MMIWG inquiry a 'mess' from the start, says Cree/Métis advocate

Now that the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls has lost its second executive director, calls to scrap the process are gaining volume. 

With less than a year left in its mandate, some are questioning if it will be able to finish its work on time, and Crown-Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has expressed concern the turnover is distracting from the work at hand.

But Lori Campbell, director of Indigenous Initiatives at the University of Waterloo, said she feels the inquiry was a mess from the very beginning and the problems stem from conflicting expectations and the government's insistence on conducting the inquiry in a way that worked best for them.

"It was set up to be run in basically a colonial system," said Campbell, who is Cree/Métis. 

That is "counter to Indigenous ways of doing things," she added.

"Having, sort of, that top-down structure from the government, versus having a grassroots perspective coming from the victims' families and loved ones I think has been very detrimental to the process." 

Listen to Campbell's interview with Craig Norris on The Morning Edition in the audio below: