The sister of a Highway of Tears victim encouraged former B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wally Oppal to visit the small towns along the stretch when the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry begins formal hearings later this year.
"Come and see our communities," urged Brenda Wilson during a pre-hearing forum Friday in Prince George. "See what we live in, then you'll understand why there are so many girls living along that highway. We don't have everything that you have in Vancouver."
She's the only sister of Ramona Wilson, the 15-year-old whose strangled body was found near Smithers airport 10 months after she was last seen hitchhiking to a friend's home in nearby Moricetown.
Wilson also asked Oppal that he treat the Highway of Tears as a separate issue from the Pickton murders in the Lower Mainland, noting that, in contrast to Pickton's victims most of the missing women along the highway are under 19 years old and no killer has been found.
The two themes were repeated throughout the forum, which drew about 100 people to the Civic Centre. A similar forum was held in Vancouver on Wednesday in advance of formal hearings, set to begin in June and likely to last into the fall. Oppal has until Dec. 31 to complete a report.
Preston Gunu, from the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth took Wilson's request one step further, saying a separate inquiry, led by an aborginal woman, should be held for the Highways of Tears. At the least, he added, an advisory panel should be established to help guide the inquiry.
Prior to hearing from more than a dozen speakers, Oppal said the forums were held to help the inquiry know where to focus once it began and stressed he could not take into account what was said beforehand when writing his report.
But that didn't stop many from expressing their grief and anger while giving their ideas about what should be done to prevent further tragedies.
Small-town RCMP are often the least experienced and burdened with the largest caseloads, asserted Irene Willsie of the Women's Contact Society in Williams Lake, who also said social agencies are overstretched and few and far between outside the Lower Mainland.
Prince George social worker Bally Basi called for parallel services for men and children to stop the cycle of violence, saying roughly half of Canadian women have been the victims of at least one instance of violence.
Wilma Boyce of the Canim Lake band called for support services run by the bands themselves so the knowledge learned by the social workers can be passed along. She warned that support services can become politicized, so that those who run them forget why they're there.
"First Nations women are the perfect targets, First Nations women are the perfect victims because they're bred that way in our communities and we have to get strong as people who support our women, who support our men," Boyce said.
Ramona Wilson's mother, Matilda, told Oppal she has waited 16 years so for for the murder of her daughter to be solved and to hear the stories of other families who've lost loved ones breaks her heart.
"We have to find the killers, They are still roaming about - can you imagine that? - and they are still a threat to our children," she said.
Saik'uz chief Jackie Thomas said she simply doesn't trust the RCMP and suggested the inquiry's timeline be broadened to account for a greater number of cases.
"I don't want empty words, I don't want another book on the shelf, I want action," she added.
