Northern B.C. First Nations would like to see similar resources and public focus on their missing loved ones as has been shed on the deaths of two tourists on the Alaska Highway.
That’s according to a story from Glacier Media.
Prince George-based Carrier Sekani Tribal Council Chief Mina Holmes told Glacier Media that she wishes as much effort would go into looking for her people as well.
“It’s a reminder that we aren’t afforded the same kind of attention as other people,” she said.
RCMP announced this week that two Vancouver Island men are suspects in the murders of Lucas Fowler and Chynna Deese on the Alaska Highway and the death of a man on Highway 37 near Dease Lake.
The couple were found shot to death outside their van south of Liard Hot Springs in northeast B.C. on July 15.
In the past two decades, dozens of women have vanished on Highway 16, the so-called Highway of Tears, which winds its way across B.C. from Prince George to Prince Rupert.
Holmes says her heart goes out to the Deese and Fowler families, that the area’s First Nations people understand that shock and pain, that they can empathize.
But, she asks, why is the response so fast when the case involves white tourists?
“It brings back a lot of sadness and sorrow, frustration,” she told Glacier Media.
She implored Mounties and the government to act with the speed the world has seen in the Fowler-Deese case when it comes to aboriginal deaths or missing persons cases.