Mystery and Misery Surround Canada's Missing Women

Canwest News Service investigative series reveals staggering statistics

• Press Release
• Source: Canwest Global Communications Corp.
• On 10:42 am EDT, Friday October 23, 2009

OTTAWA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--They disappear from small towns and major cities, from native reserves to the suburbs, leaving behind devastated families, confounded investigators and gaping holes in their communities.

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In a special editorial series – Missing Women – Canwest News Service reveals that more than 1500 women are missing in Canada. The four-part series starts this Saturday, October 24^th in newspapers and on newspaper websites including: Victoria Times Colonist, Vancouver Sun, The Province, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Windsor Star, Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette.

Missing Women takes an in-depth look at several cases from across Canada, with an emphasis on who these women are and what is being done to find them. The stories include some particularly shocking narratives and reports including:

• CNS reveals that the Canadian Police Information Centre has more than 1,500 missing women on file. Eighteen of these women disappeared on B.C.’s “Highway of Tears”, and no province or territory is beyond the scope of these tragic numbers.
• Sisters in Spirit, an initiative launched by the Native Women’s Association of Canada to speak for the nation’s 500 missing and murdered aboriginal women, is finally having its voice heard – ironically, just as their funding could be cut.
• RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Clary, a senior investigator in the Pickton case, tells of the bittersweet satisfaction of providing closure to some families while leaving so many others in anguish. The heartache of families left behind is something that haunts the officers tasked to help find Canada’s missing women.
• A Vancouver Island woman continues her drive to expand the country’s use of a National DNA Database. Judy Peterson’s daughter Lindsay disappeared in 1993 at the age of 14.

Missing Women, a CNS feature series is on newsstands and online starting October 24, 2009.

About Canwest News Service

Canwest News Service (CNS), a division of Canwest Publishing Inc. provides news, sports, entertainment, photography, financial and feature information and data to Canwest's Canadian newspapers, television news operations, online properties and a number of third party clients in Canada and the United States. CNS draws content from its own team, including a group of premier news, feature and specialist writers and from journalists working throughout Canwest's newspaper, television and online outlets. CNS operates the Canadian News Desk, which co-coordinates Canwest's news gathering and content sharing throughout Canada and around the world. CNS has the country's largest news bureau in Ottawa, and has bureaus in Washington, New York, Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Paris and Shanghai.

About Canwest Global Communications Corp.

Canwest Global Communications Corp. (www.canwest.com) is Canada’s largest media company. In addition to owning the Global Television Network, operating 18 industry-leading specialty channels and having ownership in 5 specialty channels, Canwest is Canada’s largest publisher of English language paid daily newspapers and owns and operates more than 80 online properties.

Canwest Publishing
Phyllise Gelfand, 416-442-2936
Director of Communications
pgelfand@canwest.com