A New Westminster city council motion pushing the calls for justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) will be brought before the city police’s governing body next month.
Council passed a motion brought by couns. Nadine Nakagawa and Patrick Johnstone to take action on the MMIWG inquiry’s calls for justice, including calling on the police board to implement recommendations.
“We are aware of the calls for justice,” said New West Police Department spokesperson Jeff Scott in an email.
“The motion will be brought to the police board at the September board meeting, which includes the police board and the police senior management team. We do take the motion seriously and we look forward to working through the elements of it to continue to serve the City of New Westminster.”
Among other actions, the council motion called on the city to champion a regional police task force to address the calls for justice that relate to the police.
The final report from the MMIWG inquiry was released in early June and includes 231 calls for justice, including 11 that relate to Canada’s local, regional and federal police forces.
That includes calling on police forces to build relationships with Indigenous Peoples; calling on police forces to increase recruitment of Indigenous people, especially to improve representation of Indigenous women and members of the 2SLGBTQQIA community; creating Indigenous policing units staffed with Indigenous members that would be primary investigators in MMIWG cases; and for police services to create special teams to investigate allegations of police misconduct and failure to serve Indigenous individuals and communities.
The next open police board meeting, in which this matter will be heard, is scheduled for 10 a.m. Sept. 17 in the NWPD conference boardroom at 555 Columbia St.
