The Children’s Advocate in the province doesn’t believe there’s a desire to hold an inquest into the deaths of 7 Aboriginal high school students in Thunder Bay.
Irwin Elman says if there was the will, it would have happened by now.
The Chief Coroner of Ontario is postponing the hearing until there are enough First Nations represented on the province’s jury rolls.
Dirk Huyer says the earliest there could be an inquest is 2015.
Elman says finding answers into the student deaths is too important to keep putting off, and the jury roll issue should get resolved sooner rather than later.
He says this kind of “holding pattern” could last indefinitely something he finds unacceptable.
Elman doesn’t think the wait would be as long if the students involved were not Aboriginal and had lived in Southern Ontario. (Photo: provincialadvocate.on.ca)
