton inquiry but who are not
relatives of the serial killer's victims, the attorney
general's office has advised the man heading the inquiry.
Commissioner Wally Oppal had written B.C.'s attorney general
earlier this month saying it's unfair for the government to
require groups representing sex trade workers, First Nations
and Downtown Eastside residents to pay their own legal fees.
But David Loukidelis, the province's deputy attorney
general, responded in a brief letter to Oppal that the
province doesn't have the money. "The government has
limited financial resources," he wrote in a letter released
by Oppal's office on Friday. Loukidelis explained the
ministry is having a tough time meeting its requirements,
including paying for court administration staff, sheriffs,
Crown prosecutors and a full complement of Provincial Court
judges. "The attorney general does not believe that
public funding of multiple teams of lawyers for inquiry
participants, other than the families of missing and
murdered women, is a higher priority than such other
matters," he said. Oppal will oversee hearings examining
why Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to catch Robert
Pickton as he spent years preying on sex workers in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, until his arrest in 2002.
Pickton was eventually convicted of six counts of
second-degree murder, although the DNA from 33 women was
found on his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C. He told police
that he had killed 49 women. Oppal will also conduct a
less-formal study commission into broader issues of missing
and murdered women in the province, including in the north
along a stretch of road known as the Highway of Tears.
Oppal had said in his eight-page letter that the funding
should be spread more broadly than just victims' families.
"Failure to fund the participant organizations would leave
disenfranchised women and victims in a clearly unfair
position at the hearing,'' Oppal wrote. He recommended
that 13 participants get public money to cover legal fees to
participate in the inquiry. Loukidelis responded that the
Public Inquiry Act doesn't require public funding for
participating groups. He also rapped Oppal, saying the
commissioner — a former judge and former attorney general —
was overstepping his bounds by even recommending the funding
be provided. "The commission's terms of reference do not
require such funding, nor do they authorize the commissioner
to make recommendations regarding such funding."
Loukidelis said the attorney general's office believes the
inquiry can be conducted in such a way that participants
shouldn't require lawyers. As well, he noted that Oppal
can use lawyers working for the commission to play an active
role in examining documents and prompting evidence. But
Oppal had already dismissed that suggestion, calling it
"untenable." He said the range of opinions among sex
trade workers, First Nations and community activists in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is simply too vast for one
lawyer to represent them all.
On Aug. 16 a local mom will begin a 415 km walk
from Gift Lake to Edmonton.
She’s not hoping to cure cancer and she’s not
raising funds.
Audrey Auger-Keyesapamatoa will walk for her
daughter, Aielah, who was killed along the stretch
of Highway 16 famously dubbed the Highway of Tears.
The last time Auger-Keyesapamatoa saw her
daughter alive was on Feb. 2, 2006 when she was
headed to the mall with her siblings.
“To this day, I never forget watching my kids
walk away that day,” said Auger-Keyesapamatoa, 47.
“I didn’t know I would never see her again.”
Just two weeks later, a passing motorist
discovered Aielah’s body just east of Prince George
near Tabor Mountain, on the Highway of Tears.
The mom of four had recently moved her children
to Prince George, and her daughter, Aielah was a
happy 14-year-old student at D.P. Todd Secondary
School.
Aielah had become the target of a sexual predator
here in Edmonton, and when the court system failed
her, Auger-Keyesapamatoa decided to take her out of
the city, she said.
“Aielah was molested by a neighbour and it was
awful for her, and he got off,” she said. “I took
her to Prince George because I thought she would be
safer there.”
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
“I moved her all the way to Prince George to keep
her safe, and I lost her anyway,” she said
tearfully. “But it doesn’t matter where you go,
there are always bad people.”
The following year, she came up with the idea for
the Highway of Hope Healing and Awareness Walk.
In 2007, she and her daughter Kyla completed a
750 km walk from the spot where Aielah’s body was
found to her gravesite in the Gift Lake Metis
Settlement.
“It was about healing, raising awareness about it
and accepting Aielah’s death,” explained
Auger-Keyesapamatoa, noting though family and
friends showed up sporadically, the pair walked most
of the way alone.
Auger-Keyesapamatoa says she knows Aielah is just
one in a series of murders and disappearances on the
stretch of Highway 16, dating back to the early
1990s.
This August, she will complete the second leg of
the Highway of Hope journey.
She’s planning to walk 415 km from her daughter’s
grave to Edmonton.
And she has to do it alone.
“My daughter Kyla just recently had a baby, so
she won’t be with me,” she said. “But that’s OK.
It’s a healing journey and I will see it through.”
Though the family is not fundraising, any
donations towards the cause can be dropped off at
the Boyle Street Community Centre at 10116-105 Ave.
The next leg of the journey will start in 2012 in
Edmonton and take Auger-Keyesapamatoa to Jasper
National Park. From there she’ll return to the place
where Aielah was found.
“When I am done, I will feel like I have walked
beside her,” she said.
Though police have not found evidence to link the
many cases, they have never ruled out that a serial
killer is preying on woman along Highway 16.
Prostitutes from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside will
not show up at the provincial inquiry into the missing and
murdered women if the B.C. government refuses to fund legal
counsel for them, Commissioner Wally Oppal was told Monday.
The women were the targets for murders, sexual
violence and other abuses from 1997 to 2002, the time that
serial killer Robert Pickton was on the prowl for women in
the Downtown Eastside, Kate Gibson, spokesperson for a
coalition of sex-worker serving organizations, said during a
special session of the Oppal inquiry.
The women bring a perspective that is absolutely
vital to the inquiry’s work, she said.
But they will not testify without legal counsel,
she said.
The women have significant trauma, fear and
distrust of government and the court, Ms. Gibson said. They
are often vulnerable and marginalized. “Should these women
make the difficult decision to come forward, they will
require extensive support from community services and legal
counsel before, during and after giving evidence,:” she
said.
Also, many women fear repercussions of giving
evidence. Some of the women in the Downtown Eastside
continue to fear those who may have been involved in the
murders and disappearance of women, she said.
“Denying funding [for legal counsel to accompany
them to the inquiry] will have the effect of shutting out
the exact community of women whose experiences and
perspectives are the very reason for this commission of
inquiry,” Ms. Gibson said.
“Many of the barriers that prevented marginalized
women and in particular women involved in sex work, from
coming forward to police between 1997 and 2002 will be
replicated in the Commission process if vulnerable witnesses
are not provided the necessary community and legal
supports,” she said.
Mr. Oppal was appointed to look into the
circumstances surrounding the police investigation of the
missing and murdered women in the Downtown Eastside from
1997 to 2002. Mr. Pictkon has been convicted of killing six
women and police said he may have killed as many as 49. The
inquiry, appointed last year, is to begin its hearings in
October and report its findings by Dec. 31.
Government-funded lawyers will represent the RCMP,
the Vancouver Police Department, the Crown prosecutors who
did not proceed with a charge against Mr. Pickton and 10
victims’ families. Attorney General Barry Penner has said he
does not have money in his budget to fund the community and
advocacy groups that speak on behalf of women and aboriginal
people.
Mr. Oppal, who had recommended that the government
provide funding for the aboriginal and women’s groups, held
a special session Monday to assess the impact of the
government’s refusal and to review his options.
Several groups said they would have to re-assess
whether they could participate in the inquiry. Mr. Oppal was
encouraged to make a strong request to the provincial
government for funding of participants and, failing that,
challenge the B.C. government in court.
Kim Rossmo, who was expected to be a central
witness in the inquiry, may not show up if he does not have
government funding, said Mark Skwarok, a lawyer who was
representing Mr. Rossmo Monday on a pro- bono basis.
Mr. Rossmo, a former Vancouver police man who
developed a computerized geograpghic profiling process to
analyze serial rapes, arsons and murders, had recommended in
the late 1990s that a task force be formed to investigation
whether a serial killer was roaming the Downtown Eastside.
Sixteen women disappeared between 1995 and 1998 but senior
management rejected his recommendation. Mr. Rossmo was
accused of paralyzing the investigation when he first
suggested a serial killer was in the Downtown Eastside, Mr.
Skwarok said. Mr. Rossmo will consider whether he will
participate if he does not have a lawyer who can cross
examine witnesses who have made suggestions about him that
are not true, Mr. Skwarok said.
Also the Native Court worker and Counselling
Association of B.C. will be unable to participate in the
inquiry without funding, association spokesman Hugh Braker
told the inquiry.
The association has been asked to identify
witnesses to give testimony at the inquiry. The court
workers and counsellors had contact with the women and with
police from 1997 to 2002, Mr. Braker said. But the group
does not have the staff to go through the records to find
those with information that would be valuable to the
commission, he said. “Despite pleas from the commission for
the names, we are not able to provide those,” Mr. Braker
said.
“Cleta Brown, representing 11 women’s groups
including the Women’s Equality and Security Coalition, said
the inquiry would be grossly unfair and discriminatory
without funding for participants. “It will be yet another
insult added to the tragic neglect and disrespect for the
women who are dead,” she said. The group had intended to
identify, proposed and prepare witnesses, cross-examine some
witnesses and make submissions. “We cannot do this in a fair
or effective way without legal counsel when the police
organizations and officials of the government of B.C. and
Canada – whose conduct is under scrutiny – will be
represented by publicly funded counsel,” she said.
Missing Women inquiry
commissioner Wally Oppal at a community forum in Vancouvers'
Downtown Eastside on Jan. 19, 2011.
Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann,
PNG files
VANCOUVER - The formal hearings
of the Missing Women Inquiry are set to begin Oct. 11, says
a new report issued today by Inquiry Commissioner Wally
Oppal.
The hearings will take place in
the same Federal Court room as the inquiry into the 2007
death of Robert Dziekanski, who died after being confronted
by four Mounties and shot with a Taser five times at
Vancouver International Airport.
The Missing Women inquiry had
hoped to start its formal hearings in June but the courtroom
became unavailable due another inquiry probing the decline
of Fraser River sockeye salmon, Oppal said in his report.
The status report updates what
work the inquiry and its staff have completed so far and
outlines the work still to be done before hearings begin.
The hearings will probe the
police failures to identify sooner serial killer Robert
William Pickton as a prime suspect in the disappearances of
dozens of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
The report says the hearing
process will be divided into four parts:
- Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
Community, the victims' families and government issues.
- The decision by the Crown to
drop charges in 1998 against Pickton - the charges, which
included attempted murder, assault with a weapon, aggravated
assault and forcible confinement, stemmed from a woman who
managed to escape naked from Pickton's Port Coquitlam farm
with a handcuff dangling from her wrist; she had been
slashed with a knife.
- The actions of the Vancouver
police department with respect to missing woman
investigations.
- The actions of the RCMP with
respect to missing women investigations.
So far, inquiry staff have
identified only one potential witness for the Vancouver
police and none for the RCMP.
Another seven potential witnesses
have been identified to testify for the families of
Pickton's victims, the Downtown Eastside community and the
government issues within the community where Pickton's
victims lived.
The inquiry had planned to begin
a study commission this month before the attorney general
turned down funding for 12 of 13 groups who requested
funding for lawyers to represent them at the inquiry.
Oppal recommended funding for all
13 groups but Attorney General Barry Penner only approved
the funding request for the families of Pickton's victims,
who will be represented by Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward at
the inquiry.
Penner has said the government
doesn't have money in its budget to provide funding for
lawyers for the other 12 groups.
The issue has delayed the study
session part of the inquiry, which was supposed to start
this month in northern communities to look at the issue of
women continuing to go missing along Highway 16, the
so-called Highway of Tears that runs between Prince Rupert
and Prince George.
"I am concerned about the effect
of the Attorney General's funding decision on the
commission," Oppal said in his new status report, which is
online at http://bit.ly/kLUqew
"Therefore, the commission is
considering options to address the concerns that arise due
to the attorney general's decision," Oppal said in the
report.
Oppal is going to hear further
submissions on the funding issue at a pre-conference hearing
on June 27 in Vancouver.
A coalition of Downtown Eastside
groups will hold a news conference Tuesday to demand the
provincial government overturn its decision to deny legal
funding to 12 groups who want to fully participate in the
Missing Women Inquiry.
The groups have written a joint
letter to Premier Christy Clark, stating: "This denial of
resources denies due process and denies the possibility of
meaningful participation by the women most affected --
particularly Aboriginal women living and working in extreme
poverty -- by the deaths and disappearances of women who
were their friends and family."
The groups are calling on Premier
Christy Clark to make the inquiry accessible to the public,
particularly to women, Downtown Eastside residents,
Aboriginal communities and others who have critical
information.
"The groups and community have
been demanding an inquiry for decades but were consistently
ignored and are now being marginalized and shut out again,"
said a statement issued today by the groups.
Those who signed the letter
include:
- February 14th Women's Memorial
March Committee and DTES Women's Centre
- WISH Drop In Centre, PACE
Society, and DTES Sex Workers United Against Violence
- Vancouver Area Network of Drug
Users
- Union of BC Indian Chiefs and
Carrier Sekani Tribal Council
- Women's Equality and Security
Coalition
- West Coast Legal Education and
Action Fund and Ending Violence Association of BC
- Pivot Legal Society and BC
Civil Liberties Association
The news conference will take
place at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, National Aboriginal Day, at
Aboriginal Front Door, 384 Main Street in Vancouver.
Despite numerous tips from the
public about Pickton being a prime suspect, it took years
before he was arrested in February 2002, when a rookie RCMP
officer executed a search warrant for illegal guns on
Pickton's farm in Port Coquitlam.
Minutes after the search began,
police discovered the shocking evidence of women who had
disappeared over the years from Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside.
The search of the property took
two years and became the largest forensic investigation in
Canadian history.
Pickton was eventually charged
with 27 murders, although one charge was later stayed
involving an unknown woman, known as Jane Doe, whose partial
skull had been found.
The trial judge divided the
charges into two separate trials and the Crown elected to
proceed to trial first on six charges of first-degree
murder. In 2009, Pickton was convicted of six murders and
was sentenced to life in prison without parole for 25 years.
