A proposed $600 million class action lawsuit has been launched by the mother of a missing Indigenous woman from Saskatchewan, alleging the RCMP has been systemically negligent in its investigations into murdered and missing Indigenous women across Canada.Diane BigEagle, mother of Danita Faith BigEagle, is the named plaintiff in the proposed suit, filed Thursday in Regina by the Merchant Law Group. The action has not yet been certified and, while the allegations have not been proven in court, her story and those of other cases are familiar.BigEagle’s daughter went missing from Regina on Feb. 11, 2007, and “must be presumed to be dead,” reads the claim. BigEagle met with the RCMP more than 50 times and “seemed to listen” on a couple of occasions “but most of the time they did not write anything down and they did not seem to be paying any attention to her,” the suit alleges.It also states that BigEagle, in a number of group meetings held by the RCMP, was with other families of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Born in 1984, her daughter, if alive, would be 34 today. BigEagle has been caring for her daughter’s two children.The suit, filed in Federal Court, was brought on behalf of immediate and extended family of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. In the case of murders, the homicide must have been reported to the RCMP and remain unsolved. Missing women must have been gone for more than 30 days and the disappearance reported to the RCMP.“The unacceptably high rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls is well documented and known both nationally and internationally and has drawn criticism from national and international human rights watchdogs,” reads the lawsuit. “These calls for action have been in practical effect ignored” by the RCMP.Under a heading of “Systemic Negligence,” the suit alleges the members of the class have been “subjected ...
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