Families of N.W.T. missing and murdered Indigenous women 'confused' by delay of federal action plan

Dolly Martel doesn't go a day without thinking about her late niece Brittany Martel. 

Martel said her 27-year-old niece from Hay River, N.W.T., had a rough life, but she still made time to tell her family and friends everyday that she loved them. Brittany was also looking forward to starting anew, having just completed her high school diploma in the months before her death. 

A motorist found Brittany Martel's body on the side of a highway just outside Merritt, B.C., in July 2018, two days after her actual date of death. High doses of drugs, including methamphetamine and cocaine, were found in her bloodstream. 

Dolly Martel said Brittany's death has been hard for her entire family. 

"Not a day goes by where I'm not sitting here crying, wondering what could have been," Martel told CBC. 

"I send her [Facebook] messages all the time, telling her I love her." 

A coroner from British Columbia deemed Martel's death was 'accidental' earlier this year. 

The federal government told CBC earlier this week that it has to postpone its long-awaited action plan to address missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada because of the COVID-19 pandemic — something that has hit N.W.T. families hard. 

'They're supportive one minute and then not the next'

Martel said she was confused by the government's decision to postpone their action plan because she gets the sense that "they're supportive one minute and then [not] the next." 

The strategy was supposed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which released their final report in June.

Carolyn Bennett, the federal minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, told CBC that the COVID-19 pandemic has set the government's timeline back, and that more consultation with Indigenous groups needs to be done before the plan can be released. 

Martel said it would help her family grieve if someone was held accountable for Brittany's death. 

"It's just so unfair," Martel said. "You find a Native girl lying in a ditch with lethal amounts of drugs in her system … doesn't just automatically mean she OD'd and that's it."

"Have a formal investigation for these families at least." 

'We do the healing all on our own'

Louisa Black knows the pain that the Martels are feeling. 

Black has been mourning her sister Alice Black for more than a decade. 

In 2009, Alice's body was found in her Gameti, N.W.T., home. Autopsy results on her body showed a blunt-force trauma to the head.

Her partner Terry James Vital was sentenced to seven years behind bars in 2010 after pleading guilty to the court's lesser charge of manslaughter in connection to her death. He was originally charged with second degree murder by RCMP. 

She believes that the federal government's plan should come out now, in order to help families dealing with grief in small communities like hers. 

"It would have been nice if the federal government had thought about other family members like us to give us resources to go to," Black said. "Gameti has no resources, nobody's coming to ask me how I'm doing." 

Black is living with her mother in Gameti, a fly-in Tlicho community of just over 300 people that is roughly 240 kilometres from Yellowknife. The stress of the pandemic along with the sudden loss of her brother in April, Black said, has made their trauma harder to manage. 

"I just encourage my mom that when this whole pandemic is over, we will find help, that's what I tell my mom to keep her strong," Black said. 

Black said she has been asking for years to figure out what resources could be made available to help them cope, but to no avail. 

"We basically do the healing all on our own … and sometimes it's really hard," Black said. 

Aunt will go to B.C. to look for answers after pandemic 

Martel said she's been receiving messages from strangers that believe they have more information about Brittany's case, but who say they were turned away from RCMP when they came forward with their details. 

To find out why, Martel said she'll be heading to Merritt, B.C., as soon as the pandemic is over to find some answers from local RCMP about Brittany's case. 

The government's decision to not release their action plan, Martel said, makes her want to "fight more" for answers. 

"I made a promise to her the day she came home in her casket that I would never give up," Martel said. "And I can't."