The falldown was so pervasive and enormous that the amends being attempted look puny in comparison.
Authorities took another step in the make-up effort on Tuesday, announcing a deal that will deliver $50,000 each to 98 children whose mothers were murdered or have gone missing.
Will they be hand-delivered? That would involve an official looking a young person in the eye, acknowledging jurisdictional responsibility for the death or disappearance of their mother and then making a token effort to make things right.
It’s a job not to be wished on anyone.
Scores of women started disappearing from downtown Vancouver in the 1990s. Police did next to nothing, then mounted an inept and disjointed investigation that stalled out. They eventually got the killer entirely on a fluke.
But police weren’t the only ones to blame. Hardly anyone else cared about the cases. It was an entirely communal fall-down that this province has been grappling with for years. A dim-witted loser outfoxed all the public-safety systems, and no one cared or managed to catch him for years.
Former attorney general Wally Oppal’s inquiry commission following Robert Picton’s trial identified 67 women who were murdered or have disappeared in suspicious circumstances. The number is almost incomprehensible.
Maybe that’s why Tuesday’s 20-minute news conference about the token make-ups seemed so perfunctory. Also, it’s been in the works for months, and a payment to 13 specific claimants in a lawsuit was announced earlier.
Still, there’s almost nothing you can say.
“An unspeakable tragedy,” summed up Justice Minister Suzanne Anton.
The $4.9-million total payment is the latest in a series of responses to the murder spree, most of them following the blueprint by Oppal. A watchdog group last October gave the government a D grade on its overall response to the dozens of recommendations.
But Anton reeled off a list of new initiatives she said represents substantive progress on three-quarters of the ideas. Legislative changes to toughen oversight of unsolved cases. New standards for bias-free policing. $70 million on integrating police departments.
(The standalone fiefdoms in Metro Vancouver were a major reason why the killer ran free for so long.)
A fancy new intelligence centre is opening this year. New missing-persons legislation was passed last week that allows for faster, more thorough responses. And a few million dollars in civil forfeiture funds is earmarked for supporting vulnerable women.
Also evident is a new attitude. Different police departments spent years excusing themselves from responsibility and pointing fingers, before a Vancouver inspector finally compiled an exhaustive report that admitted fault all around.
Vancouver chief Jim Chu expressed the latest in a long list of abject apologies for how the cases were handled.
“I’ll always regret we did not catch this killer sooner,” he said. “I regret every life that was lost and those murders we failed to prevent.
“There is no real compensation for these lost loved ones … . Perhaps it may serve as a reminder, on the record at least, that mistakes were made and that we’ve made a commitment to do everything we can to prevent this from happening again.”
Still, one of the central recommendations for truly regional police forces to replace the multitude of different departments in both Vancouver and Victoria is still just sitting there.
It looks like integrating various units will bleed off all the initiative required to get that enormous change done. And a specific safety measure on Northern B.C.’s Highway 16 where women have gone missing is still unfulfilled.
What will 98 different young people do with their $50,000 cheques? They could fund a few years of courses, or upgrade their circumstances to some degree.
Anton said she hopes families find some solace in the broader ongoing response. It “will ensure that ‘missing’ never again means ‘forsaken.’ ”
The greater contribution to the memory of all those missing mothers would a continued push on all the active fronts to make sure it couldn’t happen again. That’s a trite wish. It can happen again. It would be more realistic to hope if it does happen again, it gets taken seriously.
