THERE is a stretch of road in northern British Columbia known locally as the Highway of Tears because 17 women last seen on the route have vanished or been murdered since the 1970s. Suzanne Anton, the provincial justice minister, said on May 12th that the highway is safer than it has ever been. Locals protest that nothing has been done. There is widespread suspicion that the murders and disappearances are not a government priority because most of the women were aboriginal Canadians. Such suspicions are not confined to British Columbia. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the national police force, said earlier this month that almost 1,200 aboriginal women had gone missing or been murdered across Canada in the past 30 years. Although aboriginals constitute 4.3% of Canada's population, they make up 16% of murdered women and 12% of missing women during that period. The Native Women’s Association of Canada is one of several groups pushing the national government to hold a formal inquiry. The latest such call came from James Anaya, the UN’s special rapporteur on indigenous rights, in his report on Canada released this week. He too was rebuffed.

Mr Anaya, who looked more broadly at the situation of the 1.4m Canadians who identify as First Nations (native Indian), Métis or Inuit, came to the conclusion that “Canada faces a continuing crisis when it comes to the situation of indigenous peoples of the country”. One of the most jarring aspects of their position for Mr Anaya was the third-world living conditions on remote reserves, where half of the water systems have been labelled as posing a medium-to-high health risk to their users, and where overcrowding and sub-standard housing help spread disease and violence. Of the bottom 100 communities in the country’s Community Wellbeing Index, 96 are First Nations, he said.

The federal government chose to focus on the positive points made in the report. Bernard Valcourt, minister of aboriginal affairs and northern development, pointed to the prime minister’s historic public apology in 2008 for abuse suffered in Indian Residential Schools; the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission; and money spent improving housing and water systems, among other things. Despite these steps, Mr Anaya noted, relations between the federal government and aboriginal Canadians appear to have worsened in the past decade.

There are at least three reasons for this. First is the continued lack of progress on living conditions, as the special rapporteur noted. Increasing acrimony over resource development, as aboriginal groups have increasingly asserted their legal rights to territory and consultation, has provided a second source of friction. Third is the perceived apathy of the authorities, who take their cue from non-aboriginal Canadians, on sensitive issues like the missing and murdered women.

It rankles with aboriginal leaders, for example, that Canada has been swift to offer help in the search for the missing Nigerian girls kidnapped in April, for example, but slow to make meaningful progress in solving the cases of aboriginal women missing or murdered at home. After the special rapporteur’s report was released, Grand Chief Terry Nelson of the Southern Chiefs’ Organisation, asked: “Are the indigenous women and children who have been murdered or are missing here in Canada somehow less important than other women and children?” As long as the government refuses to hold an inquiry, many aboriginal Canadians will see the answer to that question as “yes”.