Families, organizations help draft AFN guidelines for MMIW inquiry

February 4, 2016

It is personal for those who came out Thursday to attend a forum put on by the Assembly of First Nations aimed at providing input to the federal government on how the national inquiry on murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls should go forward.

It has been almost a year since anyone in Cameron Alexis’s family heard from Misty Sanderson Potts. On Feb. 24, 2015, Misty spoke to her younger sister Eva. Since then family members and the RCMP have been searching for her.

“She is my relative. It’s very difficult,” said Alexis, former AFN Alberta Regional Chief, who held the portfolio for murdered and missing Indigenous women. Alexis was at the River Cree Resort to attend the forum. “We know it’s affected you personally as a family member. The point of all of this is that it could happen to anybody at any given time, you’re not prepared for it. Nobody is.”

There is nothing typical about Potts. With a master degree in environmental studies from the University of Manitoba, she was the most highly educated in her community of Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation and worked for Treaty 6. She was a full participant of the culture, dancing pow wow and attending Sundance. But in 2011 it all fell apart. Her brother died and her marriage broke up. Past abuses came back to haunt her. She went missing leaving behind a five-year-old son.

This inquiry has to be different from previous inquiries, says Alexis.
“It’s got to have legal teeth commitments from all federal departments, all provinces, all municipalities, all Nations across this country,” he said. “It has to have a legal authority to actually have some substance to do something.”

AFN British Columbia Regional Chief Shane Gottfriedson, who now holds the MMIW portfolio, is confident this inquiry will be different. That is why AFN gathered Indigenous organizations to talk about what was needed to ensure results followed this inquiry.

“We want to make sure we have a meaningful national inquiry that respects protocols, that respects families, that respects the murdered and missing women and girls, but most of all looks at building a partnership and how we look at collaboratively moving forward to … look at ending violence against our womenand girls – that’s the end goal,” he said.

Tony Alexis, AFN Alberta Regional Chief, says it is important that the inquiry embrace traditional and cultural ways, and that the impacted families are supported by their leaders, Elders, and traditional knowledge keepers. Families need to feel safe, to be heard, and to feel validated in the struggles and hardships they face.

“As governments we want to show our support to the families. So it’s families first. We want to make sure they’re looked after,” said Alexis.
Alexis believes that families will be served by this national inquiry and says he has been impressed by how Indigenous and Northern Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has conducted herself in the pre-inquiry meetings with families suffering the loss of murdered or missing women. These meetings, taking place across the country, are to help shape the upcoming inquiry.

“I’m very confident that, as (Bennett) said, that she’s going to be listening to the families and when you hear that, and when she’s making that commitment to do that, we have to applaud her for doing that,” he said.

A report from the AFN-facilitated forum will be sent to the federal government by mid-February to help develop protocol and support for the inquiry.

The federal government continues its pre-inquiry meetings with stops next week in Edmonton (Feb. 11) and Calgary (Feb. 12).