As wedge issues go, the idea of an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women loomed large over the 2015 election. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to call for one, despite the chronically outsized murder rate among indigenous women.

Both the NDP and the Liberals were prolific in their expressions of outrage over Harper’s obstinacy. “The Conservatives are on the wrong side of history,” lamented Justin Trudeau in 2014. A Liberal government, he said, would launch such an inquiry as one of its first priorities.

Along with a new approach to natural resource development, the inquiry became the linchpin in the Trudeau government’s narrative of respect and dialogue with the country’s First Nations. Gone were the days when the federal government would burrow through native lands unchecked, or remain callously aloof to the plight of native women. “What’s needed is nothing less than a total renewal of the relationship between Canada and First Nations peoples,” Trudeau said in a speech on December 8, 2015.

Eighteen months later, there is a widening gap between Trudeau’s words and the reality on the ground. Launched a day after Trudeau’s heady speech, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is a mess of infighting, intensifying criticism and institutional lethargy.

In May, over 60 native people and groups signed an open letter decrying the inquiry for having “re-traumatized families with continued delays, silence, miscommunications, confusion [and] repeated cancellations.” Some families of victims, many of whom had lobbied hard for an inquiry, have decided against testifying altogether.

The internal workings of the inquiry itself are a mess. Three senior people have resigned over the last several months. Another manager will be leaving in the coming weeks, according to a source. The internal workings of the inquiry itself are a mess. Three senior people have resigned over the last several months. Another manager will be leaving in the coming weeks, according to a source.

Bill Wilson, a hereditary chief from British Columbia, deemed the inquiry “a bloody farce” and called on the five inquiry commissioners to resign. “I can only imagine how those people who forced the creation of it must feel,” Wilson wrote on Facebook. (Oddly enough, one of those people is Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould — Wilson’s own daughter.)

The internal workings of the inquiry itself are a mess. Three senior people have resigned over the last several months. Another manager will be leaving in the coming weeks, according to a source.

As recently as March, according to internal schedules I saw, the five commissioners had planned to sit 16 times to hear testimony from families. These hearings have since been suspended, calling into question the commission’s ability to produce its first report, which has a November 2017 deadline.

For critics, Bill Wilson included, the commission has done little to date but pay salaries. As Chief Commissioner, Marion Buller makes $241,000 a year. All told, the yearly salary outlay for the five commissioners alone is nearly $1 million.

One of the abiding disappointments among the departed inquiry staff, and many of the current ones, has been the lack of transparency. As recently as April, less than two months before the hearings began, MMIW management had yet to formalize the intake process for those testifying. This led to complaints from families and survivors who didn’t know what support resources were available — or even what, exactly, was being done with their testimony.

According to a document I saw, inquiry lead counsel Susan Vella refused to make the intake process known to families and victims. “I do not agree that are appropriate for public distribution,” Vella wrote. This sort of lack of communication has caused “anxiety, frustration, confusion, and disappointment in this long awaited process,” reads the open letter published in May.

Another sore point, according to several people I spoke with, is the nature of the inquiry mandate, which seeks to look at “all underlying cues of violence against Indigenous women and girls.” While broad, several people I spoke with said the inquiry likely won’t address the role of criminal gangs in the human trafficking of Indigenous women. “The inquiry won’t get to the root of this problem, because they’re aren’t enough safety measures to address the concerns of these very vulnerable targets,” lawyer and indigenous activist Beverley Jacobs told me.

If this is the case, it’s a substantial missed opportunity. The role of gangs, native and otherwise, in the trafficking of indigenous women is both huge and largely unexplored — if only because native women are such a ripe target. In the brutally frank words of one activist I spoke with, “You don’t have to cross any borders with them, they’re exotic looking, they’re desperate — and no one cares if they disappear.”

The Liberal party first called for an inquiry in 2014, and Justin Trudeau’s political fortunes are inexorably linked to the promises he made to indigenous people during the campaign and after his election. Since then, his government has pushed forward on pipeline construction, despite the concerns expressed by dozens of indigenous bands across the country.

Meanwhile, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls continues to stumble along. At a certain point, it will be difficult to see all these promises as anything but a giant, well-meaning — but ultimately worthless PR exercise.

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