Shirley McLean
APTN News
In early November Melissa Carlick wrote a letter to the commissioners of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls asking if her termination as community liaison worker could be rescinded and that she has the opportunity to resign.
She told APTN News that as of today, she hasn’t received a response.
Carlick said she her termination came without warning.
“Really boom you’re done because you either push back or you don’t agree with what’s going on,“ she said.
Carlick spent six months with the commission as a front line and health worker and said there is a big disconnect between the commissioners and the front-line workers.
“They don’t hear you they don’t listen to you it’s just about what makes me look good and if you don’t then you’re out and if you push back you’re gone,” she said.
Carlick said the commission fired her during the hearings in Edmonton on Nov. 7.
She said they told her she was unprepared.
Sources have told APTN Carlick was fired after members of the National Family Advisory Circle complained in a conference call and letters to the commissioners and senior staff that families complained of mistreatment by the inquiry.
Carlick said she was the lead on the Edmonton hearings and arrived six weeks before and started to organize families, look for a venue, do health intakes, and find spiritual support for the hearings.
She said the task was too big of a job to plan in just six weeks for a person who’s not from Alberta.
And she said the working conditions were tough
“We were working 24-7,” she said. “Sometimes just all day all the time it was just a lot of planning a lot time, a lot of pressure and no support, no debrief.”
Carlick along with two other front-line workers have been let go from the inquiry in the last month and legal counsel Karen Snowshoe also handed in her resignation.
That brings the number of inquiry employees who have resigned or fired to 19 in this year alone.
Sue Caribou, a member of the family advisory circle also resigned Thursday.
Please APTN, do some grammatical and spell checking with your articles. It’s not “your”, it’s “you’re”. So much missing punctuation as well. It’s so important for these kinds of causes to have social media shares but it loses integrity when the editor and news publisher doesn’t bother to review content before it’s circulating on the internet. Pay someone to copy edit if you need to. Please.
Please APTN, do some grammatical and spell checking with your articles. It’s not “your”, it’s “you’re”. So much missing punctuation as well. It’s so important for these kinds of causes to have social media shares but it loses integrity when the editor and news publisher doesn’t bother to review content before it’s circulating on the internet. Pay someone to copy edit if you need to. Please.
Yikes..bring back the people who did the pre-inquiry if you must. This sounds very disorganized.
Yikes..bring back the people who did the pre-inquiry if you must. This sounds very disorganized.
This appears to look like a photo op for the government, and the commissioners of the Inquiry How could this stand when their are real people with terrible loss who are being hurt by this sham. Good for Ms. Carlick to speak out the truth. Damn the Commissioners, and the Government for their total lack of empathy. How would they feel if it was their daughter, sister, wife, or mother who was Missing, or murdered without ever getting answers or justice? Good for APTN for a great interview.
This appears to look like a photo op for the government, and the commissioners of the Inquiry How could this stand when their are real people with terrible loss who are being hurt by this sham. Good for Ms. Carlick to speak out the truth. Damn the Commissioners, and the Government for their total lack of empathy. How would they feel if it was their daughter, sister, wife, or mother who was Missing, or murdered without ever getting answers or justice? Good for APTN for a great interview.
It’s absolutely shameful and demeaning to all the hurting families because in the end it’s those people who are suffering the most. The way things are being handled just proof this is a big mixup or farce . Time for some people to be held accountable.
It’s absolutely shameful and demeaning to all the hurting families because in the end it’s those people who are suffering the most. The way things are being handled just proof this is a big mixup or farce . Time for some people to be held accountable.