The federal Minister of Indigenous Services acknowledges the start-up time has been a little slow to act on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Act.

Speaking during a visit to the Adams Lake Indian Band near Chase, Seamus O’Regan says implementing the more-than-200 recommendations won’t happen overnight.

“We have to talk to the people, we have to work together. Because that’s the only way you get abiding, long-standing solutions, when everybody has worked together and everybody has bought in to those solutions. That’s what really important. So it means that the start up time is a little slower, but it means the solutions that we arrive at are long-standing.”

O’Regan was responding to criticism from Neskonlith Indian Band Chief Judy Wilson that the MMIW report has so far not been acknowledged by levels of government.