Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo has repeated his call for a federal investigation into the unsolved cases of murdered and missing Aboriginal women.
“A call for a national public inquiry, that request has yet to be heeded by the federal government,” Atleo told an Aboriginal crowd of mostly women, who attended the Sisters in Spirit rally at Edmonton City Hall on Oct. 6.
He also reiterated his call for the establishment of a National Integrated RCMP and Police Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
The AFN passed a resolution in July calling for the task force, but received no support from the federal government to that end.
Atleo pointed out that the United Nations has set the issue of murdered and missing Aboriginal women as a priority.
Linda Duncan, New Democrat MP for Edmonton Strathcona, and former Aboriginal Affairs critic for her party, said she has lobbied Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose to invite the United Nations to Canada to talk to Elders, chiefs and First Nations about the issue.
Duncan said her party took Atleo’s call for action “very seriously. The time to act is long past.”
Read more: http://www.ammsa.com/publications/windspeaker/national-inquiry-murdered-and-missing-long-overdue