She was last seen in a smoke shop four years ago and then disappeared without a trace, a mother of four whose family has been in anguish ever since.
Erin Brooks, an Indigenous woman who was 38 years old when she was last caught on a surveillance camera in St. Mary’s Smoke Shop in Fredericton on Dec. 27, 2021, has been the subject of vigils and a $65,000 reward to anyone who can help lead authorities to her whereabouts.
The Fredericton Police Force suspect she was killed but has not released many details of its investigation.
“The homicide investigation of Erin Brooks is still active, and we continue to seek information that may help our detectives,” said police spokeswoman Sonya Gilks on Tuesday.
For people who hang red dresses in public places to remind others of the high number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Brooks’s plight is another painful part of the depressing tally.
According to Statistics Canada, from 2009 to 2021, 490 Indigenous women and girls in Canada were victims of homicide, about six times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous women and girls. And many experts believe the statistics are underreported.
The shocking problem was also on the mind of New Brunswick’s auditor general last week when he released one of his latest reports, this time on a two-year action plan by the provincial government on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls that was buried.
Paul Martin was deeply critical of the Department of Women’s Equality for neglecting an action plan in September 2023 called Weaving Our Voices Together with a to-do list of 39 items. It had a two-year completion target but was inexplicitly sidelined after one meeting between government and First Nations leaders.
It’s time to stand up and take responsibility and do what you said you’re going to do.
– Paul Martin
As far as his audit could tell, only three or four of 39 actionable items were dealt with.
“They have a responsibility to the Indigenous community, to all people who are at risk,” Martin told reporters at a news conference last week, noting that the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls had been a longstanding issue in Canada.
“The national report has been issued, I believe it’s almost 10 years ago now. We have a plan to finally look at it for New Brunswick, and it’s sitting on a desk with nothing happening. That’s unacceptable.
“It’s time to stand up and take responsibility and do what you said you’re going to do.”
The former Progressive Conservative government led by Blaine Higgs promised in its 2020 Throne Speech action in response to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
The plan was finally released in September 2023, with different provincial government departments assigned various items on the list that would supposedly help Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people (two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, and others from vulnerable groups who often suffer from violence).
The Department of Women’s Equality was supposed to co-ordinate the effort.
The minister at the time, Tammy Scott-Wallace, wrote in the plan that missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people would not be forgotten and “their truth will live on through the deliberate and thoughtful steps we take together to end violence.”
Martin said his office did not evaluate the plan or whether it was any good. It simply performed an audit to see if anything was done, between Sept. 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025, when two different ministers were in charge, first Sherry Wilson, a Tory who had taken over from Scott-Wallace, and then Lyn Chantal Boudreau, who was appointed when the Liberals took office last year.
It turns out very little was done. The established oversight committees had not met since the launch of the plan in 2023 and there was no system set up to measure any progress.
Martin was also troubled by the lack of data. No one, seemingly, in New Brunswick was tracking data on the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
In one of the department’s responses to his office’s recommendations, it said “formal data collection through national and provincial statistics is unreliable due to the suppression of data for privacy reasons.” The department then promised to consult with the New Brunswick Advisory Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People to develop a plan for obtaining relevant data.
Completing a couple of actions on your watch should be embarrassing to you.
-Tammy Scott-Wallace
Scott-Wallace, the former minister, blamed the Liberal government for letting the report collect dust, even though it appears it was her previous Tory government that shelved it.
“This minister has had this file for more than a year, yet the auditor general couldn’t even get a consistent response from her department on what has been accomplished in all that time,” Scott-Wallace thundered during question period on Thursday.
“Some documents say one action was completed. Others say two. At most, some say four. So what is it, minister? Would you pick door number one, door number two, or door number four? No matter what door you choose, completing a couple of actions on your watch should be embarrassing to you.”
The minister told the House, as she had told reporters earlier in the week, that work would start on the report immediately.
“We have taken steps beyond what the report calls for, of course,” Boudreau said. “We have certainly already had several meetings with Indigenous communities and Indigenous women in the province.”
She added that “Indigenous women are always at the heart of our work. You can also see in the report that we are working in an interdepartmental and intergovernmental manner. We will ensure that the work is done collaboratively to provide leadership.
“If any opposition members of Parliament would like to sit down with us, we will certainly be willing to work with them.”
The auditor general’s findings didn’t surprise Pam Montour. Originally from Woodstock First Nation, Montour is executive director of Indigenous Women of the Wabanaki Territory, whose offices are in Fredericton.
She said her organization hadn’t participated in the Weaving our Voices Together study and expressed skepticism about some of its 39 actionable items, such as “explore opportunities for the creation of culturally safe workplaces within the government of New Brunswick and potential for private sector employers.”
She guessed that the Higgs government did not move forward on many of the items because they cost a lot of money.
“It goes back to, how much do they really care and are they just writing this because they have to?” she said in an interview. “They just want to write a report and say they did something.”
Montour said if politicians and governments really wanted to help protect Indigenous women and girls, they could provide better mental health services and support for people with addictions.
They could also do more, she said, to stop the trafficking of women and girls, and ensure the men who force women into prostitution are successfully prosecuted and imprisoned.
We’re hoping that when we finish, it won’t be just for us. It would help any women who goes missing.
– Pam Montour
She pointed out these measures could also help women and girls who aren’t Indigenous. Her point was any people who suffer trauma, as many Indigenous people have, can fall victim to drugs and crime.
Montour says what Indigenous women often need are more safe spaces, one of the reasons her organization has rented a lodge run by the Native Women’s Association of Canada in the village of Gagetown to run workshops for the families of missing Indigenous women and girls.
“It’s a beautiful spot, 16 acres, with apple and pears trees on the water. It’s a safe space.”
The move is part of a five-year plan her organization has developed to provide a coordinated emergency response to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
“We’re hoping that when we finish, it won’t be just for us. It would help any women who goes missing. It would have a strategy and tools and toolkit for communities to help prevent and deal with these tragedies.”
