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MMIW says Fed Bureaucracy Smothering Their Work

Thursday, 21 September 2017 08:54

Marion Buller told a Senate committee last night it doesn't make sense for an inquiry with a limited timetable be made to follow government procedures that mean it can take up to six months to hire a single staff person.

OTTAWA - The head of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada says bureaucracy is smothering the inquiry's ability to do its work on time.

Marion Buller told a Senate committee last night it doesn't make sense for an inquiry with a limited timetable be made to follow government procedures that mean it can take up to six months to hire a single staff person.

The inquiry has about 15 months left of its 28-month mandate and has been plagued with delays and communications issues.

Those problems prompted Indigenous leaders and families of missing and murdered women to demand the commissioners resign this summer and the whole thing had to be restarted.

Buller says she's preparing an official request to the government for more time and money to allow the commissioners to do the best job possible, not just the best job possible in the allowed time frame.

The inquiry has held just one hearing with family members to date, and has nine scheduled for the fall starting in Smithers, B-C, next week.

(The Canadian Press)

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