After Pickton exhausted all
appeals, the Crown decided not to proceed on the remaining
20 murder charges.
Although Pickton confessed to an
undercover officer that he killed 49 women, the official
list of missing women contained more than 60 names.
Bernie Williams,
cofounder of Walk4Justice, is organizing a trek to Ottawa to
focus public attention on missing and murdered women.
When Marge Humchitt
takes part in the Walk4Justice to Ottawa this summer, she’ll
be thinking of her sister, Cheryl, who was killed 18 years
ago in the Downtown Eastside.
“Definitely I’ll be
having thoughts of my sister, and my other sisters on the
street,” Humchitt told the Georgia Straight in an
interview at the Sacred Circle on West Cordova Street.
A few years ago,
Humchitt, who spent 22 years “on the street”, attended
Robert Pickton’s trial for months out of support for women
who were killed or went missing in the Downtown Eastside.
That experience is partly what has led her to participate in
this year’s march to raise awareness of what Walk4Justice
organizers say are over 4,000 murders and disappearances of
women and girls nationally.
The Walk4Justice
initiative began after cofounders Gladys Radek and Bernie
Williams participated in a walk from Prince Rupert to Prince
George for the 2006 Highway of Tears symposium.
Both women have
personal experience with the issue. Radek’s niece Tamara
Chipman disappeared in 2005 on Highway 16 in northern B.C.
Williams’s mother and two sisters were killed in the
Downtown Eastside.
After a cross-country
trek in 2008, a Highway of Tears march in 2009, and a walk
from Kamloops to Winnipeg last year, the Walk4Justice
cofounders are now embarking on their fourth journey, to
Parliament Hill.
Radek joined walkers in
Prince Rupert for the beginning of the trek on June 9, and a
group of about 10 will leave Vancouver on Tuesday (June 21),
which is National Aboriginal Day. The walkers will hold a
ceremony at the Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam, before
heading to Kamloops, where they will join the group from the
Highway of Tears.
As they walk to Ottawa,
the marchers will be met by families of missing and murdered
women from across Canada, including the Yukon, the Northwest
Territories, and Nova Scotia. The participation of the
families is a crucial part of the march, according to
organizers, who base their data on a broad network of people
that notify them each time a woman goes missing.
“These were families
that never spoke about their loved ones,” Williams said at
the Sacred Circle, where the activist and artist was carving
a totem pole. “They’ve come out, they’ve given the names.”
While the Walk4Justice
organizers have spent years speaking about murdered and
missing women, Williams argued public awareness of the issue
hasn’t improved.
“This is going back
decades and decades and decades,” Williams said. “I’ve been
saying this stuff for almost 30 years, and I haven’t seen
anything change.”
Laura Holland of the
Aboriginal Women’s Action Network said in an interview that
Walk4Justice has done “a significant amount” of work raising
awareness nationally and internationally. She said some of
the barriers include under-reporting of violence against
women to police, and the way that missing women are often
portrayed.
“The women and the
girls that we know who have gone missing are teachers,
they’re professional workers, they’re mothers, they’re
stay-at-home moms, they’re kids in high school,” said
Holland, who wants to see B.C. emulate the approach
Manitoba’s missing-women task force has taken.
“Their task force has
done a really good job at portraying the women as family
members, as students, as mothers, as women who are missed
dearly,” she added.
During this year’s
march, Walk4Justice will be calling for a national public
inquiry on missing and murdered women, and for a national
symposium on the issue.
Organizers also want to
see aboriginal mothers centres established across the
country, and the recommendations from the Highway of Tears
symposium implemented. About 600 aboriginal women and girls
have gone missing or been murdered nationally, according to
the Native Women’s Association of Canada.
Williams expects a
crowd of hundreds when they reach the steps of Parliament
Hill on September 19. She said that while they plan to make
this year’s march their last cross-country trek, that
doesn’t mean their advocacy efforts will come to an end.
“We agreed that this is
going to be the final walk, but that doesn’t mean that the
work is finished,” Williams said.
Smithers, B.C.- The Missing Women
Inquiry has rescheduled the pre-hearing conference for later
this month. It was supposed to have taken place earlier this
week, but due to the unavailability of some counsel, it had
to be postponed. Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal says
he still wants to hear from groups who want to take part in
the inquiry but whose request for legal funding has been
denied by B.C.'s attorney-general."The native women's'
groups were at the forefront of going to the police and
complaining about the lack of progress about women going
missing. Their participating is crucial, the government has
said they won't fund them."The only people getting funding
are the families of Robert Pickton's victims. Oppal says
participants will have an opportunity to make submissions
directly to him about how the funding decision by the
Government affects their involvement in the hearing portion
of the inquiry and the operation of the Commission. The date
has been set for June 27th
A GROUP set out from Prince
Rupert yesterday to trek to Terrace for the Walk 4 Justice
to raise awareness about the murdered and missing women
along the Highway of Tears.
SHAUN THOMAS
By Shaun
Thomas - Terrace Standard Published:
June 10, 2011 7:00 AM
DRUMS WERE beating and First
Nations singing filled the air as participants in the 2011
Walk4Justice left Prince Rupert on Thursday afternoon,
taking the first steps in a walk that will take them all the
way from the Pacific Ocean to Parliament in Ottawa.
This leg of the Walk4Justice will
take people along Highway 16 to Prince George, also known as
the Highway of Tears due to the number of missing or
murdered women, before making its way down to Kamloops where
walkers will meet with others who started the journey in
Vancouver. From there the group will make their way through
the prairies with the goal of being in Ottawa on September
19.
Walk4Justice was started in 2008
by Gladys Radek, the aunt of Tamara Chipman who went missing
just outside of Prince Rupert in 2005, and Bernie Williams,
with the goal being “to raise awareness about the plight of
the far too many Missing and Murdered women across Canada”
“Since our
first walk, conditions have not improved for women in
Canada. In our view, they have worsened. Women in Canada are
still being raped, tortured, sold for sexual slavery and
murdered at an alarming rate. Aboriginal women (according to
Amnesty International) are three to four times more likely
to be victims of violence than other Canadian women,” read a
letter from Bernie and Gladys outlining why they are
undertaking the Walk4Justice.
“We are
walking for justice, closure, equality and accountability,
our voices are being heard. We are walking to call for a
National Missing and Murdered Women’s Symposium to be held
in Vancouver, BC. We need our governments, leadership,
police and judicial system to stand accountable for the
serious flaws in the systems that make all women targets in
this country...We are walking for a National Missing and
Murdered Women’s Public Inquiry so that each and every woman
who has been missing or murdered in the past 4 decades is
accounted for. There is a dire need to address the
discriminatory, racist practices that have taken place
involving the police, politicians, the judicial system and
societal acceptance of the horrendous crimes against
humanity.”
For more information on the
Walk4Justice or ways to make a donation, visit
fnbc.info/walk4justice
For years, a number of women have gone missing from
Highway 16, which has now become known as the Highway of
Tears. Many families have been left wondering what has
happened to their loved ones.
Gladys Radek lost a niece to the Highway of Tears,
so she started Walk for Justice so she and others could take
their concerns to the government. Today, she begins her
fourth walk from Prince Rupert, heading towards Ottawa to
get a four-year report card from the government about what
has or has not been done. She expects to leave from
Vancouver on June 24 and arrive in Ottawa on September 19,
when a rally will take place on Parliament Hill.
Yesterday, about a dozen people waited in the
drizzle today to join Radek on the walk. It was unknown how
far everyone will go, but there will be different people in
each community joining the walk with each stop. Radek came
to Prince Rupert to start the leg here; she will walk as far
as Smithers then fly back to Vancouver to organize people
from there and Vancouver Island. Some people are even flying
from Ottawa to Vancouver to walk back to Ottawa.
Radek said there are a few issues they want the
government to look at. They want them to sponsor a National
Missing and Murdered Women’s Symposium and they want them to
consider the many issues that are involved in many cases of
missing and murdered women, such as poverty,
human-trafficking, and human rights.
Radek also said she wants to see changes in the
judicial system. She is also advocating for the government
to stop cutting women’s programs, such as shelters, and she
wants funding for education.
“Canada is so rich in resources, there is no reason
for people to be living below the poverty line here,” said
Radek.
One of the most important things Radek would like
to see is the elimination of racist and discriminatory
practices. “When a woman goes missing, it affects not only
the family, it affects the community,” she said. “When women
are inflicted with violence, do something to stop it. When a
woman goes missing, pay attention, Don’t assume she is a
drug-user or no good, or a prostitute. Stop judging them.”
Walk for Justice is an entirely non-profit venture,
relying solely on donations. Supporter Vicki Hill said she
would like to see more involvement from the community, and
she wants people to show up in every community when they are
there. She said it is a long journey and every little bit
helps.
Though Hill cannot walk herself because she has her
kids to think about, she supports the cause in anyway she
can. She believes it is very important for women to be aware
of what is going on. She said she wishes people would
realize this is a serious matter.
“Our women are the whole reason why we’re here,”
she said. “They’re the ones who bear our children.”
By Michael
Smyth, The ProvinceJune 9, 2011 7:46 am
When the B.C. government
announced a public inquiry into the Willy Pickton serial
killings, they estimated it would cost between $3 million
and $5 million.
But, according to the Ministry of
the Attorney-General, the inquiry has already cost taxpayers
$1.3 million and the formal hearings have not even started.
The money has gone to ramping up
the sprawling inquiry into how police and the Crown handled
the investigation of the missing-women case, which ended
with the arrest and conviction of Pickton on multiple murder
charges.
The inquiry is headed by former
attorney-general Wally Oppal, who commands a staff of 17
people, including six lawyers.
Keep in mind those six lawyers
are only working for the commission itself. There will be
many more lawyers charging billable hours at the inquiry.
According to a cabinet order
dated last September, Oppal himself is being paid $1,500 a
day.
He has granted "standing" at the
inquiry to 25 groups and individuals, along with the
families of eight of Pickton's victims.
Some have been granted "full
participant" status, while others are "limited
participants." Some have been grouped together as
co-participants.
The lawyers for full participants
can cross-examine witnesses, make submissions and access all
documents. Limited participants can access documents and
make final submissions, but can also apply to Oppal to
crossexamine witnesses.
Some of the groups are paying for
their own lawyers, such as the government of Canada and the
Vancouver Police Department. Of course, that is public money
that will be counted separately from the commission costs.
But Oppal is calling on the
government to pay for the lawyers for many other groups with
standing at the inquiry, including: Amnesty International,
the Coalition of Sex Worker-Serving Organizations, the
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Walk4Justice, B.C.
Civil Liberties Association, Assembly of First Nations and
many others.
The government is resisting
paying for all these lawyers, fearing the budget for the
inquiry will go off the rails, and Oppal will not meet his
reporting deadline.
The inquiry was supposed to wrap
up by the end of this year. But no testimony has been heard
yet, and Oppal has already called a special hearing into the
government's decision not to fund all the intervener groups.
There are reasons governments
often hesitate to call public inquiries -they turn into
feeding frenzies for lawyers, last longer than expected and
cost taxpayers a fortune.
Still, the government felt the
alleged mishandling of the Pickton case warranted an
inquiry.
But as costs rise, and the
billable hours pile up, you have to wonder if some of that
money wouldn't be better spent on protecting vulnerable
women, instead of being spent on platoons of lawyers.
You can forget about $3 million.
Watch for the budget for this inquiry to explode.
Missing Women inquiry
commissioner Wally Oppal at a community forum in Vancouvers'
Downtown Eastside on Jan. 19, 2011.
Photograph by:
Gerry Kahrmann, PNG files
VANCOUVER -- The Missing Women inquiry will hold a
pre-hearing conference Monday to hear from groups who want
to take part in the inquiry but whose request for legal
funding has been denied by B.C.'s attorney general.
The government decided last month that it would
only provide funding to lawyer Cameron Ward, who is
representing the families of victims of serial killer Robert
Pickton.
Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal issued a statement
today saying he instructed Art Vertlieb, the lawyer acting
for the inquiry, to consider how the provincial government's
funding decision will affect those wishing to take part in
the inquiry.
"As a result of his discussions, Mr. Vertlieb has
advised me to hold a pre-hearing conference to give all
participants an opportunity to make submissions directly to
me about how the funding decision by the government affects
their clients' involvement in the hearing portion of the
inquiry and the operation of the commission," Oppal said.
The pre-hearing conference is set for 9:30 a.m.
Monday on the 12th floor of 1125 Howe Street.
Participants and their lawyers are asked to attend
to address the issues of whether they need to be represented
by legal counsel at the hearing portion of the inquiry, how
their interests may be affected if funding is not provided,
and detail the communication they have had with the
attorney-general's office about any explanation for the
denial of funding.
The inquiry plans to start a study commission in
June to probe the issue of the rising number of missing and
murdered woman along Highway 16, called the Highway of
Tears, which runs from Prince Rupert to Prince George and
into Alberta.
The attorney General announced earlier this year
that it would grant Oppal's request to broaden the scope of
the commission to include Highways of Tears victims and the
police investigation of those cases.
The inquiry's initial terms of reference last
September only included a hearing commission, a formal
hearing with lawyers allowed to cross-examine witnesses who
will testify about events before the arrest of serial killer
Robert Pickton, who preyed on woman living in Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside.
The study commission is expected to spend two weeks
in July hearing submissions from people living in four or
five cities along Highway 16, including Prince Rupert,
Hazelton and Prince George. That phase of the inquiry was
originally planned to take place this month.
The inquiry can make findings of fact, including
possible misconduct in the police handling of reports of the
women who disappeared from Vancouver streets between Jan.
23, 1997 until Pickton was arrested on Feb. 5, 2002.
The hearing commission will also review the January
1998 decision by the criminal justice branch of the
attorney-general's ministry to stay charges against Pickton
for the assault of a Downtown Eastside sex trade worker.
Pickton was eventually charged with 27 counts of
first-degree murder. He was convicted by a jury in 2007 on
six counts of second-degree murder. The Crown decided not to
proceed with a second trial on the murders of another 20
women.
