Between 1980 and 2012, the RCMP recorded 46 murders of Indigenous women in Quebec. However, researchers from the Iskweu Project and Quebec Native Women (QNW) have identified over 200 instances of missing or murdered Indigenous women, girls, transgender and Two-Spirit people. Critics say this disparity reveals the failure of Canadian institutions to recognize the true scale of the MMIWG2S+ crisis.
Released last March, QNW’s mapping project documented 124 distinct MMIWG2S+ cases (96 murders, 14 missing found deceased, and 14 active missing persons) from 1950 to 2026. By factoring in suspicious deaths and disappearances involving aggravating circumstances, such as institutional neglect, the project has collected 220 life stories.
Though these numbers dwarf official homicide statistics, Iskweu Project researcher Simone Page said they represent “the tip of the iceberg.” The actual totals may be far higher, but researchers face systemic barriers to collecting data.
For starters, Page said that during the “first 24 hours” of a crime being reported, many Indigenous deaths are ruled as “accidents” or “suicides,” despite community members identifying them as suspicious. Once these dismissive classifications are made, the cases are rarely reinvestigated and are not entered into MMIWG statistics.
Page noted police reports often neglect to identify victims as Indigenous, particularly when identification depends on an officer’s perception. Even if the identity is recorded, she said “there’d be no way to go into the software program and keyword search that,” effectively turning the records into a digital “trash heap.” As well, management systems use binary gender categories, rendering Two-Spirit people invisible.
For the Iskweu Project’s death data to be corroborated with government records, researchers typically require a coroner’s report. Page observed that only 2-3% of suspicious or untimely deaths in Quebec are actually investigated by the coroner’s office, due to a resource shortage. This means a large number of suspicious deaths never obtain the official documentation necessary to be included in MMIWG registries.
Policing in Quebec is fragmented between the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, and municipal and Indigenous police forces. When data migrates between these systems, cases can easily be lost or forgotten. In 2024 alone, Indigenous police opened over 2,500 violence-related cases, most of which never make it into provincial or federal statistics.
The RCMP only registers cases within their specific jurisdictions, allowing many cases to fall through the cracks of other police services.
“The RCMP is siloed,” said activist and survivor Meggie Cywink. “They’re only worried about their little catchment, their little area.”
The community-led research approach by QNW and the Iskweu Project prioritizes direct testimony from families. Page believes a database without personal stories would be “insensitive” and contribute to “dehumanization” of victims. That said, because research depends on family reports, victims who were estranged from their families or severed by hospital and residential school systems at a young age can’t be counted in the final dataset.
Some families declined to participate in the project. After years of sharing their trauma with the National Inquiry to little consequence, they chose not to continue relaying their stories. Disbelief towards Indigenous communities is baked into the Canadian legal system. Testimony about violent partners is often dismissed as hearsay and excluded from trials.
QNW regards MMIWG2S+ as the latest chapter in a story of colonialism, encompassing residential schools, the Sixties Scoop and community displacement. These events severed individuals, particularly children, from their communities and Indigenous identities, resulting in many victims becoming “Jane Does” in bureaucratic records.
QNW’s research found that health services and the youth protection were involved in 46% of documented disappearances. When Indigenous children were put into the hospital system, died and never returned to their families, their deaths were not added to official homicide numbers.
About 75% to 80% of documented disappearances in Quebec occurred outside Indigenous communities. When Indigenous women move to cities to escape violence or poverty, they are vulnerable to coercive control and exploitation due to their lack of community ties.
When such women disappear, Page said, police may say, “Well, does she use drugs? Is she homeless? Is she involved in sex work? [If] she’s living a high-risk lifestyle, we’re not really going to look that hard.”
Advocates urge the adoption of national standards on how police record Indigeneity and deal with missing persons reports. They also demand an independent Indigenous-led oversight body to monitor police conduct and reopen historical cases written off as accidental.
“Families are no longer asking to be consulted as an afterthought,” said Cywink. “Families are asking to lead.”