OTTAWA — Later this year, the federal government will launch an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. But really, it will be all about men.

Men must play the unavoidable starring role as the perpetrators of the violence against aboriginal women and girls. There is no getting around this fact and, though it may be obvious, it is a fact that men, in particular, need to own.

There will be many recommendations coming from this inquiry and their sole objective will be to reduce or eliminate instances of men committing acts of violence against indigenous women and girls.

All of which means this inquiry must put men, oddly enough, at the heart of their deliberations into acts of violence against women.

A trio of senior ministers in Justin Trudeau’s cabinet has been and will be criss-crossing the country soliciting ideas from survivors, family members and loved ones of victims of this violence about how this inquiry ought to be designed. Aboriginal leaders will also be asked for their input.

One of those ministers, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, was in Thunder Bay, Ont. and Yellowknife last week and was in Whitehorse Monday.

And when Bennett, along with Justice Minister (and aboriginal leader herself) Jody Wilson-Raybould and Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu settle on the inquiry’s terms of reference, it is almost certainly going to direct the inquiry to take the testimony of the victims. Indeed, most of the participants at these “design” meetings so far are victims themselves or are sisters, mothers, and daughters of victims.

There is no question that those voices need to be heard.

But for this inquiry, those voices — the voices of the victim — are but one half of the story.

Men — be they male police officers or male band councillors or male doctors as well as husbands, fathers and sons — must also be heard. And that is going to be the challenging part.

It will be challenging because the inquiry must find men who will testify about their failures as fathers, husbands, sons, chiefs, teachers, doctors, and so on. Men — and I’m one of them — have to change.

“We need to change our behaviours or we’re just forever going to have more shelters, more rescues because we’re not addressing the behaviour,” Dawn Lavell-Harvard, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, told me during a long chat we had about this issue. Men have to meet this challenge.

If aboriginal men testify, we will hear of crushing poverty on many reserves, the lack of job opportunities, poor education and, of course, deep racism that makes victims of many men who, in turn, physically victimize those more vulnerable than they are. The inquiry should not (nor would I expect it to) be looking for excuses for men but until we understand what drives aboriginal men to violence, the vicious cycle will not end.

Non-aboriginal men must confess to their appalling ignorance of the aboriginal experience in Canada and to their racism as contributing factors to this violence. The inquiry’s challenge will be to find white guys who have the guts to ‘fess up to that.

The women who testify and share their stories will show great courage. The men who testify to their failures may show even more courage.

But both voices are vital to fixing this horrific problem.