One of the charges was stayed by the trial judge
because it involved an unknown woman known as Jane Doe.
B.C. Civil Liberties Association
executive director David Eby
VANCOUVER -- The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is
calling on B.C. Attorney-General Barry Penner to fund the
participation of survival sex trade workers, aboriginal
people and residents of the Downtown Eastside in the missing
women inquiry.
The move follows a controversial decision the government
made late last week to only fund legal fees for the families
of the murdered and missing women.
The inquiry, headed by former attorney-general Wally
Oppal, is examining the police investigation leading up to
the arrest of Robert Pickton, who preyed on women living in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Penner announced on Thursday that only families of
murdered and missing women will receive government funding
to participate in the inquiry, despite Oppal's
recommendations the government provide financial support to
13 applicants that had been granted legal standing to be
included in the inquiry.
The decision has drawn the ire of the BCCLA which claims
groups such as the Coalition of Sex Worker-Serving
Organizations and the Native Women's Association of Canada,
among others, must be represented for a fair inquiry.
The BCCLA will hold a news conference Wednesday to
release its official response to Penner's decision to
provide funding only to the families of Pickton's victims.
David Eby, executive director for the BCCLA, said on
Tuesday he was still communicating with the groups that had
applied for funding to see which ones would not be able to
participate in the inquiry and what their response would be.
He said they would be drafting a letter to be delivered to
the attorney-general Wednesday.
Oppal had granted the groups legal standing to
participate in the inquiry but Eby said most of them won't
be able to because they need funding to hire lawyers or
experts to represent them.
"They need to be at the table. I mean the Downtown
Eastside Women's Centre, for example — these are women who
are still at risk," he said.
"There's no point in holding a murdered and missing women
inquiry if the women at risk don't get to participate."
On May 3, Oppal recommended that the provincial
government provide various levels of funding to 13
applicants who asked for financial support to fund their
participation in the inquiry.
However, Penner said, in a news release Thursday, that
funding the families would be consistent with past practices
and that there was no legal requirement for the government
to fund all the groups.
However, Eby argues that legal representation in the
inquiry is unbalanced.
"On the one side there are 15 to 30 government lawyers
who are all arguing that nothing went wrong, or that it has
all been fixed and on the other side you have lawyer Cameron
Ward representing 10 of the families," he said.
Taxpayer-funded lawyers are already participating for
various government groups, Eby noted, including current and
former Vancouver police officers, the RCMP, the criminal
justice branch and the commission.
"It was a real shock that everyone on the government side
would be funded but nobody on the advocacy side would be
funded."
Meanwhile Tuesday, the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre
and the Women's Memorial March Committee Challenge released
a joint statement saying they would also challenge the
government's decision to turn down their funding request.
Marlene George, chair of the Feb 14th Women's Memorial
March Committee, said the two groups, both of which were
given legal standing to participate, would provide critical
context necessary for the inquiry because "we knew the women
and their lives and their struggles."
In March, the government broadened the scope of the
inquiry to include more voices from northern B.C.
The government decided to grant a request by inquiry
commissioner Wally Oppal to add a study commission after he
wanted to include more people living along the so-called
Highway of Tears, where many women have been reported
missing or were found murdered over the years.
The commission is expected to spend two weeks in June
hearing submissions from people living in four or five
cities along Highway 16, including Prince Rupert, Hazelton
and Prince George.
The inquiry will then move into its second phase — the
hearing commission — in September.
Among other issues, the hearing commission will review
the January 1998 decision by the criminal justice branch of
the attorney-general's ministry to stay charges against
Pickton for the assault of a Downtown Eastside sex trade
worker.
Pickton was suspected of being involved in the
disappearance of more than 60 women, many of them drug
addicts and impoverished sex-trade workers.
He was convicted of killing six of the women.
Murder charges involving 20 others were stayed after
Pickton lost his final appeal.
Matilda and Brenda Wilson still
don’t know what happened to Ramona Wilson, who went missing
17 years ago. The Missing Women Commission is considering
going to north-western communities to hear our concerns.
By Rikki Schierer - Houston
Today Published: May 14, 2011 3:00 PM
Updated: May 14, 2011 3:08 PM
The Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry, currently investigating incidences of missing and
murdered women on the Highway of Tears, may be visiting
northern communities later next month.
The commission, established last
fall by the provincial government, is headed up by Wally
Oppal, QC, who in a visit to Prince George earlier this year
said he was "deeply moved" by what he heard. There, he
heard repeated requests for him to go further north of
Prince George, to hear what other communities had to say on
how they've been impacted.
"It served once again to
underscore the true magnitude of the tragedy," Oppal said of
the P.G. conference.
Should he decide to visit
northern communities, it would be around mid-June, and Oppal
is asking anyone who would like to make a presentation to
the commission (should their community be visited) to
contact his office, providing their name, address, telephone
number and email address as well as a brief summary of the
subject of their presentation.
Interested persons can send their
information to Robyn Kendall, Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry, #1402 - 808 Nelson St., Vancouver, B.C., V6Z 2H2 or
to rkendall@missingwomeninquiry.ca.
It was welcome news to Matilda
Wilson, whose daughter Ramona went missing 17 years ago. It
was presumed that she was hitchhiking, and for an agonizing
10 months Wilson waited, until the day Ramona's body was
found. To this day, she has no clue what happened.
"I pray every day that this will
not happen again, in Smithers, in Telwa, or anyplace,"
Wilson said. "I would be so happy if they do get one going
here, maybe it would solve one of the missing women from
this area."
Even if it's not Ramona, she
added. At least then one family will have closure; they will
know what happened to their child, and why, and hold someone
accountable.
"It was devastating," Wilson said
of the 10 month period where no sign of Ramona was found.
"You cannot sleep, your days are never the same anymore and
I always pray for these parents and relatives, every night I
pray for them because it's one of the most difficult
situations to go through."
Wilson was one of the families
who spoke up, asking Oppal to host meetings in smaller, more
remote, communities so he could truly understand what goes
on in these communities; what it means for not just the
family, but the residents, when someone goes missing.
The Wilson family is one of eight
families represented by A. Cameron Ward , who was granted
full participation on those families behalf in evidentiary
hearings.
Oppal granted full participation
to 10 applicants and limited participation to another eight.
Full participants will be able to take part in all phases of
the hearing, including the cross examination of witnesses,
as well as making submissions to the hearing. All documents
disclosed to the commission will be available for them as
well.
Legal proceedings on behalf of
the commission are expected to begin later this year.
VANCOUVER -- The Missing Women inquiry is appealing for
residents of northern B.C. communities to make submissions
at forums scheduled for mid June. "In particular, I would
like to hear from residents about the impact of the women
who have gone missing along the Highway of Tears,"
Commissioner Wally Oppal said in a statement today. Oppal
visited Prince George last January to provide residents with
information about the public inquiry into the conduct of
police investigations involving women reported missing in
B.C. "I was deeply moved by what I heard and it served
once again to underscore the true magnitude of the tragedy.
I also took note of repeated requests for me to visit other
northern communities to hear from people who want to
contribute to the commission's work," he said. As a
result, Oppal plans to visit several northern B.C.
communities in mid-June and has appealed to anyone who would
like to make a presentation to contact his office by mail,
e-mail or telephone. Potential presenters should include
their name, address, phone number, e-mail and subject of
their presentation. It should be sent to: Robyn Kendall,
Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, #1402 - 808 Nelson
Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H2.
Interested parties can
also phone (604-566-8034; toll free 1-877-681-4470), fax
(604-681-4458) or email (rkendall@missingwomeninquiry.ca).
The B.C. government ordered the inquiry last year to probe
the conduct of police investigations of women reported
missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside between January
23, 1997 and February 5, 2002. The inquiry's terms of
reference also allow it to inquire into the investigation of
missing women and suspected multiple murders across B.C..
The inquiry also will examine the decision by the B.C.
Criminal Justice Branch on Jan. 27, 1998 to stop legal
proceedings against Robert William Pickton on charges of
attempted murder, assault with a weapon, forcible
confinement and aggravated assault. The woman who was
attacked by Pickton in 1997 managed to slash the serial
killer with a knife and flee naked from his pig farm. Police
at the time felt the woman was a drug addict and not a
credible witness, so charges against Pickton were dropped.
Pickton, Canada's worst serial killer, wasn't arrested until
four years later. Police believe he may have killed more
than four dozen women who disappeared from Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside.
The commission's mandate includes
a "hearing" commission and a "study" commission. A study
commission is less formal than a hearing commission and will
focus more on gathering information and discussing policy
issues.
The inquiry's study commission forums are
expected to begin in Northern B.C. in mid-June and the
formal proceedings are expected to begin after August.
Information about the Commission's work and mandate is
available on its website:
www.missingwomeninquiry.ca
By Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun March
28, 2011 1:29 PM
Missing Women inquiry
commissioner Wally Oppal at a community forum in Vancouvers'
Downtown Eastside on Jan. 19, 2011.
Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann,
PNG files
VANCOUVER — The Attorney General
announced today that the government is broadening the scope
of Missing Women inquiry to include more voices from
northern B.C.
The government decided to grant a
request by inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal to add a study
commission, which will begin in June.
The inquiry's initial terms of
reference last September only included a hearing commission,
a formal hearing with lawyers allowed to cross-examine
witnesses who will testify about events before the arrest of
serial killer Robert Pickton, who preyed on woman living in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
“The study commission will
provide more information for the commission, while ensuring
the police investigations regarding Robert Pickton are fully
examined to determine if proper procedures were followed,
and whether improvements can and should be made in any
future investigations of missing women and suspected
multiple homicides," Attorney General Barry Penner said in a
statement.
The study commission will allow
the public to make oral and written submissions in a less
formal setting, inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal said today.
He said he wanted to include more
people in northern B.C. living along the so-called Highway
of Tears, where many women have been reported missing or
were found murdered over the years.
"We're going to where the women
started to go missing," Oppal explained.
He said the study commission is
expected to spend two weeks in June hearing submissions from
people living in four or five cities along Highway 16,
including Prince Rupert, Hazelton and Prince George.
The inquiry will move into its
second phase — the hearing commission — in September.
Hearings commissions can make
findings of fact, including possible misconduct in the
police handling of reports of the women who disappeared from
Vancouver streets between Jan. 23, 1997 and Feb. 5, 2002,
when Pickton was first arrested.
The hearing commission will also
review the January 1998 decision by the criminal justice
branch of the attorney-general's ministry to stay charges
against Pickton for the assault of a Downtown Eastside sex
trade worker.
The hearing commission now is
reviewing applications from groups seeking legal standing to
appear to formal hearings in Vancouver.
Oppal’s report is scheduled to be
submitted to the attorney general by or before Dec. 31.
Pickton was charged with 27
counts of first-degree murder. He was convicted by a jury in
2007 on six counts of second-degree murder. The Crown
decided not to proceed with a second trial on the murders of
another 20 women. One charged involving an unknown victim,
called Jane Doe, was quashed by the trial judge.
Former Attorney General Wally
Oppal (left) heads B.C.'s Missing Women Inquiry. Ernie Crey
(right) is the brother of one of the Vancouver missing women
whose DNA was found at the Pickton farm.
By Jeff Nagel - BC Local News
Published: March 07, 2011 11:00 AM Updated:
March 07, 2011 11:16 AM
Missing Women Commissioner Wally
Oppal wants to expand his inquiry, allowing a broader look
at how serial killer Robert Pickton was allowed to prey on
vulnerable women.
The commission is currently
framed as a hearing commission but Oppal has recommended the
provincial government reshape it to also include a study
commission.
That would allow it to tour the
province and hear from more witnesses, particularly First
Nations, in a less-adversarial setting than formal
court-style hearings where those testifying face
cross-examination.
Oppal said the change would make
the inquiry more inclusive and allow its recommendations to
be shaped by more public input.
Ernie Crey, brother of one of the
missing women, supports the proposed change.
He said it would allow a hard
look at government policies and civic zoning that
concentrated drug-addicted vulnerable women in Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside, a regular hunting ground for Pickton.
His sister Dawn, whose DNA was
found at the Pickton farm, frequented the Downtown Eastside
rather than Kerrisdale or Kitsilano, Crey said, because
that's where services like soup kitchens, clothing depots
and low-rent housing are found.
Crey blames a "web of policies"
by federal, provincial and civic governments, along with
"NIMBYs do not want social services in some parts of
Vancouver that would attract impoverished people, mentally
ill people or the drug-dependent."
Without a study component, Crey
predicted the inquiry will largely ignore the social side
and turn mainly into a legalistic battle between testifying
police representatives and lawyers interrogating them.
Oppal's appointment last fall to
head the inquiry was criticized by some groups as a poor
choice.
Crey said the naming of a
companion study commission would allow the province to now
name an aboriginal woman with a background in law to head
it.
"There's no shortage of qualified
aboriginal people, particularly women, who could fill that
role," he said.
The recommendation from Oppal
came after he heard demands for a separate inquiry from
family members of women who went missing from northern B.C.
communities, along what has been dubbed the Highway of
Tears.
The province hasn't given any
immediate response.
Attorney General Barry Penner
said he will bring the proposal to cabinet, but questioned
whether it might lengthen the inquiry and delay its
findings.
Oppal is currently supposed to
report back by Dec. 31.
The inquiry is to focus on what
happened in the five years between 1997 – when a woman
escaped from the Port Coquitlam farm after nearly dying in a
bloody knife fight with Pickton – and 2002 when he was
ultimately charged with murder after several more women were
killed.
The earlier investigation of the
1997 assault, the 1998 decision to drop charges in that case
and the delay in eventually arresting Pickton again are all
part of Oppal's terms of reference.
Recommendations are to include
how police should investigate cases of missing women and
suspected serial killings, including the coordination of
investigations when multiple police forces are involved.
Pickton was convicted of killing
six missing women but had been linked by DNA to dozens more.
He claimed to an undercover officer he killed 49 women.
