Here are some of the key findings from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2016-2019) report — titled Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls — about who was killing or harming Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people in Canada, and why. The report does not simply list individual perpetrators in the way some criminal-investigations do; rather it examines patterns, systemic factors, and societal/institutional violence.
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Who was committing the violence
While the report does reference individual perpetrators in specific cases, its emphasis is broader. Key findings include:
Many crimes were perpetrated by intimate partners or acquaintances of the victims, not only strangers. The report emphasises interpersonal violence as one major vein of harm.
A significant portion of violence was embedded in institutional or systemic failures — e.g., inadequate policing, delays or lack of investigation, discrimination in justice systems. As the report notes, “families … discussed many ways in which they felt that police services had failed in their duty to properly investigate the crimes committed against them or their loved ones.”
The violence also involves omissions and structural violence — meaning harm through neglect, discrimination, or denial of rights. The report describes this as “state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies.”
The report found that many Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people faced multiple vulnerabilities (poverty, homelessness, insecure housing, lack of access to services, addiction, etc.) which made them easier targets of violence. These vulnerabilities often intersected with racism, misogyny and colonial legacies.
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Why the violence happened (key contributing factors)
The report outlines the context and root causes of this violence — i.e., the “why,” which often transcends simply “who did it.” Some of the major findings:
Colonialism: The report identifies that historical and ongoing colonial policies — such as forced attendance at residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, dispossession of lands, imposition of the Indian Act — have weakened Indigenous women’s traditional roles, undermined cultural, kin and governance systems, and contributed directly to increased vulnerability.
Gendered oppression & racism: The report highlights that Indigenous women and girls face violence at the intersection of gender, race, and colonialism. Patriarchy, misogyny, racism and discrimination combine to create unique risks for Indigenous women, including those who are 2SLGBTQQIA+.
Systemic failures in justice & security: For example: inadequate policing, failure to properly investigate missing and murdered cases, bias in the justice system, barriers in accessing health services, and unsafe housing. All these systemic conditions enabled or exacerbated violence.
Social and economic marginalization: Many of the victims lived in conditions marked by poverty, unstable housing or homelessness, barriers to education or employment, addiction, and other social determinants of health. These factors increase risk of victimization.
Ongoing “genocide” framing: The report explicitly states that the crisis amounts to a “race-, identity- and gender-based genocide” of Indigenous Peoples, because much of the violence arises from state actions/inactions and the destruction of the social fabric of Indigenous communities.
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Important caveats
The report does not provide a full catalog of every individual murderer or perpetrator across Canada, nor does it list a complete breakdown by category of perpetrator (e.g., stranger vs partner vs institutional) in detail for all cases.
Because of the systemic nature of the inquiry, the emphasis is on patterns and root causes rather than just criminal profiling.
Many cases remain unresolved or under-investigated; the inquiry stressed that the true number of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls is higher than publicly documented.
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If you like, I can pull out specific statistics from the report (for example: how many cases, how many by intimate partners, provincial breakdowns, etc.) and we can focus specifically on the situation in Alberta / British Columbia. Would you like that?
