The province’s former Attorney General said the police’s and public’s view towards women who are subject of violent crimes have changed over the last 15 years.
“The public, by and large, was indifferent because they were sex-trade workers, they were aboriginal, they were poor, all of those things and the public didn’t pay attention to them,” Wally Oppal said.
Oppal led B.C.’s inquiry into missing and murdered women and said he really saw attitudes change once the Robert Pickton case came up.
“It was only after Pickton was arrested in 2002 when the police started to dig up the property, and they realized the gravity of the situation that the public became aware of.”
He said law enforcement is now more sympathetic.
He was a guest on CKNW’s Steele and Drex.
WATCH: Salmon River Road investigation has neighbour concerned
At least five women have gone missing along the stretch between Vernon and Sicamous over the last 20 months.
RCMP investigators say it is too soon to connect the missing women in the north Okanagan to human remains found at a Salmon Arm property that were found on Oct. 16.