Missing Womens Commission of
Inquiry recommends BC grant the Commission powers of "joint
study and hearing commission" Attention:
Assignment Editor, City Editor, Environment Editor, News
Editor, Government/Political Affairs Editor
March 4, 2011
Dear Honourable Minister Penner:
The Missing Womens Commission of
Inquiry ("Commission") has recommended that, based on
community feedback and concerns heard at two pre-hearing
conferences in January and through media reports and
community organized forums, the Lieutenant Governor in
Council grant the Commission the powers of "joint study and
hearing commission".
The Commission is of the view
that this expanded power to also be a study commission
would:
* Allow the Commission to address
the concerns of the community by giving the Commission
increased flexibility over its process, including the
ability to engage directly with the public outside of the
formal hearing process,
* Permit the Commission to
fashion different forms of participation to participants'
interests, abilities and expertise (applicants who may not
strictly meet the test for standing in a hearing commission
could still be involved in the study portion of its work),
* Allow a more inclusive process
and participants could speak to the Commission directly
without the formalities of the adversarial process, and
* Enable the Commission to craft
a more focused but still thorough, and fair, hearing
process.
We share the Commission's
interest and goal of accommodating important community
concerns through an expanded mandate, in particular:
* The need for an accessible and
community-driven process,
* Ensuring vulnerable and
marginalized individuals are not discouraged or be made to
feel excluded by an overly formal process,
* Ensuring the emotional needs of
the victims' families are respected and supported,
* Involving Aboriginal groups in
a manner that is culturally sensitive, and
* Giving northern communities
affected by the ongoing missing and murdered women
investigations from the Highway of Tears an opportunity to
participate meaningfully without compromising those
investigations.
Our organizations commend and
support the Commission's effort to be responsive to the
important input of community members. We agree that a
flexible and inclusive process will improve the Commission's
ultimate recommendations by ensuring the process is:
* Appropriately contextualized,
* Culturally sensitive, and
* Suitable for northern
communities affected by the missing and murdered women along
the Highway of Tears.
This is a positive development as
the Commission is trying to ensure all relevant voices are
heard including, most importantly, the victims' families, in
an appropriate and respectful manner.
We look forward to the Government
of British Columbia's positive response to the Commission's
recommendation.
Sincerely,
FIRST NATIONS LEADERSHIP COUNCIL
On behalf of the FIRST NATIONS
SUMMIT:
Grand Chief Edward John Dan
Smith Chief Douglas White III Kwulasultun
On behalf of the UNION OF BC
INDIAN CHIEFS
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip
Chief Bob Chamberlin Chief Marilyn Baptiste
On behalf of the BC ASSEMBLY OF
FIRST NATIONS:
Regional Chief Jody
Wilson-Raybould
cc: National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, Assembly
of First Nations Wally Oppal, Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry Hugh Braker, President, Native Courtworker and
Counselling Association of BC BC First Nations
For further information: Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Union
of BC Indian Chiefs (250) 490-5314 Grand Chief Ed
John, First Nations Summit (778) 772-8218 Regional
Chief Jody Wilson-Raybould, BC Assembly of First Nations
(604) 922-7733
Go to latest NEWS Headlines -
Master Topic Index
Commissioner Wally Oppal, right, stands next to a
display with photographs of missing women after being
wrapped in a ceremonial First Nations blanket during the
Missing Women Commission of Inquiry public forum in
Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday January 19, 2011. (Darryl Dyck
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS)
The Canadian Press
Thursday Mar. 3, 2011 9:07
PM ET
VANCOUVER — The head of a sweeping public inquiry
into the Robert Pickton investigation wants to give those
most hurt by the disappearances a greater voice during
upcoming hearings.
On Thursday, Wally Oppal released a status report
asking the provincial government to expand the inquiry to
include a study commission.
"As a result of concerns expressed by the community
... I am recommending that the lieutenant governor in
council grant the commission the powers of a joint study and
hearing commission," the report said.
In an interview, Oppal said the response to the
inquiry from those who have lost loved ones has been
"overwhelming."
"We want to make sure that everybody who wants to
be heard is heard, that's really the object of this
suggestion that we made."
Expanding to a study inquiry would allow people to
testify without being sworn in and they wouldn't need a
lawyer, Oppal said.
"When you have an inquiry of this sort many people
come forward, particularly those people who feel aggrieved
and people who are vulnerable. So for that reason we want
people to feel comfortable."
Oppal was asked to lead the inquiry shortly after
the Supreme Court of Canada upheld six second-degree murder
convictions against Pickton last year.
The former pig farmer was initially charged with
killing 27 women, but one of those charges -- involving an
unidentified Jane Doe -- was dropped. He was later convicted
on six of those charges, while the remaining 20 were stayed.
The DNA from six more women was found on Pickton's
farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., but he was not charged in
those deaths.
Oppal has already granted legal standing at the
hearing commission to affected parties including the
Vancouver Police Department, the Criminal Justice Branch and
a lawyer representing eight families of women whose remains
were found on the Pickton farm.
Pickton's victims were among a list of dozens and
dozens of women who went missing from Vancouver's
impoverished Downtown Eastside over decades.
A police task force investigating the
disappearances has said that between 1978 and 2001 about 65
women went missing from the Vancouver area.
Another 32 women and girls have vanished or were
murdered along an 800-kilometre stretch on Highway 16
between Prince George and Prince Rupert in northern B.C.,
referred to as the Highway of Tears.
Oppal said his mandate won't change. He will still
look into the actions of Vancouver police, the RCMP, and the
Crown in the Pickton case.
But other Canadian public inquiries have been known
to drag on as budgets balloon, and B.C. Attorney General
Barry Penner was reluctant to immediately endorse any change
to the inquiry terms.
Penner said Oppal's report is supposed to be in by
the end of the year.
"I am keen to find out if there are specific things
we can learn from what may not have gone well in the
investigation into the arrest and conviction of Mr.
Pickton."
But Penner noted the current process can be
adversarial, with potential of a finding of wrongdoing,
which sets up the need for government-funded lawyers.
He said money could be saved under the "less
legalistic" study process. Penner said approval would have
to come from the new premier Christy Clark and the cabinet.
Ernie Crey, whose sister's DNA was found on
Pickton's farm, urged Clark to adopt Oppal's suggestion.
Crey noted he and others have complained the
inquiry's terms of reference were too narrow.
"While I understood the importance of examining the
police investigation and coming up with proposed reforms, I
strongly believed the commission needed to look at the
policy environment that keeps women living in the Downtown
Eastside, making them easy prey to men like Robert Pickton,"
Crey said in a written statement.
"The proposed study commission makes sense because
it could help lead to important changes in the lives of
women who continue to live on the DTES and communities in
northern B.C."
Crey's sister, Dawn, disappeared from the Downtown
Eastside in 2000, and her DNA was found on the Pickton farm
in 2004. Pickton was never charged in her death.
Vancouver Police have already released a report
reviewing the department's actions into the missing women
case.
The report was critical of its own department and
the RCMP investigation, and in it Vancouver Deputy Chief
Const. Doug LePard admitted lives could have been saved if
the case had been handled differently.
Since his appointment, Oppal said he's read many
reports into serial killers such as Paul Bernardo, Clifford
Olson and Ted Bundy.
"Some of the same mistakes there appear to have
been made here in the Pickton inquiry, we don't know that
yet."
But he said after reading the other reports, it
seems the way these people get away with murder and the
mistakes made in the investigations are similar.
"That is the unwillingness or the inability of
police to share relevant information so as to prevent crimes
from taking place."
CBC News Mar 3,
2011 1:34 PM PT
B.C.'s inquiry into the mishandling of the Robert Pickton
investigation and the missing women from the Downtown
Eastside needs to be expanded to allow more public input,
according Commissioner Wally Oppal.
The former attorney general is asking the
provincial government to create a study commission that will
operate alongside the formal hearing, which is to get
underway in June.
In his initial public consultations,
Wally Oppal heard from dozens of activists, advocates,
family members, and concerned community members, about the
breakdowns in the system that allowed convicted serial
killer Robert Pickton to get away with murder for as long as
he did
By creating another forum as part of the
commission, Oppal says more of those voices will be heard.
"What happens is it becomes more
inclusive and we can still use their recommendations, their
experiences to shape our inquiry," said Oppal.
The mandate of the study commission would
be to gather information, do research, discuss policy in a
less adversarial form than the formal inquiry.
Attorney General Barry Penner says he's
not sure how Oppal's request will affect the length or
complexity of the missing women's inquiry but he will take
it to cabinet.
"I am still very keen to get timely
answers to those question that were set out in the terms of
reference because sadly women continue to be attacked and in
some cases murdered in the Lower Mainland, so that's very
much still a key consideration for me," said Penner.
But Gladys Radek, a longtime advocate for
the missing and murdered women, who is seeking standing at
the hearing, is not happy with Oppal's proposal.
"I'm really angry about this. Why do the
taxpayers need to put more money into telling everybody and
studying why they screwed up in the first place," she said.
Radek says the study commission would
create a separate process for those who've been highly
critical of appointment Oppal as commissioner, and what they
see as the inquiry's limited scope.
Oppal rejects that criticism, saying the
study commission would simply be a way to extend the
commission's reach.
Oppal's appointment as commissioner of
the inquiry
has been criticized because he was B.C.'s
attorney general during the Pickton prosecution and later
said he saw no need for an inquiry into the mishandling of
the case. Oppal, 70, was B.C.'s attorney general from 2005
until 2009.
Pickton was convicted of murdering six
women between the late 1990s and 2002. He had been charged
with another 20 killings, but the Crown chose only to
prosecute the cases that would most likely to lead to
conviction.
The commission's formal hearings will
likely begin in the spring and the final report is due by
the end of 2011.
Missing person poster
of Nicole Hoar who went missing when hitchhiking from Prince
George to Smithers, B.C., June 21, 2002.
Photograph by:
Handout, Province files
Families yearn for closure as the police
search continues; Investigation focuses on Nicole Hoar but
17 others vanished
The Province
Sun Aug 30 2009
Along the Highway of Tears, the
possibility of one family's closure bleeds into the minds of
17 others.
Nicole Hoar, a 25-year-old tree-planter
from Alberta, went missing from Highway 16 near Prince
George over seven years ago. On Friday, police said they
were looking for her remains on a two-hectare property in
Isle Pierre, about 30 km northwest of the city.
"It's been so frustrating, not knowing
what has happened to these girls," said Matilda Wilson,
whose 15-year-old daughter Ramona went missing from the
Highway of Tears -- a 700-kilometre stretch from Prince
George to Prince Rupert -- on June 11, 1994.
Ramona's remains were found April 1995
near the Smithers Airport.
"The closure, that's one thing -- I
won't say it's good, but it's very important for families.
Although it hurts," she said. "It's your baby. It's your
daughter."
Nicole is one of five women still
classified by the RCMP as missing. None of the five missing
cases or 13 known murders have been solved.
The Highway of Tears was given the
nickname because of the number of women who have gone
missing from the area since 1969. Some groups put the total
much higher.
Nicole, a popular student and artist,
was working in B.C. as a tree planter the summer of her
disappearance. She was headed to Smithers to surprise her
sister and attend a music festival there, when she
disappeared on June 21, 2002. Like many other missing women,
she was hitchhiking.
Her parents, Jack and Barb Hoar,
released a statement through the RCMP on Friday saying they
are aware of the property search on Pinewood Road.
Police have said a former property owner
is a "person of interest" in the case, although they have
not specified whom. One former owner, Leland Switzer, is
serving a 25-year sentence for the murder of his brother,
which occurred two days after Nicole went missing.
"We are supportive of the police
investigation and hoping it may further their investigation
into the case of our missing daughter," read the statement.
"Our thoughts continue to be with
Nicole. Nicole is just one of many missing persons in that
area and our thoughts continue to be with their families as
well."
In 2004, Jack Hoar told The Province
that police were compiling a database to cross-link cases
and look at the possibility of a serial killer.
Police have never said publicly how many
people they've suspected in the missing and murdered cases
along the highway.
"You have to keep working. You try to
accept Nicole isn't coming home, but you never give up
hope," said Jack Hoar in 2004.
But hope, some say, now lies only in
accountability.
"Maybe if someone finally got charged,
it would get the momentum going and a few more of these
cases would get solved," said private investigator Ray
Michalko, who's worked on the Highway of Tears investigation
independently since 2006.
"I've talked to quite a few of the
families and it's really rough on them," he said. "Everybody
wants their loved one's case solved, but I think all of them
would be happy to have any case solved, just because it's
about time."
Nicole's case also presents an anomaly
along the highway -- she is the only non-aboriginal to go
missing.
A report based on the 2006 Highway of
Tears symposium, organized by the Union of B.C. Indian
Chiefs and attended by some 500 people, found that Nicole's
disappearance made the issue of missing women more widely
known.
"Of most importance, the media and the
general public became aware that Nicole Hoar's disappearance
was not an isolated incident," read the report.
The B.C. Assembly of First Nations,
First Nations Summit and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs
also released a statement expressing condolences to the Hoar
family.
"This search of this rural property
reminds us all of their ongoing loss, pain and hope for
closure," said Grand Chief Edward John of the First Nations
Summit Task Group. The group also asked for more resources,
a co-ordinated search and an inquiry into missing and
murdered women, which is echoed by North Coast MLA Gary
Coons.
But some family members ask that only
one mystery be solved this time around.
"I just hope and pray that there's only
the one set of human remains there," said Gladys Radek,
whose niece Tamara Chipman went missing from Prince George
in 2005.
"I don't want it to be another Robert
Pickton. It's too many."
And others mourn with the Hoar family
from afar.
Mary Beaubian's sister, Delphine Nikal,
has been missing from Smithers since 1990.
"I can feel their pain right now," she
said. "It just opens up old wounds."
Taxi drivers in Prince George are being pressured by the
RCMP to voluntarily submit DNA samples in connection with
the investigation into the murdered and missing women along
the Highway of Tears, according to the manager of the city’s
largest taxi company.
