In our prayer list we have included `The Missing and Murdered Women, and families, friends and communities.`

For over five decades, there has been a spate of unsolved, and sometimes uninvestigated, disappearances of First Nations and Metis women in Winnipeg and throughout Manitoba. Until recently, there was not much outcry against this situation, but the convictions of serial killers like Robert Pickton in B.C. and John Martin Crawford in Saskatoon, and the recent arrest of Sean Lamb, who is alleged to have killed three indigenous women in Winnipeg, have raised awareness. At present, the province is not prepared to launch a public inquiry into the missing and murdered women, and the official line is that such an inquiry cannot take place until the Winnipeg Police Service has concluded its investigation.

However, the First Nations community in Winnipeg holds that the province should at least put in place some sort of action plan to deal with this matter, a process that would not interfere with an ongoing investigation. While the majority of the missing and murdered women are indigenous, the non-indigenous community also has a responsibility to see that justice is done. This is an opportunity for us, as members of a community of faith, to add our voices to the voices of the First Nations community, to contact our MLAs and contact the provincial Justice Minister Andrew Swan asking that an action plan, leading to a public inquiry, be initiated.

Related links…

Who is my MLA?
Use your street address to find out which division you live in and the name of your MLA.