WINNIPEG -- Manitoba aboriginal leaders say they face a closed door at an upcoming conference on missing and murdered women that does include provincial governments and national First Nations leaders.
"They seem to be planning a high-level event, bringing guests in from national aboriginal organizations, and being content in excluding regional and local perspectives," Derek Nepinak, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said Thursday.
"I think that for far too long, people have observed these boardroom tables at 35,000 feet, parachuting solutions into our communities. And, unfortunately, I don't think that's the answer. The answer comes from ... community-based organizations."
Nepinak said the Manitoba government, which is host to the National Aboriginal Women's Summit Nov. 1-2 in Winnipeg, has told him there is no room for regional or local groups at the meeting.
Manitoba Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Minister Eric Robinson was not immediately available for comment.
The summit, the third of its kind in the last seven years, includes provincial and territorial ministers responsible for aboriginal affairs or the status of women, as well as national groups such as the Assembly of First Nations. Previous meetings have focused primarily on social conditions faced by aboriginal women.
The Winnipeg meeting is to deal mostly with the hundreds of native women that have been killed or reported missing across Canada. Aboriginal groups have been pushing the federal government to call a public inquiry.
The call in Manitoba has grown louder since the arrest earlier this year of Shawn Lamb, a drifter accused of second-degree murder in the deaths of three aboriginal women between September 2011 and this past June. Two of the women's bodies were found wrapped in plastic near garbage bins. The body of the third alleged victim has never been recovered. Police unsuccessfully searched a city landfill for her body earlier this month.
Because of the exclusion from the summit, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Southern Chiefs Organization and other First Nations groups in the province are planning their own meeting at the same time.
"We believe that the solutions exist in the communities, not from closed boardrooms," Nepinak said.