Sami Kuuluvainen, manager of Prince George Taxi, said the
RCMP asked him to give them a list of all his drivers.
He said some of his drivers were “grilled” by the RCMP and
asked to provide a DNA sample, adding they were led to
believe they would be considered a suspect in the
investigation if they didn’t provide one.
“I’ve been manager of the company for 10 years and I’ve
never seen [the RCMP] go to this extreme,” he said. “We have
100 drivers ... that is a lot of people to grill.”
RCMP have made no arrests in connection with the 18 girls
and women who went missing or were murdered along B.C.’s
so-called Highway of Tears.
“The RCMP made it clear to them that if they didn’t submit
it then they could be a suspect,” said Kuuluvainen, who said
he knew of a couple of drivers who have refused to submit
samples.
Investigators have been collecting voluntary DNA samples
over the past few years in an effort to compare the samples
with evidence left by suspects.
Kuuluvainen said in 2008 RCMP asked to speak to six of his
drivers.
“I spoke to one of the drivers who I know fairly well at the
time and he said [the RCMP] told him they knew he did it.
They were really pushing him.”
The RCMP were unavailable Monday evening for comment.
Some of the Highway of Tears files are decades old, for
instance the case of Pamela Darlington, 19, who was killed
38 years ago. She was last seen after she had hitchhiked to
a Kamloops bar.
The probe is looking into 18 similar cases, spanning from
the 1969 murder of Levina Moody to the 2006 murder of Aielah
Saric-Auger. All the victims were either last seen or found
dead along Highway 16 from Prince Rupert to Hinton, Alta.,
Highway 97 from Prince George to Kamloops; and Highway 5,
including Merritt
Tips come in but identification of Jane
Doe still unknown.
Police continue to investigate tips
received from across Canada in relation to the
identification of Jane Doe. Police have so far received 22
tips since going public Saturday with composite drawings of
Jane Doe and so far 6 of them have been resolved. Some tips
were resolved with people being located, and other tips were
found to be factually unrelated to Jane Doe. The rest of
this tips are still being investigated.
Investigators are diligently
following-up on those tips and are hopeful that some of the
information received will lead to the identification of Jane
Doe.
Sgt Dan Almas of the Missing Women Task
Force says: “We are very pleased with the public interest
and support that we got in the investigation into the
identity of Jane Doe. Although we have received a number of
tips from the public that we continue to investigate, we
don’t want people to refrain from calling us. We encourage
anyone who has any information about the identify of Jane
Doe to phone our tip line.”
Police are asking the public to have a
look at the composite sketch of Jane Doe, keeping in mind
that hair, nose, lips and jaw are an approximation. Anyone
who has any information about her identify is asked to
contact the Missing Women Task Force Tip Line at
1-800-687-3377.
Vancouver,
BC: The Missing Women Task Force is seeking the public’s
help in identifying a Jane Doe connected with their
investigation.
On February 23, 1995 what appeared to be a partial skull
with an attached vertebra was located near a creek just
south of Highway 7, approximately 800 metres east of the
Ruskin bridge in Mission. The discovery was made by someone
filling their water bottle from the creek.
A number of subject matter experts were utilized,
specializing in areas such as forensic anthropology,
biology, forensic entomology, forensic odontology and human
anatomy, in an effort to identify her.
In August 2002, bones recovered during the search of the
farm associated to Robert Pickton were confirmed to be
genetically linked to this partial skull.
Since the discovery, police have reached out across the
world in an effort to identify her. Investigators worked
with a forensic sketch artist with the Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI) to develop a
composite drawing based on what was learned from her skull
by all the subject matter experts who had examined it.
Her DNA profile was provided to every laboratory in Canada,
and along with the composite drawings, shared with Interpol.
Making this information now available to Interpol’s 188
members countries is ensuring that Jane Doe’s information is
available for comparison by other police agencies to their
missing person files.
Here is what investigators have been able to determine about
Jane Doe.
Caucasian female
between 20 to 40 years old
death would have been sometime between about 1985 and
1995
missing teeth in the upper right portion of her jaw
may have worn dentures
It is possible that this woman’s family does not know that
she is missing, or may be under the mistaken belief that she
was reported missing and there is a file open.
“We believe someone out there knows who Jane Doe is and can
help solve this mystery”, says Sgt. Dan Almas with Project
Evenhanded. “Somebody knew her and her family deserves to
know what has happened.”
The public is asked to have a look at the composite sketch,
keeping in mind that hair, nose, lips and jaw are an
approximation.
Anyone who has any information about the identify of Jane
Doe is asked to contact the Missing Women Task Force toll
free tip line at 1-800-687-3377.
(Media inquiries can be direct to Cpl. Annie Linteau at
604-264-2929)
Released by:
Missing Women Task Force
Visit our web site to find out more about the RCMP in B.C.
Consultez notre site Web pour en apprendre davantage sur la
GRC en C.-B.
By Suzanne Fournier, The Province
February 15, 2011
Get serious, natives tell RCMP; No
progress, just a bunch of cases added, critics say
The Province
Fri Oct 26 2007
B.C. aboriginal leaders are calling on
the RCMP and B.C. government to create a task force to
investigate the 18 women missing or murdered along B.C.'s
Highway of Tears and other highways in Alberta.
Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs president
Stewart Phillip says "it's positive police are at least
admitting" that 18 women are "officially" missing or have
been murdered along B.C. and Alberta highways between 1969
and February 2006.
"But for the RCMP to admit that so many
women are missing or murdered and not set up a properly
designated and adequately resourced task force is to invite
these tragedies to keep occurring," says Phillip.
"And the northern communities have
identified more than 40 missing women whom RCMP didn't add
to the list."
The RCMP announced Oct. 12 that it was
adding nine unsolved cases to the "official list" of nine
victims of the 750-kilometre Highway 16 between Prince
George and Prince Rupert. Eight of the new cases are
unsolved homicides that occurred between 1969 and 1981. One
is a woman who went missing in Hinton, Alta., in 1983.
The unsolved-homicide cases, mostly tied
to B.C. highways from Hudson's Hope to 100 Mile House, were
announced by the RCMP as part of their one-year update on
the status of their Highway 16 investigation, which was
launched after a well-attended and highly-publicized Highway
of Tears symposium in Prince George in 2006.
United Native Nations vice-president
David Dennis says the RCMP is still failing missing women.
"It's one of the most disgusting and
despicable displays on the part of the RCMP, to add these
longstanding, unsolved cases from all over B.C. to the
Highway of Tears cases. It seems they don't take the
disappearance of any of these women seriously," he said.
"There's no RCMP task force, no
concerted police effort, no evidence they are taking the
disappearance of so many women, most of them aboriginal,
seriously. The symposium recommendations have fallen on deaf
ears."
Meanwhile, a woman whose niece
disappeared on Highway 16 in 2005 accuses the RCMP of trying
"to get rid of the whole Highway of Tears concept" by adding
the unsolved cases stretching back as far as 1969.
"To call the families into a meeting [on
Oct. 11 in Smithers] with nothing new to add, when we've
tried to give the RCMP a list of up to 43 women missing
along the Highway of Tears, and then they pile on their
unsolved homicides back to 1969, mostly from other parts of
B.C. -- it was just cruel," says Gladys Radek, whose niece,
Tamara Chipman, disappeared in 2005.
Radek says victims' family have been
calling her to express their grief and disappointment.
Ray Michalko, a former RCMP officer who
now runs Valley Pacific Investigations and is investigating
Highway 16 disappearances, says he's "disgusted and
embarrassed" for the RCMP.
"Not only have the RCMP not solved any
Highway of Tears cases, they add for no reason nine cases
from their unsolved-homicide list.
"In the private sector, they'd be
fired," he said. "I know what it's like in a busy
detachment, where they run old murder cases off the side of
their desks if they have the time, instead of demanding a
task force and manpower."
With human remains discovered in 13 of
the 18 highways cases, a huge forensic investigation and
comparison of DNA evidence should be under way -- "not just
civilians on computers," says Michalko.
"They still use the excuse of
confidentiality and refuse to admit probably more than one
serial killer is involved."
Solicitor-General John Les, who attended
the Highway of Tears symposium and says he takes the
community's concerns "extremely seriously," says resources
have never been an issue.
"If the RCMP need to put more people on
this case, they can do that today," he says.
"The sad fact is, some of these cases
will never be solved. But the RCMP are professionals and
would not casually add victims' names to the list without a
reason."
Les agrees there is no task force, but
said there is an "active investigation."
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre says
police can't divulge the reasons for the 18 names on the
official list.
"There are commonalities and certain key
points of criminal evidence the investigators have held
back, but we can't divulge the reasons because we don't want
to give perpetrators a head start," says Lemaitre.
He says the RCMP investigation,
code-named E-Panna, came up with the 18 names after running
more than 200 similar files through the Violent Crime
Linkage Analysis System, which is a Canada-wide computer
system developed in the early 1990s to identify links
between crimes, victims and offenders.
Lemaitre insists the "investigation is
adequately staffed and funded."
No arrests have been made in any of the
cases listed on the RCMP's official list.
NOTE by
Highway of Tears Tony
Romeyn:The 9 Cases where in fact added by ePana back in
December
of 2009 - See Details Epana
By Cheryl Chan,
The Province February 15, 2011
The Province
Sun Oct 14 2007
Police have added nine names to the
investigation into women who have disappeared or been
murdered along the so-called Highway of Tears, doubling the
official number of cases.
The new cases, dating from 1969 to 1983,
were identified from 200 cold cases based on their
similarities to the original nine cases. Geographic and
criminal profiling were used to make the links, said RCMP
spokesman Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre.
The Highway of Tears investigation was
originally limited to the 750-kilometre stretch of Highway
16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, where nine
women, age 15 to 25, vanished or were found dead since 1989.
With the new additions, police have
broadened the geographical scope to Merritt in the south and
Alberta in the east.
Added to the investigation are: Gloria
Moody, found dead in Williams Lake in 1969; Micheline Pare,
Hudson's Hope, 1970; Gale Weys, Clearwater, 1973; Pamela
Darlington, Kamloops, 1974; Monica Ignas, Terrace, 1974;
Colleen MacMillen, 100 Mile House, 1974; Monica Jack,
Merritt, 1978; Maureen Mosie, Kamloops, 1981; Shelly-ann
Bascu, Hinton, Alta., 1983.
Most of the original nine missing or
murdered women were members of First Nations. The most
recent case is that of 14-year-old Aielah Saric Auger, whose
body was found near Prince George in February last year.
There has been widespread speculation the
disappearances and murders might be the work of a serial
killer but "police are not discounting or supporting the
theory that these cases have been committed by one
individual," Lemaitre said. No arrests have been made.
NDP MLA Mike Farnworth is calling on
Solicitor-General John Les to put up a reward for
information that'll help the investigation.
VANCOUVER—Taxi drivers in Prince George,
B.C., are being pressured to submit a DNA sample to the RCMP
in their investigation of the deaths or disappearances of at
least 18 women over the last three decades.
Every cab driver in the city has been
told by the RCMP that providing a DNA sample would eliminate
them as a suspect or person of interest in the
investigation, the Toronto Star has learned.
The RCMP has linked at least 18
disappearances and murders of women to a geographic area of
more than 700 kilometres of highway that run through
northern communities in B.C., with Prince George at the
heart of what has been called the Highway of Tears.
Families and friends of the missing women
— many of them native — say the actual number is much
higher, identifying at least 30 victims who have simply
vanished.
Cab driver Kevin Szulinszky was just three
days into his job when he was asked to visit the RCMP
station in Prince George.
Szulinszky, who had recently moved to
Prince George from Edmonton, said he was told every other
driver was being asked to provide a DNA sample.
“While they couldn’t force me, they said I
could eliminate myself as a suspect,” said Szulinszky. “They
made it sound like if I didn’t, that could cause problems.”
Szulinszky said he declined to give his
DNA because he had been in Prince George only three months
and convinced the RCMP that he couldn’t be the suspect.
The spectre of the missing women — and
others who may disappear before a killer is caught — has
haunted Vikki Joseph and her cousin Emily for years. The two
young women lost their aunt, Violet Joseph, who was murdered
in 2006 in Vancouver. No one has ever been charged.
“Everyone knows someone who has a daughter
or a sister or aunt who has gone missing around here,” said
Joseph. “We know what happened to our aunt but we don’t know
if anyone will ever go to court for it.”
The DNA of some of the missing women were
later found on the Port Coquitlam, B.C., pig farm owned by
Robert Pickton, who was convicted in 2007 of second-degree
murder in the deaths of six women. At his trial, the Crown
said he had confessed to 49 murders.
In Vancouver, hundreds of people walked
through the Downtown Eastside on Valentine’s Day for the
20th annual march to bring attention to missing and murdered
women — many native sex workers — who were disappearing in
growing numbers.
Some of them said they’re concerned a
public inquiry into the Pickton case later this year won’t
include women and girls who have vanished for years along
the Highway of Tears.
RCMP investigators have been conducting
audits of all the exhibits and resubmitted them to the lab,
including some from a case in 1969.
“We’ve also been collecting DNA samples in
certain areas of persons of interest and conducting
interviews with our investigators,” said RCMP Corporal Annie
Linteau.
The manager of Prince George Taxi, the
city’s largest with about 100 drivers in its fleet, said
many of the drivers contacted initially refused to submit a
sample but all but two or three eventually did.
Sam Kuuluvainen said he had also been
asked to give his DNA but because he had only driven two
shifts in the last two years, refused to give a sample.
In 2008, Kuuluvainen said the RCMP
contacted six of his drivers after one woman went missing
and targeted one of the drivers who had been with the
company for 20 years.
“They tried to scare him and told him that
we know you did it and he did submit his DNA but obviously
nothing happened then and then they started this up again.”
The RCMP asked Kuuluvainen if they could
use one of his offices to interview drivers coming in for
their shifts.
Kuuluvainen said he declined that request
and many of his drivers initially asked the RCMP to get a
warrant but provided the sample when investigators told them
they would remain a person of interest if they did not
submit.
