Highway of Tears town honours dead 18-year-old while awaiting MMIW report

SMITHERS (NEWS 1130) – Emotions are running high in Smithers.

As the community awaits the release of the report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, it will be remembering a young woman found dead last year.

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A rally is planned for Saturday to honour 18-year-old Jessica Patrick who went missing from Smithers in late August. Her body was found outside the city two weeks later.

According to My Bulkley Lakes Now, family members are still waiting for RCMP to let them know what is happening with the investigation. RCMP say the probe is ongoing.

Smithers is served by Highway 16, or the Highway of Tears, where several women have gone missing or have been murdered over the years.

“When are the RCMP going to be closing some of these files and giving us answers?” asks Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief Na’Moks.

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He says the fact that so many cases are unsolved demonstrates a double standard in the system.

“There has to be some answers. Why are there so many open cases? If this were the premier’s daughter or the prime minister’s daughter, this whole nation would be on its feet and there would be a manhunt.”

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He’s worried the report, which has been more than two years in the making, won’t result in action.

“They put $92 million into the native missing women inquiry. Yet we have a bunch of unanswered murdered and missing cases. What are we going to get out of it?”

The inquiry commissioners visited fifteen communities to collect testimony. They visited Smithers in September of 2017.

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Chief Na’Moks was one of two hereditary chiefs to accompany the women to the sessions.

“We marched with the women into Smithers when the inquiry came. We told them ‘We are watching you. If you are here just to break people hearts again and give them no results, then you are hurting our people once again.'”

He says he and other hereditary chiefs will be going over the contents of the report once it’s released and hopes inquiry will be just the beginning of a new era.

“There are far too many reports that get put on a shelf and gather dust. There has to be something more substantial than paper and words.”

 

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