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It might sound like mission impossible.

On Wednesday Quebec’s premier thrust Fanny Lafontaine into the centre of the country’s most highly publicized police brutality scandal. Her task is to ensure that Quebecers can trust an investigation in which cops from the Montreal police delve into claims that their colleagues at the Sûreté du Québec physically and sexually abused aboriginal women while on the job.

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First Nations leaders have already expressed reservations about Lafontaine’s ability to pull it off and the SQ’s rank-and-file say there shouldn’t be an investigation to begin with. Furthermore, Premier Philippe Couillard says he offered the job to other candidates, who turned it down.

But Université Laval professor Lafontaine says she wouldn’t have accepted to be named the civilian observer of this controversial police probe if she doubted its mandate. Before her appointment, Lafontaine says she received written assurances from the government that she would have full access to the case’s chief investigator, to police files, interview transcripts and receive first-hand knowledge of how interrogations are conducted.