“It was worded in such a way that the
drivers thought if they didn’t give their DNA, they believed
they would be followed until they gave the police what they
wanted,” he said Monday.
VANCOUVER -- Missing women's inquiry commissioner Wally
Oppal appealed Monday to dozens of lawyers representing
scores of special interest groups to form coalitions so the
inquiry into what went wrong in the Robert Pickton case can
proceed in an orderly fashion.
"We want recommendations and advice," he told the horde of
lawyers whose clients are seeking official standing for when
the commission begins hearing evidence.
"We want to write a thorough report but we don't want to
hear the same submissions over and over again."
The groups include first nations organizations, advocates
for women and women's equality, those representing the
interests of sex-trade workers or drug users, anti-poverty
groups, social activists, legal and social organizations.
The object isn't to force people into coalitions, Oppal
said.
"We want to hear from everyone. We are dealing with
important issues. Horrible tragedies have taken place and we
want to know what happened."
Earlier, he opened the proceedings by referring to the
enormity of Pickton's crimes.
"The Pickton trial and investigation revealed some of the
most horrific crimes in Canadian history. Crimes against
women, crimes against vulnerable women and crimes against
all of us.
"While the conclusion of the legal proceedings answered some
of the questions as far as the guilt of the accused was
concerned, there remain many questions outstanding and
unanswered. We will attempt to find those answers," said
Oppal, a former B.C. Supreme Court justice and
attorney-general.
The commission will probe the actions of the various police
agencies that dealt with the missing women cases and the
investigation of Pickton from Jan. 23, 1997, to Feb. 5,
2002. It will also probe the actions of the criminal justice
branch in deciding to stop legal proceedings against Pickton
for attempted murder, assault with a weapon, forcible
confinement and aggravated assault on Jan. 27, 1998.
Five of the six women Pickton was convicted of murdering
were killed after those charges were stayed. His victims
were from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and many of
them were from first nations communities.
The commission is also charged with investigating episodes
of missing women in other areas of the province and
suspected multiple murders there.
Among those seeking status are east Vancouver's Crab Water
for Life Society; former Vancouver police officer Kim
Rossmo, now a university professor; the Women's Equality and
Security Coalition, made up of 11 groups including Vancouver
Rape Relief; and the Assembly of First Nations.
A number of agencies, such as the B.C. Civil Liberties
Association and Amnesty International, quickly agreed to
form coalitions, telling Oppal their concerns could be
addressed together.
But others such as the Assembly of First Nations asked to be
given independent standing.
Saskatchewan lawyer Donald Worme, representing the assembly,
said the inquiry would cover matters of national interest
and would delve into systemic racism against Canada's first
nation peoples.
He said the AFN's participation would "bring some degree of
confidence" to the process for those outside the province
who had legitimate concerns.
Other first nation groups such as the Union of B.C. Indian
Chiefs, represented by lawyer Beverly Jacobs, also argued
for independent status, saying the union was a political
entity representing the interests of 98 first nations in the
province.
Gwen Brodsky, representing the 11-group Women's Equality and
Security Coalition, said it would be difficult to instruct
counsel if any more members were added to their coalition.
Among the groups already accorded standing are the
Department of Justice representing the RCMP; the City of
Vancouver representing the Vancouver Police; and the Crown
counsel office representing the provincial government.
Lawyer Cameron Ward, representing families of eight of the
missing women — three of whom Pickton was convicted of
murdering — has also been granted standing.
If the Wally Oppal inquiry into the Murdered and Missing
Women, which includes a look at the so called
"highway of tears" is to get some much needed back ground as
to what has taken place along this stretch of pavement,
there will need to be a meeting with the RCMP to have an
inside look.
From all accounts and information that Opinion250 has been
able to obtain over the past half dozen years, there could
be upwards of six people who were involved independently in
the deaths of numerous women. It is important as well to add
into the mix, the missing Jack family, that is the family of
four, Russell Jack, his wife Doreen, and their two children
aged nine and four who simply disappeared off the map after
accepting a job near Bednesti Lake.
Their disappearance has been tied together with the
disappearance of Nichole Hoar and Alisha Germaine who
also disappeared close to Prince George.
An investigation by police of a rural property west of
Prince George, failed to turn up any clues into their
disappearance but rumours abound that the three missing
persons file could be connected. In these cases police have
suggested quietly that the person of interest is already
serving a lengthy term in jail.
If you also bring into play the deaths of a number of the
other women, the police believe that from their
investigation, at least two of the deaths are believed to
have been committed by two different people.
For some time, investigators had begun to wonder whether
someone who was travelling along highway 16 was responsible,
that theory has long ago been dispelled as they say again
privately that they think they know who committed the
murders in a few different instances proving the matter is a
very difficult task.
That is reason alone for Oppal to be able to sit down with
police in a private meeting and get the information for the
families involved. That in itself would go a long way in
bringing closure to some families.
mages
of women who have been missing or murdered
along Highway 16 were posted on the wall at the
Missing Women Inquiry Pre-Hearing Conference in Prince
George.
Prince George, B.C. – The images on the wall
were underscored with candles, the message on the sign
above the eleven photos clear, “We Want Answers and We want
Them Now.” The message in clear view of the Wally Oppal, the
Commissioner charged with the Missing Women Inquiry. The
eleven are among the women murdered or missing from Highway
16, the so called Highway of Tears.
As Commissioner Wally Oppal addressed the gathering of about
100 at the Prince George Civic Centre, he outlined the terms
of reference for his commission and noted that
while the terms of reference would appear to favour the way
in which the Robert Willy Pickton case was investigated “We
are all very aware of the highway of tears”. Oppal, went
on to say the terms of reference do include a review of
how multiple murder cases are handled and investigated by
police agencies.
The forum in Prince George was rich in First Nation’s
culture. (at right, symbols of First Nation's
culture) The chairs were set in a circle, a key symbol of
healing, and before the forum began, a cleansing smudge of
cedar and sage smoke, was offered to those who wanted to
cleanse their aura. There was First Nations singing, a
special prayer, and then, one by one, the speakers stepped
behind the microphone.
Brenda Wilson was the first to speak. She talked about the
impact of the loss of her sister Ramona, who was just 16
when she disappeared in 1994. Her body found about a year
later near the Smither’s airport. Brenda talked
about challenges facing First Nations communities and
invited Commissioner Wally Oppal to visit the communities to
experience the culture, and witness for himself what the
small communities don’t have, like integrated transportation
systems. Chief Wilf Adam echoed that invitation “If you
really want to help, you need to come to the communities,
you need to drive the Highway of Tears, you need to break
bread with the people in their communities and experience
the rich culture and hear their concerns.”
Doug Leslie, the father of murdered 15 year old Lauren
Leslie, was unable to continue his presentation, he broke
down in tears as he tried to speak and had to pass his
presentation over to another to read. Lauren was murdered at
the end of November, her body discovered 22 kilometers north
of Highway 16.
Sam Moody, an elder from Williams Lake, talked about it
taking 27 years for him to come to terms with the murder of
his sister. “My message is, there needs to be a process of
healing using traditional wisdom and some current processes
for families and communities. There needs to be a process of
support.”
Moody also read a submission from Jack Hoar, father of
Nicole Hoar, who disappeared in June of 2002. While praising
the police and the community for their help in trying to
find Nicole, Hoar expressed concern that the Pickton inquiry
and the Highway of Tears cases should not be
combined. He called for ongoing financial support from the
Provincial Government to support the recommendations which
came from the Symposium held in Prince George in 2006.
Fran Smith of the Battered Women’s Support Services says
there needs to be a clear separation between the Highway of
Tears cases and the murders of women from Vancouver’s
downtown east side. She pointed to the complexities of the
issues in the Highway of Tears cases, and fears police
investigating those deaths and disappearances are making the
same mistakes as were made in the Pickton investigation.
In a joint presentation, the Elizabeth Fry Society and
Women and Justice Service Organizations called for programs
which move away from the support of women and children who
are victims of violence, to programs aimed at breaking the
cycle of violence . They told Commissioner Oppal that each
day in B.C., 13 women or young girls are sexually assaulted,
that 1 in five high school girls are in abusive
relationships and that Aboriginal women are 5 times more
likely to die as a result of violence. They called for
a plan that would make violence against women just
as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving.
Commissioner Oppal said the formal inquiry hearings with
testimony given under oath, will start in June and likely
carry on until the fall. That will make it a very tight
timeline for the Inquiry to have its final report
submitted by the end of December this year as is
the requirement under the terms of reference.
Prince George, BC.- A
recurring theme at theMurdered and Missing Women pre-inquiryconference in Prince George yesterday, was a call for
the inquiry to visit the small communities in the north.
Communities victims of the Highway of Tears, and thePickton case, called home.Inquiry Commissioner, Wally Oppal ,is willing to explore thatrequest “Ithink we are going to have to seriously consider
that.We’re here to listen to the communityand if it means thatour work will be facilitatedby going to thecommunities, then maybe we’ll have to do that. We’re
here today for that reason, we wanted to here what this
particular community , the victims of families and the
advocates, andwhat they had to say, that’s why we’re here”.
Unlike theWednesdaysession inVancouver,the Prince Georgesession did notsee any rally, those who made presentations werenot as“vociferous” as those who had made presentations in the
lower mainland.Oppal says he understands why the issue brings up the
emotions “You know there’s anger out there,and the anger in many cases is justified, soyou know, thesepeople have lost loved ones. If you lose a daughter
and nothing’s been done, maybe you have reason to be angry,
so I’m not really surprised by that.”
There were about 100 people
who attended thethree hour session at the Prince George Civic Centre,about 20made
submissions.
Most talked of the impactthe loss of aloved one has hadon their livesand many called for theHighway of Tears to be a separate inquiry, fearing it
will be overshadowed or lost in the probe of how the
investigation intothewomen who had gonemissing from Vancouver’s downtown east side was
handled.
Oppal doesn’t agree,
“If you look at the
terms of reference,they refer tomissing women, andmultiple homicides, period.While two of the terms specificallyrefer to the downtown east side and the Pickton
investigation,the fact is, this is a national problem.In fact, we have three seniorpolice officersfrom Peel Region in Ontariowho are here and they are seconded full time to our
inquiry mainly becausethis is a national problem , soI don’tthink the factthe Highway of Tears is not specificallyreferredto in the terms of reference that it makes that much of adifference, it’s a global problem, nationalproblem, why are women disappearing andif they are disappearingwhat are thepolice forces doing about it?Are they sharing information?Those are the things we need to look at.”
Many called for a change of
the terms of reference for the inquiry, but that
is not something Oppalcoulddo,that is
something has to come from government.He did promise his inquiry will offer a very
“liberal” interpretation of the terms of reference.
One of the other themes of
thepre-inquiryconferencewas that whatever recommendations are made, that they
are followed throughand notbecome just anotherstudy or reportthat will gatherdust on a shelf.Oppal is hopeful that when his final reportis handed down,the community will keep thepressure on “It’s up to the community to do that.This is mostly a policing issue, what we’re dealing
with here, and I thinkit’s up to the communities to go to theirpolice forces and demandsomeaccountability.I think wehavebeen remiss in Canada in that we have accepted what
Police forces tell us, and I think we have to bemore active.They are here to serve us andwe have excellent policingthroughout Canada, historically, but you know we live
in an era of accountability and everyone’s accountable.”
Oppal says he ishopefulof starting the inquiry in June, withhearings through the fall.Thefinal report is supposed to be dueby the end of this year.
“Come and see our communities. See what we live in, then
you’ll understand why there are so many girls living along
that highway.”
BRENDA WILSON
The sister of a Highway of Tears victim encouraged former
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wally Oppal to visit the small
towns along the stretch when the Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry begins formal hearings later this year.
“Come and see our communities,” urged Brenda Wilson during a
pre-hearing forum Friday in Prince George. “See what we live
in, then you’ll understand why there are so many girls
living along that highway. We don’t have everything that you
have in Vancouver.”
She’s the only sister of Ramona Wilson, the 15-year-old
whose strangled body was found near Smithers airport 10
months after she was last seen hitchhiking to a friend’s
home in nearby Moricetown.
Wilson also asked Oppal that he treat the Highway of Tears
as a separate issue from the Pickton murders in the Lower
Mainland, noting that, in contrast to Pickton’s victims most
of the missing women along the highway are under 19 years
old and no killer has been found. The two themes were
repeated throughout the forum, which drew about 100 people
to the Civic Centre. A similar forum was held in Vancouver
on Wednesday in advance of formal hearings, set to begin in
June and likely to last into the fall. Oppal has until Dec.
31 to complete a report.
Preston Gunu, from the Office of the Representative for
Children and Youth took Wilson’s request one step further,
saying a separate inquiry, led by an aborginal woman, should
be held for the Highways of Tears. At the least, he added,
an advisory panel should be established to help guide the
inquiry.
Prior to hearing from more than a dozen speakers, Oppal said
the forums were held to help the inquiry know where to focus
once it began and stressed he could not take into account
what was said beforehand when writing his report. Small-town
RCMP are often the least experienced and burdened with the
largest caseloads, asserted Irene Willsie of the Women’s
Contact Society in Williams Lake, who also said social
agencies are overstretched and few and far between outside
the Lower Mainland.
Prince George social worker Bally Basi called for parallel
services for men and children to stop the cycle of violence,
saying roughly half of Canadian women have been the victims
of at least one instance of violence.
Wilma Boyce of the Canim Lake band called for support
services run by the bands themselves so the knowledge
learned by the social workers can be passed along.
She warned that support services can become politicized, so
that those who run them forget why they’re there.
“First Nations women are the perfect targets, First Nations
women are the perfect victims because they’re bred that way
in our communities and we have to get strong as people who
support our women, who support our men,” Boyce said.
Ramona Wilson’s mother, Matilda, told Oppal she has waited
16 years so for for the murder of her daughter to be solved
and to hear the stories of other families who’ve lost loved
ones breaks her heart.
