B.C. child rep Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond touted to head missing women probe

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      A First Nations policy adviser says he’s writing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about who he thinks should head a national inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women.

      Ernie Crey, with the Sto:lo Tribal Council, believes that the inquiry must be led by an aboriginal woman, and he has a name: Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond.

      Turpel-Lafond, near the end of her second term as B.C.’s first representative for children and youth, is a judge on leave from the Saskatchewan provincial court. She is a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation.

      Crey, who is also president of the ALIVE (Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement) Society, knows Turpel-Lafond. “We’ve been working with her, and she likes our approach in the Downtown Eastside,” Crey told the Straight by phone on November 10.

      He said he hasn’t sent his letter yet to Trudeau, but he noted that he will provide copies to two members of his cabinet: Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett and Minister of Justice and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould.

      Crey’s sister Dawn’s DNA was found on the Port Coquitlam pig farm of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton.

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