Missing Persons Act does little to help Aboriginal women

New legislation introduced by the provincial government will  have little impact on missing Aboriginal women or people without assets.

Bill 8, the Missing Persons Act, is the first proposed legislation of its kind in Canada. The strength in the bill comes in the power it gives police agencies. If passed without amendments, police will have the ability to obtain personal information to help find missing persons in cases where there is no reason to suspect a crime has been committed. Information that can be accessed includes cell phone records and bank statements.

“By labeling this an act that is taking a step forward for missing persons at large is misleading because it so closely aligns with people with assets,” said Jo-Anne Fiske, professor and coordinator of women’s studies at the University of Lethbridge.

“It suggests people who have those kinds of assets, computers, cellphones, bank accounts, are considered more important in seeking out as a missing person than developing new strategies for those who might not have all those assets,” said Fiske.

An act like this does little to help missing Aboriginal women or other people that police deem to lead high risk lifestyles.

“For a missing woman who the police associate with a lifestyle of risk, whose family members the police might associate with criminal behaviour or other behaviour, they’re under suspect that means everyone else associated with this individual could be under additional surveillance for years to come,” said Fiske.

Although the police may gather private information for the specific purpose of finding a missing person, there is no guarantee that the information won’t be used for other purposes.

Another downfall to the bill, said Fiske, is that by focusing on assets, it does not address policing tactics that are needed to find missing people who are part of the vulnerable population and who do not have material goods.

In January, Fiske made a presentation to the Status of Women Committee that held a hearing in Edmonton to discuss violence against Aboriginal women. Dominating the discussion was the poor relationship authority had with Aboriginal women. Distrust is high as family members who report a person missing who has a high-risk lifestyle find their concerns dismissed by the police.

“In private, various police officers would come to me and they would say to me, this is our weakest point, these relationships,” said Fiske.

For the act to have an impact on those deemed most vulnerable in society it needs to give additional powers to the police to investigate the disappearance of people without assets. As it stands now, said Fiske, the act clearly indicates that there is a class of people who are deemed more important.

“There will be individuals who will take great hope (from this act) and there are others who are very aware of the weaknesses now who will just see it with the greatest sense of cynicism and despair,” said Fiske.