More than 10 years after serial killer Robert "Willy" Pickton was arrested by RCMP at his Port Coquitlam pig farm, the long-running missing womens inquiry on Monday found "blatant failures" with the police response to the dozens of women, many of them aboriginal sex trade workers, who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in the years before his arrest.
A 1,448-page report was filed Monday by former B.C. attorney general Wally Oppal, the commissioner of the inquiry.
"Not only must there be justice for the missing and murdered women who are at the heart of this inquiry but, as a part of their legacy, we must come together to make sure that all women in this city and in this province are safe," Oppal told a room packed with media, politicians, and the families of the victims and their supporters. "Even though Pickton is in jail, the violence against women in the Downtown Eastside and other areas of our province continues. It is time to stop the violence, it is time to stop talking about it and do something."
Oppal's report, entitled Forsaken in reference to how the women and those who attempted to sound the alarm were forsaken by police and an indifferent public due to an institutional, systemic bias, makes a total of 63 recommendations, including creating a regional police force for the Metro Vancouver area to ensure more efficient investigations into major, multi-jurisdictional crimes.
The inquiry heard from 85 witnesses over 93 days of hearings, including members of both the Vancouver Police Department and the RCMP, which has jurisdiction in Port Coquitlam. A lack of cooperation and communication between the two is considered one of the main reasons Pickton remained on the loose.
"Would the response of the Vancouver police and the public have been any different if these women had come from the west side of town? I think the answer is clear," Oppal said.
Other key recommendations include improvements to services for sex workers, making it easier for women with outstanding bench warrants to report being the victims of violent crime, greater police training regarding highly vulnerable citizens, and establishing more sex trade liaison police officers positions as well as a special aboriginal liaison officer. Oppal also suggested the provincial government provide financial compensation for the children of the missing women and a separate healing fund for their other family members, as well as appointing an aboriginal elder to oversee drafting formal apologies to begin a reconciliation process.
Pickton was convicted in the second-degree murders of six women in 2007, although the DNA of 33 women was eventually found on his property. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
Oppal, who was repeatedly heckled and interrupted during his address by protesters, also offered thanks to reporters who drew public attention to the missing womens' situation long before Pickton's arrest.
Many protests were mounted in the Downtown Eastside during the work of the inquiry, which began in 2010.
