REGINA -- An inquest is to be held into the death of a Saskatchewan woman who fell 10 storeys down a laundry chute at a hotel.
Justice Minister Gord Wyant says his office will work with the chief coroner to decide on the scope of the inquest into the January 2015 death of Nadine Machiskinic.
The minister says he has full confidence in the coroner's office, but the public is questioning the findings.
"I'm concerned that the confidence in the coroner's office, the confidence in the administration of justice, has been put into question and that's precisely why I think an inquest is important, so that we can get to the bottom of the facts," Wyant said Wednesday at the legislature.
Chief coroner Kent Stewart said in an autopsy report released earlier this month that the 29-year-old woman died from blunt force trauma consistent with a fall and that tests showed she had drugs in her system.
Stewart said her death was accidental with no evidence of foul play or of suicidal intent.
The report did recommend a comprehensive review of security and safety measures at the hotel, including installing video surveillance equipment in all hallways.
Machiskinic's family has called for more answers about how she died and raised concerns that police were not taking her death seriously.
Surveillance video from the hotel lobby shows Machiskinic got on an elevator with two men before her death, but police didn't start looking for the men to interview them until a year later.
The family also says it received an alternate autopsy report early in the investigation that concluded her death should be listed as undetermined. It says the earlier report stated that Machiskinic would have been incapable of climbing into the laundry chute on her own.
Delores Stevenson, the woman's aunt, wonders why all of the information wasn't included in the final report.
"I think the public has a right to know everything that's going on with this case," Stevenson said earlier this week. "I feel that this information would not have been released to anybody, including myself, had it not accidentally gotten into my hands."
Wyant wondered about that too.
"That was one of the questions that's been raised, whether she had the capacity to actually get herself into the laundry chute, because there's been some contradiction as far as that's concerned," he said.
"I think the inquest will get to the bottom of that, at least in terms of the conclusions that the coroner came to and what was appropriate."
