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On the morning of February 25, 2005, an off-duty Winnipeg police officer named Derek Harvey-Zenk killed a mother of three when he plowed his truck into the rear end of her car as she waited at a red light. Harvey-Zenk had spent the night partying with fellow cops. EMS workers at the scene said that his breath smelled of liquor.

When Harvey-Zenk got off with a slap on the wrist, members of the public were outraged, suspecting that police from the local East St. Paul constabulary had conspired to shield a colleague. In response, the Manitoba government ordered an inquiry, whose name was chosen to honour Harvey-Zenk’s victim, 40-year-old dental assistant Crystal Taman. Its 2008 report concluded that the case betrayed “an incestuous process” of police-on-police investigation, “which is incapable of uncovering the truth.”

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When we ask ourselves why the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls appears to be floundering, it’s important to first ask why public inquiries are useful in the first place. The example of the Taman Inquiry, while somewhat obscure by national standards, helps answer that question. The dysfunctionality that led to Harvey-Zenk getting off with a conditional sentence pervaded the very agencies that we rely on to investigate crimes. In such cases, the only way for the government to restore trust—and create a path to reform—is to step outside the day-to-day system by launching a one-off, purpose-built entity.