Overwhelmingly, the families who testified before the National Inquiry were seeking answers to perceived flaws in the investigations into the loss of their loved ones.

They discussed many ways in which they felt that police services had failed in their duty to properly investigate the crimes committed against them or their loved ones, leading ultimately to a failure to obtain closure and justice within the existing system. In response, the National Inquiry established the Forensic Document Review Project (FDRP), consisting of two teams conducting a review of police and other related institutional files. One team examined files of the Province of Quebec; the second group examined police files in all other provinces and territories throughout the rest of Canada. In this summary, when we refer to the FDRP, we are referring specifically to this second group. Information and recommendations of the Quebec FDRP are located in the Supplementary Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls devoted to Quebec. The purpose of the FDRP was to identify potential systemic barriers or problems and areas of weakness relating to the protection of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, and to make recommendations to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls about the systemic causes of their disappearances and deaths.

During the course of the project, the Forensic Document Review Project (FDRP), which was tasked with examining files outside of Quebec, obtained and reviewed 174 files and 35 previous reports and studies on policing related to Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people, and analyzed publicly available information related to those files.