THUNDER BAY – ANISHINAWBEK – Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler acknowledged the frustration of families at today’s National Roundtable on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls ( #MMIW ) and delivered NAN’s call for a national inquiry to the Government of Canada.
“We can’t fix problems when the depths of these issues have yet to be identified and fully understood,” said Deputy Grand Chief Fiddler, who was part of the National Roundtable delegation.
The Deputy Grand Chief acknowledged the concerns of the NAN’s Women’s Council that the federal government is not listening to families, and repeated NAN’s call for immediate action which places families first.
Describing the 1,181 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls as the most tragic human rights failure facing Canada today, Fiddler called on the federal government to call an inquiry modelled after the original 1990 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.
On February 25, 2015 NAN Chiefs-in-Assembly endorsed a resolution repeating NAN’s call for such an inquiry. Citing the Resolution and a position paper filed by NAN at the Roundtable, Fiddler decried a stubborn and insensitive federal government response that is deaf to the voices of the families.
Deputy Grand Chief Fiddler repeated his acknowledgment of the grief and frustration of those families who feel they are not being heard, and recommended that a gathering specifically for the families be held no later than summer 2015.