“We have to find the killers, They are still roaming about —
can you imagine that? — and they are still a threat to our
children,” she said.
Saik’uz chief Jackie Thomas said she simply doesn’t trust
the RCMP and suggested the inquiry’s timeline be broadened
to account for a greater number of cases.
“I don’t want empty words, I don’t want another book on the
shelf, I want action,” she added.
PRINCE GEORGE, B.C.—Matilda Wilson still cries almost every day and
has nightmares most nights over the death of her daughter Ramona.
Ramona, 16, was missing for 10 months until an anonymous phone call
to police in April 1995 told investigators to look for her body
behind the Smithers, B.C., airport. The caller has never been
identified, no killer has ever been caught.
Still, Wilson believes that she is more fortunate than many others
that she has come to know over the last 16 years.
“I’ve lost a child and there’s hardly a day when I don’t cry but I’m
lucky,” said Wilson. “So many other parents, mothers and sisters out
there never know what happened to their loved ones. Their murdered
daughters or sisters have just vanished into thin air.”
The Missing Women’s Commission of Inquiry was ordered by the B.C.
government after public concerns were raised over the police
investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton, who was convicted
in 2007 on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life
in prison.
Families of missing women and victims of Pickton have long believed
that police acted too little, too late; in some cases, especially
among missing women from northern communities, some relatives have
stated that racism have played a factor in investigations.
The inquiry held a forum in Prince George Friday in the heart of
what has been called the Highway of Tears, a stretch of more than
700 kms of highway that runs through the northern communities.
Over the last four decades, at least 18 women — many of them native
— have gone missing or been murdered along the highway.
“The question needs to be asked about what role did ethnicity and
gender play to finally have this commission struck up,” said Preston
Guno, a youth advocate for the Aboriginal Youth Network. “Why did it
take so many missing and murdered women before anything happened?”
Guno and many others in northern communities want a separate inquiry
held to deal specifically with the missing women in northern
communities.
Chief Jackie Thomas with the Saik’uz First Nation said the inquiry’s
mandate of looking at police investigations between 1997 and 2002 is
too narrow.
“We have decades and decades of issues,” said Thomas. “Like many
others, I don’t have confidence in the RCMP.” The inquiry’s
commissioner, Wally Oppal, a former Court of Appeal judge and a
former attorney general in B.C., said he understands the emotions
and anger in the community.
“These people have lost loved ones. If you lose a daughter and
nothing’s been done, maybe you have reason to be angry,” Oppal said.
“Someone out there knows what happened to these women.”
The commissioner of the Missing Women's Inquiry, Wally Oppal, took
depositions from witnesses at a community forum in Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside last week.
Many stood at a microphone to his left at the Jan. 19 event, looking
directly at him as they expressed anger, indignation, and deep
cynicism about whether the inquiry would bring justice for the 69
women who were murdered or disappeared between 1970 and 2002.
Oppal's face remained expressionless as he took notes throughout the
proceedings.
The forum was not an official part of the inquiry, Oppal said. The
speakers were not under oath, but their presentations would help him
establish the focus of the inquiry and guide the selection of
witnesses on January 31 and February 1.
The inquiry proper is
due to begin next summer.
It will investigate the actions of the Vancouver Police Department
and the RCMP, who have been accused of gross neglect and
incompetency for ignoring the serial disappearances and murders.
Police conduct in the disappearance of at least 18 women from
northern B.C.'s Highway of Tears will also be investigated.
"We want to know what went wrong and how we can prevent these wrongs
in the future," said Oppal.
Squamish Nation Chief Ian
Campbell, who presided over the forum at the Japanese Language
School in East Vancouver, draped Oppal in a blanket that gave him
the right to speak; it appeared to sit heavy on his shoulders.
Oppal was B.C.'s attorney general from 2005 to 2009. He was also
appointed to the BC Supreme Court (1985) and to the BC Court of
Appeal (2003). Critics say they doubt his impartiality and the
sincerity of the inquiry itself.
The first speaker, Vancouver
East NDP MP Libby Davies, asked why the inquiry would only examine
murders and disappearances that occurred between 1997 and 2002.
"It's too narrow in its scope of years, which is worrisome as to
why. But nevertheless, it's an inquiry," she said.
Davies
asked Oppal to "produce a report that cannot be ignored. That is
bulletproof, hard-hitting and that will cause shock waves as to what
happened and why. Nothing less than that. If it's less, let's just
go home and pretend that nothing ever happened."
Oppal also
heard from the province's many advocacy and activist groups. Susan
Davis is a sex-trade worker and member of the BC Coalition of
Experiential Communities, which campaigns for sex workers' rights.
In 1990, Robert William Pickton assaulted her in his van. She
escaped and ran to the VPD, handing them his licence plate number.
They did nothing. Susan Davis blames this complacency on
anti-sex-work biases in mainstream support services such as police
departments and women's shelters.
"The narrow timeline of
this inquiry cannot picture the slow, creeping build-up of biases,"
she told Oppal.
Bernie Williams represented Walk for Justice,
a group of women who walked from B.C. to Ottawa in 2008 to hand
Stephen Harper a list of the more than 3,000 women who have
disappeared across Canada. Eighty per cent of them are aboriginal.
In her address to Oppal, Williams stated that law enforcement
complacency continues in Vancouver. "Hot capping" -- where a murder
is made to look like a drug overdose -- happens all too frequently.
Though the police claim that there is no child street prostitution,
the DTES's "kiddie stroll" is a tragic reality, said Williams.
A handful of recommendations emerged from the presentations:
∙ Establish follow-up mechanisms to ensure that police implement
the commission's findings;
∙ Expand the inquiry's timeline to include women who went missing
before 1997;
∙ Pickton, convicted of six of the murders in 2007, did not act
alone. Investigate his brother Dave and their Hells Angels buddies;
∙ Focus on the 69 women who disappeared from the DTES. The Highway
of Tears needs its own inquiry;
∙ Focus on specific police actions in specific cases. Don't be
distracted by theoretical debates such as legalizing prostitution;
A group of First Nations drummers led by Chief Williams closed
the meeting with the Women's Warrior Song, a battle cry for justice
often sung in front of B.C.'s police stations to commemorate missing
women.
Helen Polychronakos is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist,
editor and teacher.
Women in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside speak out at
inquiry public forum. Photo: Tami Starlight
Kelly White presents Commissioner Wally Oppal with a bundle.
Photo: Tami Starlight
Over 100 people gather to demand justice for BC's missing
and murdered women. Photo: Tami Starlight
Sharing a laugh in spite of the painful stories at the
Commission of Inquiry community forum in the DTES. Photo:
Tami Starlight
Ellen Woodsworth addresses the crowd gathered in Vancouver.
Photo: Tami Starlight
Walk4Justice organizers Bernie Williams and Gladys
Radek address Wally Oppal. Photo: Tami Starlight
Gladys Radek honours missing and murdered women by speaking
their names aloud. Photo: Tami Starlight
As everyone stands to honour the missing and murdered women,
one man in the official Commission seating area focuses on
his blackberry. Photo: Tami Starlight
Passionate criticism and painful stories rang out at two
"Community Engagement Forums" held last week in Vancouver
and Prince George, leading up to this year's Missing Women
Commission of Inquiry. Outspoken Indigenous women spoke up
to demand justice for their beloved family members and
friends who have been disappeared or murdered.
Over 100 people gathered in a large hall at the Japanese
Language School in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) on
January 19th. The Commission's process, content, and the
naming of Wally Oppal as Commissioner were subject to
passionate criticism and scrutiny by those who have been
demanding justice for their relatives, friends, and
colleagues for decades.
"Mr. Oppal, this has been a long journey for a lot of us
women," said Walk4Justice co-founder Bernie Williams.
The creation of the Commission was set in motion in
September 2010 by an Order in Council by the BC Lieutenant
Governor in Council. The terms of reference instruct the
Commission to: inquire into the investigations by police
forces into the disappearances of women from the DTES
between certain dates; inquire into the Criminal Justice
Branch's 1998 stay of proceedings on charges against Robert
Pickton; recommend changes concerning investigations into
cases of missing women and suspected multiple homicides in
BC; recommend changes concerning homicide investigations and
inter-agency co-operation.
"Why did it take 69 women [in BC], and over 4000 women
nationally?" asked Williams.
Sold into the sex trade in Prince Rupert as a child,
Williams' mother was murdered in 1977, along with two of her
older sisters in the 1980s. She and other relatives of
missing and murdered women out west and across the country
have been organizing for decades, demanding justice and,
among other things, a public inquiry concerning all missing
and murdered women over the past several decades.
"I don't trust this whole Commission. I don't trust it,"
added Williams, to loud applause by those in attendance.
Similar stories and criticisms were heard over the course of
the evening. Many women regretted the choice of date and
time for the community engagement forum, given that it was
previously postponed but then scheduled for one of the worst
days possible. Wednesday, January 19th was a welfare payment
day, complicating many local residents' and others'
availability to participate.
The terms of reference of the Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry were also repeatedly called into question. The
inquiry into the way investigations of disappearances of
women in the DTES were handled by police forces deals with
investigations specifically between January 23, 1997 and
February 5, 2002. Furthermore, the infamous Highway of Tears
- Highway 16 running east-west in northern BC - is not even
mentioned by name in the terms of reference, despite the
fact that young women, almost all of them First Nations,
have been going missing along that highway for decades.
"I started a movement in northern BC. My niece went missing
on the Highway of Tears," began Walk4Justice co-founder
Gladys Radek.
"Our people, our families, they need to know what happened,"
said Radek, echoing the voices of so many relatives of
missing and murdered women: "The system is failing."
"I got home at 1:30am last night and I checked my email, and
there was a missing poster. That missing poster was the
mother of someone who went missing on the Highway of Tears
five years ago," she continued, choking back tears.
Radek went to school with Maggie Layton, the women whose
photograph appeared on the missing poster in question.
Layton had participated in the Walk4Justice and other walks
and actions to demand justice for her missing daughter
alongside Radek, who walks for her niece Tamara Chipman and
for all of the missing women and their families.
At the Community Engagement Forum in
Prince George
on January 21st, 100 people
gathered to speak out about their own experiences, stories,
and their missing and murdered daughters, sisters, mothers,
nieces, and others. The Commission, and particularly Oppal,
was urged to visit the communities along the Highway of
Tears. A few speakers at the Vancouver forum echoed the
request for the series of cases in northern BC be dealt with
thoroughly, and not simply as an aside to the inquiry into
what occurred in the DTES.
"The women of the Highway of Tears need their own inquiry,"
asserted Alice Kendall of the Downtown Eastside Women's
Centre.
"There is poverty across Canada. There is racism across
Canada," she said, adding that "something happened in this
specific neighbourhood."
In large part, the Commission of Inquiry arose out of the
explosion of media attention concerning missing and murdered
women during Robert Pickton's arrest, the high profile
forensic investigation of his pig farm in Port Coquitlam,
and his subsequent trial and conviction for the murders of
six women. As does the Inquiry, media attention focused on
certain cases and issues, to the detriment of many concerns
and realities.
The facts are undeniable. The overwhelming majority of
missing and murdered women in BC are Indigenous women. As
has often been the case with media coverage and
investigations, the terms of reference offer no mention,
analysis, or instructions reflecting that reality.
One reality that has continued for decades, with the
exception of the sensationalist coverage of the Pickton
case, was an almost complete failure of the police, media,
or government to take reports of missing and murdered women
seriously, or to do anything about it. Many women denounced
that the institutional racism of police forces and other
institutions resulted in abuse and derision of family
members who reported their daughters, mothers, sisters, and
others missing.
"The silence was definitely deafening. We could hear it,"
said Dianne George.
"How did the Commission of Inquiry come up with the dates of
January 23, 1997 and February 5, 2002?" she asked.
The terms of reference arise from the fact that the
principal goal of the Commission of Inquiry is to recommend
changes to improve the investigations of police forces and
the
judicial system, as well as inter-institutional
co-operation in the future. It reflects the Pickton case,
but excludes so many other women, families, perpetrators,
and issues. The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry has in
fact been dubbed the "Pickton Inquiry" by the media.
Several women came forward to speak about their own
experiences with Robert Pickton and other suspected
perpetrators to the Commission and others gathered at the
Community Engagement Forum in Vancouver. They told harrowing
stories of their interactions with Pickton and others, their
sisters' and friends' visits to the infamous pig farm, and
their treatment by the police when they came forward.
"I was treated as though I was making stuff up, as though I
was delusional," recalled Terry Williams, adding that one
police officer once told her that if she kept reporting
information, she would be committed to a psychiatric
institution.
The stories shared included experiences and incredibly
detailed information, including the license plate of the van
used by Pickton and others to abduct women, an Oregon
license plate of another van seen abducting women, the
location of Pickton's pig farm, and much more. Almost
invariably, the response women and family members received
echoed a comment made by Williams, when she had a license
plate number of a van and a description of the man that she
had seen abducting a woman from the DTES: "The cops would
not take the information."
The history and experiences do not all relate to Robert
Pickton. They do not all relate to the years between 1997
and 2002. Most of the women who spoke at the Community
Engagement Forum expressed their frustration or anger at the
exclusion of so many missing
and murdered women, but also at
their own exclusion from the process itself.
"What I think everyone here is saying is that those terms of
reference are too narrow," reiterated Beverley Jacobs,
emphasizing that she was not speaking as legal counsel for
the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), but as
an Aboriginal woman.
"You have the authority, Commissioner Oppal, to change [...]
those terms of reference," added Jacobs.
"We understand the dissatisfaction that has been shown here
today," said Commissioner Wally Oppal, speaking on behalf of
the Commission of Inquiry. "We want to see constructive
changes made."
As the Community Engagement Forum came to a close, it was
clear that relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbours of
the missing and murdered women in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside have been proposing constructive changes for years.
Beyond their critiques and proposals for the official
Commission of Inquiry, which is set to begin within a few
months, they continue to organize and mobilize in the
Downtown Eastside, in northern BC, and across the country.
