Hundreds gather in Vancouver for annual vigil honouring missing and murdered Aboriginal women

Many turned out to pay respect with the Aboriginal community holding a Sisters in Spirit Vigil to honour the lives of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls outside of City Hall in Vancouver on October 4, 2015 . Andrea Reimer, Deputy Mayor of Vancouver breaks down in tears during her speech.
Photograph by: Mark van Manen , PNG

By Staff Reporter, The Province, October 4, 2015

Several hundred people were reported to have gathered outside of Vancouver City Hall Sunday evening in a sombre vigil held as part of a national event in honour of Canada’s missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

First Nations leadership, local politicians and the families of missing and murdered women were among the speakers of the Sisters in Spirit Vigils event, which has been held annually for about 10 years.

Joyce Galuska, the BC Federation of Labour aboriginal worker’s representative, said the event was well attended and featured poignant stories told by the family members of the murdered and missing.

RCMP database on missing persons is overdue, over budget

CP train blocked in Toronto, March 12, 2014.

Harper government promise of national database for unidentified remains stalled 5 years later

By Dean Beeby, CBC News, Aug 31, 2015

An RCMP database on missing persons and unidentified remains, touted by the Harper government in 2010 as “concrete action” for the problem of murdered and missing indigenous women, is still incomplete and far over budget five years after it was announced.

The national database, plagued by technical problems, won’t be fully in place until late 2016 – more than three years after it was supposed to be helping police across Canada solve crimes.

Group blocks motorists who refuse MMIW flyer at Ontario/Manitoba border

Photo: APTN

by Dennis Ward, APTN National News, June 19, 2015
A group of Aboriginal people were blocking motorists along the Trans-Canada Highway at the Manitoba/Ontario border any time someone refused informational flyers on missing and murdered Indigenous women Friday. Some people sat in their cars and refused to take the flyers, which sometimes led to shouting matches.

Remains of woman found in Red River identified as Audrey Desjarlais

Audrey Desjarlais seen with two friends in Regina, before she went missing in Manitoba. (Desjarlais family)

By Donna Carreiro, CBC News, June 4, 2015

DNA tests have confirmed that the remains of a woman found in the Red River in Winnipeg three years ago belong to Audrey Desjarlais, providing some long-awaited closure in a case of a missing indigenous woman.

Her identity was determined only after a CBC investigation prompted police to finally respond to the daughter’s plea for a DNA test.

Barb Desjarlais long suspected the unidentified woman was her mother. She learned the results Thursday morning, when authorities arrived at her Regina home with the news.

B.C. government accused of deliberately destroying Highway of Tears internal records

Billboard warns against hitch hiking along Highway 16 in northern BC, also known as the “Highway of Tears” for the high number of missing/murdered women.

B.C.’s privacy commissioner says she’s launched an investigation after government accused of widespread and systemic abuse of the Freedom of Information law

By ROB SHAW and Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun, May 28, 2015

VICTORIA — Political staff deliberately destroyed internal records about the Highway of Tears to prevent them from becoming public, alleges a former employee.

Tim Duncan, a former executive assistant to Transportation Minister Todd Stone, said he was ordered to delete files in November, after the Opposition NDP filed a freedom of information request for any records on the issue.

When he hesitated, Duncan said a more senior official in Stone’s office physically took away his computer keyboard and deleted the emails over his objections.

Winnipeg: Community rallies and searches for missing woman

Drumming and singing in search for missing woman, Winnipeg, May 2015.

By Jillian Taylor, CBC News, May 27, 2015

Too often we are drumming for our women after they are gone. That is what Shanastene McLeod’s mom and auntie said to me while they were going house to house in the North End looking for her.

They’re scared she will end up on the list of missing and murdered indigenous women. Shanastene is 25. Her family says she is addicted to drugs and she bounces between “crack shacks” and doesn’t come home. They’re scared she’s being sexually exploited.

Police probe possibility lone killer dumping bodies outside small Alberta town

(Clockwise from the top left: Amber Tuccaro, Delores Browers, Katie Ballentyne and Edna Bernard) Graphic: APTN News.

by Brandi Morin, APTN National News,May 1, 2015
The remains of four Indigenous women have been found over the last 13 years within a small rural area near Leduc, Alta. that police suspect could be a lone killer’s dumping ground.

Missing, murdered aboriginal women crisis demands a look at root causes

Roxanne Marie Isadore.

New CBC database highlights some patterns behind violence

By Connie Walker, CBC News, April 10, 2015

Roxanne Isadore was already a survivor by the time she reached her sixth birthday.

“She used to scream at night … ‘That guy is after me.'” Her grandmother Angeline recalls how the sexual abuse Roxanne experienced as a child haunted her for years.

As she got older, she continued to struggle. There were suicide attempts, addictions. And when she was 24, she disappeared.

Top Mountie breaks with policy, says Indigenous perpetrators responsible for 70 per cent of solved Indigenous women murders

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, photo by CBC News.

by Jorge Barrera, APTN National News>, April 9, 2015

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson says Indigenous perpetrators are responsible for 70 per cent of the solved murders of Indigenous women, according to a letter distributed to various media outlets by Status of Women Minister Kellie Leitch’s office.

The letter represents a substantial shift from the RCMP which has previously stated, because of its “bias-free policing policy,” it would not be revealing data on the ethnicity of perpetrators from its project on murdered and missing Indigenous women.

Families of missing and murdered indigenous women give police a failing grade

CBC probes 230 unsolved cases, interviews 110 families

CBC News, April 8, 2015

Police departments across Canada get a failing grade for their efforts at solving cases of missing and murdered indigenous women, according to CBC interviews with more than 110 family members.

CBC News has embarked on an exhaustive search for families who have lost a relative either to an unsolved killing or whose loved one still remains missing.

So far, more than 110 families have responded to questions ranging from the efficacy of police investigations to the need for a national inquiry.

Families were asked to rate the quality of the police investigation in each case, on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being excellent. The average rating was 2.8.