Metro: ‘The costs are incredible’: Manitoba report weighs emotional, economic toll of MMIWG
As five days of hearings for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls begin in Winnipeg this week, a policy think tank released a new report detailing the cost of doing nothing.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report – penned by Marina Puzyreva and John Loxley – quantifies the dollar amount of direct government spending on cases related to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Manitoba.
That figure reached at least $7 million in 2014, the report said, at an average of $330,000 per case related to expenses for police, court, funeral, counselling and other costs….
The report collected testimonies from 37 family members and friends of MMIWG in Winnipeg, The Pas, Thompson and Sagkeeng First Nation, spanning 14 cases.
Those testimonies showed costs that were “way more important,” said Loxley, who’s also a University of Manitoba economics professor.
“The costs are incredible, when you look at the interviews with the families, the pain is obvious… there’s devastation as a result of this that’s ongoing,” he said….
“If you don’t do anything, of course it’s going to cost you anyway, and you’re just basically not solving a problem,” Loxley said.
“We would prefer, obviously, that action be taken to reduce the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. That’s basically where we’re coming from, so the government should take action to prevent it.”