The 20th annualWomen's Memorial March for Missing and Murdered
Women will be held on February 14th - Valentine's Day -
again this year in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Everyone,
of any gender, is invited to gather at the Carnegie
Community Centre Theatre at Main and Hastings at noon, where
relatives of missing and murdered will speak before the
march begins at 1pm. Two solid weeks of
commemoration events
begin on January 30th.
Other Women's Memorial Marches, Sisters in Spirit vigils and
other rallies for justice will be taking place on February
14th in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and
dozens of other cities and communities across the country.
Relatives, supporters, and others from all over the country
will also be joining the Walk4Justice again this summer,
walking across the country to honour the missing and
murdered Indigenous women from coast to coast, to raise
awareness, and to demand justice. The Walk4Justice will
reach Ottawa on September 19th, 2011.
ARTICLE: Sandra Cuffe is a contributing member of the
Vancouver Media Coop and is currently based in Vancouver, in
unceded Coast Salish territory.
PHOTOGRAPHS: Tami Starlight is a member of the Vancouver
Media Coop editor collective and longtime resident of the
DTES. (Downtown Eastside)
A woman holds up a poster of missing women outside the B.C.
Supreme Court in New Westminster, B.C. Friday, Nov. 30,
2007. (Jonathan Hayward / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
By: Tamsyn Burgmann , The Canadian Press
Date: Thursday Jan. 20, 2011 9:54 AM PT
Women in
the sex trade have died around Bernie Williams as long as
she can remember.
Her mother was murdered in 1977, her two
older sisters were slain in the early 1980s. She remembers a
close female relative vanishing as far back as the 1960s.
Only nights ago, two more women she knew died.
With a strong, yet pained voice,
Williams relayed her losses one after another Wednesday
night to Wally Oppal, a former British Columbia attorney
general and judge. Oppal is heading a public inquiry into
the scores of women who were murdered and went missing in
the province over the years around the turn of the
millennium.
Williams isn't convinced it will do any
good.
"We know it's not only about Pickton --
there's many Picktons that are out there," she told Oppal
and more than 100 people who'd gathered in Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside, the impoverished area from where scores
of sex trade workers have disappeared over the past several
decades, a portion known to have died at the hands of serial
killer Robert Pickton.
"I don't trust this whole commission, I
don't trust it," she said, as many in the crowd clapped
their support.
Oppal held the forum as his first
introduction of the Missing Women Commission to the
Vancouver community most deeply wounded by violence against
sex trade workers. He told those sitting in a large circular
formation he was tasked by the province to look into the
circumstances of the early police investigations into the
missing women, why Pickton wasn't arrested earlier and
whether policing changes can be made to prevent future
murders.
The inquiry was called last fall after
all appeals in Pickton's case were exhausted. He's now
serving life in prison for the murder of six women.
Oppal said his mandate covers the years
between 1997 and 2002, the period that ended with Pickton's
arrest at his Port Coquitlam pig farm.
"Our purpose in coming here today is to
engage with you," he said. "It is important that we hear
from participants in the community, we want to hear from
them, we want to know what went wrong and how we can prevent
these wrongs from taking place in the future."
But like Williams, many of the 14 groups
of people who stood to express their views argued the
inquiry's scope is too limited.
Sue Davis, an active sex trade worker
for the past 25 years and industry advocate, said she came
face-to-face with Pickton in 1990 and tried to report three
times that she'd been sexually assaulted and robbed at
knifepoint.
"Nobody came and nobody took my report,"
she said. "These are only a few of the examples why the
timeline should be expanded."
Davis told Oppal that probing only a
five-year period won't allow the inquiry to recognize
systemic biases that make women easy targets. Research
indicates there was no recorded murders of sex trade workers
prior to 1970, she noted.
Similar skepticism flowed from the other
speakers, including Vancouver East MP Libby Davies, who's
been involved in the issue as far back as the 1980s.
"What faith do I have that this inquiry
will result in any change -- real change?" she asked, urging
Oppal to include built-in mechanisms in his final report
that will ensure his recommendations are actively followed
up.
"We must compel you to issue a report
that is, so to speak, bullet-proof, hard-hitting and will
cause shockwaves as to what went wrong and why. Nothing less
will do."
Other speakers at the forum included
Vancouver city councillor Ellen Woodsworth, victims' rights
lawyer Cameron Ward on behalf of several families, and
Gladys Radek, who joined Williams from Walk 4 Justice. The
advocates also raised concerns about the inadequacy of
current prostitution laws and the failures of the law and
public policy.
Williams stressed her hope Oppal will
take a critical look at the initial missing women's task
force, the joint RCMP-Vancouver Police Department that was
created when authorities first decided there was a problem.
"I believe you will find all your
answers there," she said. "It will fall like one big domino.
Why did it take 69 (missing B.C.) women and over almost
4,000 women nationally (to begin)?"
A second forum will be held on Friday in
Prince George, where greater emphasis will be placed on
women who have vanished along the so-called Highway of Tears
in northern B.C.
Oppal told those gathered that while he
wants to hear the impact of the tragedies on their lives,
the submissions would be used informally to help the
commission create focus, rather than be included in his
final report.
Oppal said
he hopes the commission's formal inquiry will begin in June.
He must deliver his final report by Dec. 31.
The Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry will hold its
first public forum Wednesday in Vancouver.
The commission was set up to
investigate how Robert Pickton, who was convicted of six
second-degree murder charges in 2007, was not arrested
before 2002. The public inquiry was ordered by B.C.'s
attorney general in September 2010.
The public forum, which is being
held in advance of the start of formal hearings, is an
opportunity for commissioner Wally Oppal to hear from those
whose loved ones have died or disappeared.
"I don't think there's anyone more
important than the families and the victims," said Oppal.
"We want to learn from them - what happened."
Oppal will consider the police
investigations conducted between Jan. 23, 1997, and Feb. 5,
2002, into women reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside. The inquiry will also review the January 1998
decision by the Ministry of Attorney General's criminal
justice branch to stay charges against Pickton for the
assault of a Downtown Eastside sex trade worker.
Last year, Vancouver police
apologized for their failure to arrest Pickton in 1997 and
1998 and possibly preventing several deaths before his
eventual arrest.
They
blamed inadequate staffing and training and poor
communication and co-ordination with the RCMP for the
failure of the early stages of the investigation.
'It's a national problem'
Although some are calling it the
"Pickton Inquiry," Oppal said commission's work isn't
restricted to missing women from Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside.
"This may
have its origins in the Pickton case, [but] missing women is
a problem throughout the province - and, in fact, it's a
national problem," Oppal said.
Pickton was convicted of murdering
six women between the late 1990s and 2002. He had been
charged with another 20 killings, but the Crown chose only
to prosecute the cases that would most likely to lead to
conviction. The
commission's formal hearings will likely begin in the
spring.
Oppal, 70, was
B.C.'s attorney general from 2005 until 2009. He was
defeated in a provincial general election in May 2009. He
also has been a judge on the B.C. Court of Appeal and the
B.C. Supreme Court.
19th Annual Missing Women's Memorial March photo by
Christopher Bevacqua via creative commons
Downtown Eastside activists did not hold back their
criticisms of Wally Oppal and his Missing Women Commission of
Inquiry at the Commission’s Pre-Hearing on Wednesday night.
Over 100 people attended the hearing, inside a
high-ceilinged gymnasium in the Downtown Eastside. It was the
Commission’s first public forum, and the first time that Oppal
directly addressed the neighbourhood’s residents.
Fifteen people were on the speaker’s list, mostly activists
and representatives from women’s rights advocacy groups such as the
Women’s Memorial March Committee, Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre,
and Battered Women Support Services. Most were women who knew a
missing or murdered woman in the Downtown Eastside.
No women who currently reside in the DTES and were not
members of any organizations or committees spoke at the pre-hearing.
Reporters, community members, activists, and curious onlookers sat
side by side in plastic folding chairs, arranged in a semi-circle
facing Oppal and the speaker’s lecturn.
Gladys Radek spoke directly to Oppal during her speech
Bernie Williams, a community activist, was one of the many
speakers who weaved her personal experience with political
overtones.
“This has been a long journey for a lot of us women,”
Williams said, fighting back tears. “Why did it take 69 women,
before they acted?”
Missing Women Commission Pre-Hearing
Activists ask Oppal to broaden terms of reference and narrow the
scope
Fellow Committee member Gladys Radek urged Oppal to broaden
the scope of the inquiry to cases beyond the Pickton murders, while
narrowing the scope to cases from the Downtown Eastside.
“Terms of reference are many, not four,” said Radek. “We
[missing and murdered women] don’t all like being put in the same
basket.”
Alice Kendall from the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre
agreed.
“The women from the Highway of Tears need their own
inquiry,” Kendall said. “Your inquiry needs to find out what
happened in this particular neighborhood, and do justice to these
women.”
The audience applauded Kendall’s speech, as it did for many
of the others’. Television cameramen occasionally approached
speakers with their equipment, an explicit reminder of the intense
media presence and scrutiny at the pre-hearing. An entire wall was
dedicated to audio and video equipment, speakers, and journalists
jotting notes.
Angela MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women
Support Services, echoed Kendall’s concern with the Commission’s
focus.
“Do not be detracted from the politicization of this issue
around two components, abolitionism and de-criminalization of sex
work,” said MacDougall. “You can create as many laws, or take away
as many laws as you want, and they still let Pickton go.”
At the end of the three-hour pre-hearing, Oppal made final
remarks about the speakers and the Commission.
“We understand the dissatisfaction that has been shown here
today,” Oppal said. “The reason we took this on is because we want
to see constructive change made.”
Radek believes that the three-hour pre-hearing was not long
enough.
“I hope there is a follow up with what we’ve said,” Radek
said after the pre-hearing. “Like many have said, three hours is not
enough time.”
Asked about the possibility of a public inquiry into the
Highway of Tears, Radek did not skip a beat.
“Its going to be up to the people,” she said “It’s going to
be us, the grassroots women that are going to make that public
inquiry happen.”
Five steps away, bright lights, cameras, microphones, and
reporters surrounded Oppal, demanding more answers.
We want to know what went wrong,’ commissioner
tells those gathered at inquiry’s first public forum
By Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun
January 19, 2011
The first community engagement forum for
the Missing Women's Commission of Inquiry began Wednesday with a
first nations prayer and songs to bless and welcome about 200
people. Reta Blind (left) comforts Vancouver city councillor Ellen
Woodsworth after Woodworth’s submission at the gathering.
Photograph by: Gerry Kahrmann,
PNG
VANCOUVER — The Missing Women’s Commission of
Inquiry began its first public forum Wednesday with a first nations
prayer and songs to bless and welcome about 200 people.
We want to know what went wrong and how to
prevent these wrongs from taking place in the future,” commissioner
Wally Oppal told the gathering at the Japanese Language School in
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Oppal described the forum as a pre-hearing
conference. He said the purpose was to hear concerns from the
community and determine the direction of future hearings.
The inquiry has not set a date to begin hearing
evidence about what went wrong with the police investigation that
allowed serial killer Robert Pickton to prey on women in the
Downtown Eastside.
Pickton was suspected of being involved in the
disappearance of more than 60 women, many of them drug addicts and
impoverished sex-trade workers.
He was convicted of killing six of the women;
murder charges involving 20 others were stayed after Pickton lost
his final appeal.
Oppal said he is still waiting for a “mountain
of documents” from the Vancouver police department and the RCMP,
both of which investigated the missing women case.
“This is a very large task, as you can well
imagine,” Oppal told the forum.
Vancouver East MP Libby Davies, the first
speaker to address Oppal, said she had been calling for a public
inquiry for many years.
“It’s imperfect — it’s not exactly what we
called for,” she said about the narrow terms of reference for the
inquiry.
She urged Oppal to deliver a hard-hitting report
that won’t be ignored by the provincial government, which ordered
the inquiry.
“You must produce a report that cannot be
forgotten or dismissed,” Davies told Oppal.
Bernie Williams, one of the founders of Walk 4
Justice, told Oppal he needs to focus on why Vancouver police failed
to properly investigate reports of missing women.
“Why did it take 69 women before they acted?”
Williams asked.
She said the murders were “crimes against
humanity” that were ignored for far too long.
SKEPTICISM SURFACES
Some speakers expressed skepticism about Oppal
heading the inquiry.
Gladys Radek of Walk 4 Justice, an annual event
held as a memorial for murdered and missing women, recalled Oppal
said while he was a Liberal attorney-general that he was not going
to order a public inquiry.
"Shame," people called out making Oppal appear
uncomfortable.
"Why are you working on it if you didn't believe
in it?" Radek asked.
Oppal responded by saying he meant at the time
that a public inquiry could not be held because Pickton was then
before the courts.
It can now be held because Pickton no longer
faces court proceedings, said Oppal, 70, a retired appeal court
judge.
He also pointed out that the public inquiry,
which will make finding and recommendations to government, is
completely independent of government.
Among the 20 speakers were Vancouver councillor
Ellen Woodsworth and sex trade worker Sue Davis.
The commission will hold two days of public
hearings in Vancouver on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 to hear presentations
from most of 21 groups that have applied for standing to participate
in the inquiry.
If granted standing, each group will be allowed
to have a lawyer present to question witnesses who will testify
under oath.
Oppal said he expects to determine by the end of
February who will be granted standing.
Groups already granted standing he said, are the
RCMP, Vancouver police, the families of victims represented by
lawyer Cameron Ward, and the Criminal Justice Branch, which oversees
prosecutions in B.C.
Oppal will hold a second public forum at 7 p.m.
Friday at the Prince George Civic Centre.
The inquiry will probe the conduct of police
investigations of women reported missing from Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside between 1997 and Pickton's arrest in 2002.
The Commission will examine the decision by the
B.C. Criminal Justice Branch in 1998 to stop legal proceedings
against Pickton on charges of attempted murder of a woman, assault
with a weapon, forcible confinement and aggravated assault.
The terms of reference also allow the commission
to inquire into the investigation of missing women and suspected
multiple murders throughout B.C.
