Exactly how issues surrounding murdered and missing indigenous boys and men will be included in the national inquiry on women and girls, already late in starting, is expected to be revealed in the coming weeks.

The inquiry commissioners are sensitive to the rising public debate and concerns involving the role that indigenous men and boys might play in the probe, including their own stories of violence, said an inquiry spokesperson, Michael Hutchinson.

“The issues intersect at certain points and that is relevant to indigenous women and girls,” Hutchinson said.

How included men and boys are going to be in the process needs to be decided because time and resources are an issue and the clock is ticking. The inquiry, made up of five commissioners who will examine the systemic causes of violence against indigenous women and girls, is expected to fully start this spring and wrap up at the end of December 2018.

The original terms of reference for the inquiry, or, the mandate of the probe, focused on women and girls and did not include indigenous men and boys.

News of the possible further inclusion of men and boys into a national women’s inquiry — which women’s indigenous groups fought to get for years — should not have been relayed to families informally via social media or news articles, said Francyne Joe, the interim president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada.

“When families are finding out about these developments on social media it is inappropriate and disrespectful,” Joe said, adding that national indigenous groups held a teleconference with the inquiry this week and the matter was not brought up.

“It would have been a prime opportunity to say, ‘What do you think about this?’ We could have at least been prepared and supportive. I don’t think any of the organizations would say, ‘No, we shouldn’t include men,’ but it is just a matter of how it’ll affect the whole inquiry process now,” said Joe, the former president of the B.C. Native Women’s Association.

“Is until December 2018 going to be enough time to meet with families? We know there will be a lot of meetings held in northern and remote areas and now with additional meetings more likely, it is the resources,” she said.

Families have been discouraged by the lack of communication from the inquiry following the official date of its establishment on Sept. 1, Joe said. They have been waiting to find out more about who will hear their testimonies and when the hearings will take place in their area, she added.

“Families have been basically put on hold with no idea how long they will be on hold. I get frustrated when my telephone company puts me on hold for 20 minutes. How are family members supposed to feel when they are put on hold for years? Not just days and weeks, many have waited years,” she said.

The inquiry, lead by B.C. Judge Marion Buller, released a position statement on the issue to the Star on Thursday.

“There is no doubt that families of missing and murdered indigenous men and boys are a potentially important source of information as the national inquiry proceeds with its hearings and other information gathering processes,” the statement said.

“It has already been recognized that, particularly in domestic violence situations, the (often) male aggressor has often been the victim himself of sexual or other childhood violence thus perpetuating the cycle of violence so well documented,” he said.

The inquiry is looking at ways in which the testimonies and stories of men and boys can be “collected in safe, respectful, and efficient ways, insofar as this potential information may be relevant to its overall mandate of examining systemic causes of violence, including sexual violence, against indigenous women and girls,” the statement said.

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The commissioners added that when the concerns of LBGTQ community are “added to the conversation, separating males from females is difficult to implement, and these are important stories that must be a heard as well.”

Statistics show indigenous men are murdered in greater number than indigenous women. The latest, Statistics Canada Homicide in Canada 2015 report showed that indigenous males are at the greatest risk of being victims of homicide. In 2015, they were seven times more likely to be homicide victims compared with non-indigenous men, and, they were three times more likely to be a victim than indigenous women.