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The quasi-judicial format of family hearings at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is drawing some criticism from the relative of a victim.
Joan Jack, a lawyer and family member of a murdered indigenous woman, expects to testify today on the closing day of hearings in Whitehorse.
She’ll be remembering her sister-in-law, who was murdered in Yukon in the 1970s.
Jack says the formal processes of the inquiry, including the swearing-in of witnesses, is making many participants uncomfortable.
She also wants to know why the inquiry’s lead legal counsel is not indigenous.
Jack says all Canadians need to hear the uncomfortable truths revealed during testimony to the inquiry, saying that while the details are disturbing, the only way to make progress is if everyone suffers together.

The $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline began shipping oil for customers on Thursday, as Native American tribes that opposed the project vowed to continue fighting.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners announced that the 1,200-mile line carrying North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a distribution point in Illinois had begun commercial service. The Dakota Access pipeline and the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline from Illinois to the Gulf Coast together make up the $4.8 billion Bakken Pipeline system, which ETP said has commitments for about 520,000 barrels of oil daily.
“The pipeline will transport light, sweet crude oil from North Dakota to major refining markets in a more direct, cost-effective, safer and more environmentally responsible manner than other modes of transportation, including rail or truck,” the company said in a statement.

The first new houses are on the way for a Manitoba First Nations community devastated by flooding six years ago.
The Lake St. Martin reserve was hit hard in the spring of 2011 and almost 2,000 people had to leave their homes.
Last November, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada put out a bid for tenders to build 150 homes in the community.
Many have been living in hotels and rental suites in Winnipeg and elsewhere during the long wait to return home.
Matix Lumber held a celebration Thursday morning to mark the first home leaving its yard and heading to the reserve, about 225 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.
Lake St. Martin Chief Adrian Sinclair, members of his council and representatives of the provincial and federal government attended the ceremony.
In January, the Manitoba Court of Appeal approved a class-action lawsuit by four First Nations, including Lake St. Martin, against the provincial government.
The central question is whether the province’s action to fight the high water caused the extensive Interlake flooding that affected 7,000 people.
Manitoba responded to the flood by diverting water from the Assiniboine River system to Lake Manitoba. The First Nations argue that spared the urban south from the brunt of the damage at the expense of their area.
The province has always denied the allegation.
The federal government’s cost of accommodating displaced First Nations members had topped $90 million by 2014.