The government is urging the family of Colleen Sillito to request a public fatality inquiry into her violent death earlier this month.
The family met the justice minister and the minister of the status of women looking for answers as to why the system failed to protect the 47-year-old woman from an ex-partner she feared.
“It’s tragic,” said Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley. “I think the big take-away message is that this was a person who was in need of protection and unfortunately we didn’t do an enormously good job of that.”
Ganley assured the family a public fatality inquiry is the best way to proceed, despite criticism that such inquiries are ineffective in saving lives.
Ganley said an inquiry can work.
“If the government does choose to act on them, hopefully they will be useful,” she told reporters after meeting with the family at the Alberta legislature.
“It is the case we’re looking at that process, but it’s for reasons exactly like this where a tragedy has occurred and we should be looking to ourselves to say, ‘What could we have done better to prevent this from happening again?” she said.
Fatality inquires are usually initiated by the medical examiner and the ministers expect that to occur in this case.
Status of Women Minister Shannon Phillips said her department is also reviewing the terms of reference for the Family Violence Death Review Committee as the best way to look at why Alberta has such a high rate of domestic violence and death.
Sillito’s former common-law partner, Paul Jacob, fatally shot Sillito before killing himself outside her Fort Saskatchewan home on Oct. 2.
