Keynote address tonight kicks off Missing Women inquiry public forums
BY NEAL HALL, VANCOUVER SUN APRIL 30, 2012
VANCOUVER -- A member of the Oregon attorney general's sex assault task force will present a keynote address tonight as a lead-in to the Missing Women Inquiry's six public forums, which start Tuesday.
Doreen Binder will discuss innovative approaches to protecting vulnerable women at a presentation tonight (April 30) from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Vancouver Public Library, Peter Kaye Room.
The lecture is open is to the public and will be streamed live on the Missing Women Inquiry's website (www.missingwomeninquiry.ca).
Binder will discuss such topics as community policing and developing relationships to keep women safe, the importance of holistic programming and cooperation between police and social services, and how to work with women to build trusting communication that helps to meet their needs.
She will also talk about her role in developing Portland's first community court, which opens May 4.
Inquiry Commissioner Wally Oppal announced last week that he plans to hear from an additional 13 witnesses at hearings in May, including former B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh, former Vancouver mayor Phillip Owen and the former commanding officer of the B.C. RCMP, Gary Bass.
He also wants to hear from Catherine Galliford, the Mountie who has alleged she experienced sexism and sexual harassment in the RCMP.
Galliford will not be called as a witness in the formal hearings but Oppal would like to hear from her at a policy forum on May 8, which will address issues relating to police accountability.
Galliford, 44, left active duty four years ago and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She is being treated at an Ontario facility.
Her complaint preceded a class-action lawsuit being filed against the RCMP, which alleges women suffered sex harassment within the force over many years.
Formal hearings of the Missing Women inquiry will resume May 9 with the testimony of three officers who worked on the missing omen case, to be followed May 11 with a VPD panel, former Vancouver street nurse Bonnie Fournier and a woman sex worker referred to as "Jane Smith," who apparently survived an attack by serial killer Robert Pickton.
The inquiry is probing why police didn't catch Pickton sooner.
He was arrested in 2002, despite Vancouver police receiving extensive tips about Pickton in 1998 and 1999, including a person who told police that a woman had found Pickton one night butchering a woman's body in his barn at the Pickton family farm in Port Coquitlam.
Vancouver police passed along the tips to Coquitlam RCMP, which was investigating Pickton after a Vancouver sex worker was attacked on the Pickton farm but escaped.
Pickton was charged with the attempted murder of the woman but the charges were dropped a year later because the Crown found the victim, a drug addict, was too strung out to testify days before the trial was to start.
Pickton was convicted of six murders in 2007 but once confided that he killed 49 women.
Police found the remains and DNA of 33 women on Pickton's farm.
nhall@vancouversun.com
Here is the schedule of the public policy forums to be held over the next 10 days:
Policy Forum 1: Ensuring the Safety of Vulnerable Women, Session A: Preventing Violence Against Sex Trade Workers
Date: Tuesday, May 1
Time: 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Vancouver Public Library, Peter Kaye Room
350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver
Policy Forum 1: Ensuring the Safety of Vulnerable Women, Session B: Preventing Violence Against Aboriginal and Rural Women
Date: Tuesday, May 1
Time: 1:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Vancouver Public Library, Peter Kaye Room
350 West Georgia Street,
Vancouver
Policy Forum 1: Ensuring the Safety of Vulnerable Women, Session C: Building Strong Police-Community Relationships
Date: Thursday, May 3
Time: 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Vancouver Public Library, Peter Kaye Room
350 West Georgia Street,
Vancouver
Policy Forum 2: Vulnerable and Intimidated Witnesses in the Criminal Justice Process
Date: Thursday, May 3
Time: 1:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Vancouver Public Library, Peter Kaye Room
350 West Georgia Street
Vancouver
Policy Forum 3: Improving Missing Person Practices, Session A: Accepting and Investigating Missing Person Reports
Date: Monday, May 7
Time: 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Room 420
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Policy Forum 3: Improving Missing Person Practices, Session B: Police Relationships with Victims' Families, the Community, the Public and the Media
Date: Monday, May 7
Time: 1:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Room 420
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Policy Forum 4: Inter-jurisdictional Collaboration and Coordination Among Police
Date: Tuesday, May 8
Time: 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Location: Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Room 420
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Policy Forum 5: Enhancing Police Accountability
Date: Tuesday, May 8
Time: 1:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Room 420
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver
Policy Forum 6: From Report to Substantive Change - Healing, Reconciliation and Implementation
Date: Thursday, May 10
Time: 9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Wosk Centre For Dialogue, Room 320
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver