For a moment, as she was speaking to an audience Wednesday about the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould paused, on the verge of tears. Then she composed herself and continued, as the government of Canada formally unveiled details of its ambitious project to delve into why aboriginal Canadian women and girls are so disproportionately targeted for acts of violence.
Wilson-Raybould is a former regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations, and her pause said everything about how deep feelings run over this blot on Canada’s social landscape, of how long members of indigenous communities have awaited an inquiry into the roots of crimes the country has long treated with indifference.
Yet because feelings are so fragile, the inquiry is fraught, a minefield of soaring expectations and explosive emotions that will require a small miracle to satisfy. Indeed, barely had the ceremony to mark the formal creation of the inquiry begun when critics started their clamour.
The government had not included an Inuit among the five eminently qualified commissioners who will lead the exercise. The government had not provided enough trauma support (it has earmarked $16.7 million). The government needed to address recommendations from other commissions, now. The government needed to stop undermining “appropriate sentences for violent crimes.”
In short, there were areas to attack, for those who wished to.
Yet there is also reason for hope as this sprawling inquiry sets to work next month. It comes in the form of the already concluded Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The TRC, which plunged uncompromisingly into the ugly history of the residential schools, showed how an inquiry can respectfully approach people who are deeply traumatized. It illustrated how to use informal, not adversarial, processes to ensure a wide breadth of voices are heard.
It also faced difficulties the current inquiry may have to confront: the tendency of governments to stonewall on information, even if the inquiry has the right (as this one will) to demand records; the possibility that the commissioners themselves may not see eye to eye (the TRC suffered early growing pains); the potential of missing budgets or deadlines.
There is also the question of what will happen at the end. While the Liberals committed to all 94 recommendations of the TRC, they were careful Wednesday to not make the same pledge with the missing women inquiry, although the three ministers present for the inquiry announcement gave every indication they will support its findings.
It is early days. The commissioners begin their task only in September and aren’t due to finish until the end of 2018. The work will be emotional, perilous, controversial. We wish them well.
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