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OTTAWA — The special team set up to review police investigations for the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women began issuing subpoenas for police files only in the final months of its mandate, despite the inquiry’s promise that its review of policing was a centrepiece of its work.

The inquiry’s final report, officially released on Monday in Gatineau, Que., shows that the forensic document review team began issuing subpoenas to police forces across the country only on Sept. 20, 2018, more than a year after the inquiry announced in a statement that it had a committee reviewing police files.

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Early in its mandate, the national inquiry faced criticism from family members of missing and murdered women who felt it wasn’t focusing enough on police missteps during investigations involving Indigenous women. In response, the inquiry clarified in July 2017 that it would consider policing services across Canada, though it could not reinvestigate individual cases. In its interim report, released in November 2017, the inquiry said its forensic review team would “put select police files on missing and murdered women and girls under a clinical microscope.”