When Dawn Lavell-Harvard's young daughter asked what her advocacy work was all about, the president of the Native Women's Association of Canada tried to find a child-appropriate way to explain that girls like her are more likely to be killed or go missing than non-indigenous girls.

"An 11-year-old child looked at me and said, 'Well, I'm native,'" Ms. Lavell-Harvard recounted through tears as she addressed the Assembly of First Nations' chiefs gathering in Quebec on Thursday. "She said, 'And I'm a girl … Mommy, does that mean I'm in danger?'"

Ms. Lavell-Harvard's first instinct was to assure her daughter she would always protect her. "But I realized it was a promise I couldn't make," she said, "because in Canada, the truth is that our girls are in danger."

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The Liberals this week announced the launch of the initial phase of a national inquiry into Canada's missing and murdered indigenous women. Ms. Lavell-Harvard's emotional words came on the eve of the government's first closed-door consultation session with victims' families from the Ottawa area.

Friday's meeting in the capital will be one of many across the country over the next two months, as the government formulates a plan for the national inquiry it hopes to launch this spring. The sessions will help determine the mandate and duration of the long-awaited federal probe, as well as who will lead it.

"After decades of denial and deflection, I'm pleased to say that Stephen Harper is no longer on our radar," Ms. Lavell-Harvard said, alluding to the former Conservative prime minister's remarks to the CBC last year, when he said an inquiry "isn't really high on our radar."

She also referenced RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson's comments, made Wednesday before the same audience in Gatineau, in which he conceded there were unwanted racists on the federal force.

Ms. Lavell-Harvard said that for reconciliation to take place, Canadians must be brave enough to confront the social and historic ills that have perpetuated the tragedies, including the legacy of residential schools. "It's going to get ugly," she said. "There's going to be a lot of truth that's going to come out that people don't want to see."

And while an inquiry is an important "first step," she said action must immediately be taken to prevent the violence, particularly as it relates to the child-welfare system. "We know there's a direct connection between child-welfare apprehensions and our girls being in danger," she said.

In Winnipeg last year, Tina Fontaine's body was pulled from a river just days after the 15-year-old went missing from her foster-care placement at a downtown hotel. Less than a year later, another 15-year-old girl nearly died after a brutal attack allegedly at the hands of another teenaged foster charge who had been placed at the same hotel.

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A months-long Globe investigation into Manitoba's emergency child-welfare system, launched in the wake of Tina's unsolved killing, found evidence of prolonged hotel stays, questionable supervision and other potential security concerns. On Nov. 30, the provincial government announced it had ended the use of hotels for temporary foster-care placements.

Ms. Lavell-Harvard said Canada "cannot afford any more stolen sisters" and that the federal government must be sure to consult survivors who narrowly avoided becoming another missing or murdered indigenous woman. "We can't wait until they're gone for their experience to matter," she said, later adding: "The war against our women rages on."