VANCOUVER - Charging it's being shut out of the Robert Pickton inquiry in Vancouver, the Native Women's Association of Canada is calling for a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls across the country.
Association president Jeannette Corbiere says her group, like several others, has been denied funding by the B.C. government to participate in the inquiry into missing and murdered women in B.C.
She says the association has no confidence the Pickton inquiry will be able to produce a fair and balanced report and the government's decision to fund lawyers primarily for police and government agencies means the process has become flawed and one sided.
The provincial government has said it will only pay the legal bills for the families of Pickton's victims, not third parties.
The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, the Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of B.C. and WISH, a drop-in centre for sex workers in Vancouver's downtown east side, have all said they can't afford to take part in the Pickton inquiry without financial help from the government.
The inquiry is set to begin in October and will examine why police failed to catch Pickton as he murdered sex workers.
