MLA starts petition demanding inquiry into Tina’s slaying

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This article was published 21/03/2018 (2374 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nahanni Fontaine has followed calls for a public inquiry into Tina Fontaine’s death with a online petition calling on the province to work with Tina’s family on setting the inquiry’s terms of reference.

“It’s important that the family or their designate should have some role in the development of the scope and terms of reference of the inquiry if it is called. It has an impact on them. And Thelma’s been pretty active, even with her health not being 100 per cent, she’s pretty involved in everything with respect to Tina,” said Fontaine, the NDP MLA for St. Johns.

Thelma Favel is Tina’s great-aunt and had a major role in raising the 15-year-old girl who was found dead in the Red River on Aug. 17, 2014. She was reported missing eight days earlier.

The Manitoba government said last week it will not to call a public inquiry into Tina’s death. Justice Minister Heather Stefanson said the provincial children’s advocate is looking into the death and the way her case was handled by the child welfare system.

The man accused of killing Tina, Raymond Cormier, was found not guilty of second degree murder in February.

Fontaine (no relation to Tina Fontaine) posted the latest call for an inquiry with a public petition Thursday on her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“With community, we have developed a (petition) calling on (Premier Brian Pallister and Justice Minister Heather Stefanson) to immediately call a provincial public inquiry into the death of Tina Fontaine,” the MLA posted on her social media accounts.

Fontaine, a longtime advocate on issues of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, has repeatedly called on Stefanson to call an inquiry, but the new petition is the first to specify conditions on how the inquiry would be put together.

Ordinarily governments set the terms of reference; in this case, Fontaine’s petition says Manitoba has yet to fully implement recommendations from relevant reports — including the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the Phoenix Sinclair Inquiry — that date back decades.

The not guilty verdict in the Cormier murder trial followed on the heels of a controversial acquittal in Saskatchewan where a farmer was found not guilty in the shooting death of 22-year-old Cree man Colten Boushie.

Together, the two acquittals sparked national protests over how the justice system handles cases involving Indigenous people.

Since then, Manitoba has faced numerous calls for a public inquiry from Opposition politicians and Indigenous leaders into Tina’s death.

“Tina Fontaine was failed by multiple systems which did not protect her as they intervened in her life,” Fontaine stated on the petition in a six-point list of issues she wants covered in an inquiry.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca