Pickton inquiry report ignores ‘broken state’ of Aboriginal culture

National Post ^ | December 18, 2012 | Christie Blatchford

[Squawk 8888]

There is a “tragedy of epic proportion” in this country all right, but it isn’t the one cited in the enormous, expensive and weirdly cloying report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, better known as the Pickton inquiry.

---

The report includes mini-profiles of almost six dozen women — the most common numbers of the missing and murdered used in recent years. For the Aboriginal women in particular, these profiles paint a ghastly portrait of a culture that is pathologically ill.

These stories, many written by family members, have many common elements: Alcoholism and drug addiction; fetal alcohol spectrum disorder repeating itself as a generational issue; physical and sexual abuse in the family; involvement of the child-welfare system; the prevalence of mental illness, such as schizophrenia; families rent by shocking violence, such as suicide and murder.

At various times, the same awful tale leaks out in dribs and drabs at various inquiries elsewhere in the country.

In Winnipeg right now, it is doing just that at two separate probes examining the killings of Aboriginal youngsters who died at the hands of their mothers (in one case, with her violent partner), but who before their deaths, just like the Downtown Eastside women, had disappeared into inept Canadian bureaucracies, with no one much appearing to notice.

[Squawk 8888]

To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.

Canada Ping!

[blueunicorn6]

In the United States, their Democrat masters throw them a bone so they’ll vote for them.