Missing Women Commission of Inquiry

On December 9, 2007, Robert Pickton, a pig farmer from Port Coquitlam, was convicted of second-degree murder in the deaths of six women.

Following Pickton's arrest, there was increased attention given to a prior attempted murder charge of a sex worker in March 1997.

The victim informed police that Pickton had handcuffed her, but that she escaped after suffering several lacerations, disarming him, and stabbing him with his weapon.

[1] Additionally, the Inquiry found that Indigenous women have increased susceptibility to violence and other violent crimes such as "sexual assault, murder, and serial predation.

[4] Project Rescue Residents of downtown Vancouver noticed violent drug dealers were preying on addicted marginalized women.

[6] Among these included recommendations for additional funding to centres providing services for sex workers, as well as enhanced public transit along highway 16, sections of which are where many of the missing and murdered women had been abducted from.

[7] In the Ministry of Justice's final update on the inquiry they stated that "action has been taken on over three quarters of the recommendations directed at the Province".

A civil society response by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Pivot Legal Society, and West Coast LEAF [1] deemed the Inquiry a keynote example of "what should not be done in conducting a public inquiry involving marginalized communities",[10] with multiple other grassroots and legal organizations sharing similar sentiments.

[10] While the critiques of the Inquiry varied, the three common criticisms emerged: the lack of community inclusion, inadequate investigative framework, and failures in addressing the underlying issues contributing to missing women.

Many legal, human rights, and Indigenous organizations found the Inquiry's limited representation of the population in question decreased its reliability and effectiveness.

[11] Additionally, many found the Inquiry's mandate, directives, terms of references, processes, and recommendations to lack consideration and input from the community in question.

Input from relevant witnesses, families, and civil society organizations was limited due to a lack of proper funding for legal representation.

[13][14] Jodi Beniuk, an Indigenous scholar, deemed the Inquiry as a "public spectacle"[14] used by the government and police authorities to regain institutional legitimacy.

[15] The high profile of the BC investigation caused other Canadian jurisdictions to create new task forces to deal with missing persons cold cases.