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““We have lost confidence in the national inquiry,” Hilda Anderson-Pryz, whose sister Dawn died under mysterious circumstances in 2011, told reporters. “We’re being left out and not being heard by the national inquiry. We all agree that we cannot dishonour our loved ones and ourselves by participating in a flawed process.”
The declaration came after months of red flags, they said. The inquiry sparked anger early on when it was revealed that policing would be omitted from the terms of reference, despite longstanding complaints of police failure to protect indigenous women equally.
Months later, many families began voicing concerns over being left in the dark by those leading the inquiry. Questions continued to mount in recent months after four staff members – including the executive director – resigned.
The inquiry was again thrust into the spotlight earlier this month, after the resignation of one of the five commissioners heading the inquiry. Marilyn Poitras said her decision was prompted by disagreements with other commissioners. Most leading the inquiry favour a “status quo colonial model of hearings”, she said in a statement. “Because of this, I strongly feel the terms of reference that we were set out to achieve have not been met.””
– The Guardian, Canada’s First Nations already feel failed by inquiry into missing and murdered women.
“Another woman, Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, said the inquiry has failed because families don’t believe in the process and the process doesn’t feel safe enough for people to share stories.
“I’m sorry, but standing here, I have a really difficult time with you two sharing this process like everything is good. It’s not good,” she said.
Anderson-Pyrz, who is also co-chair of a Manitoba coalition for families of missing and murdered Indigenous women, said she supports a national inquiry, but not the current process which she called fractured, given that one commissioner and five staff members have already resigned.
“You’ve failed in communications. You’ve failed to build trust. You’ve failed to build relationships with families. So, for me, I stand here today and I ask the commissioners to respectfully step down. I’m calling for a hard reset as a family member,” said Anderson-Pyrz.”
– The Star, Family members say missing and murdered Indigenous women inquiry a failure; call for ‘hard reset’.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #29 – Hard Reset (MMIW).
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
