It’s been nearly 25 years since the Jack family disappeared.
Ronald Jack, a married father of two, called his mother in the
early-morning hours of Aug. 2, 1989, to say his family would be
It’s been nearly 25 years since the Jack family disappeared.
Ronald Jack, a married father of two, called his mother in the
early-morning hours of Aug. 2, 1989, to say his family would be
hitting the road for a couple of weeks. Mr. Jack said he had been
offered a job at a logging camp or ranch and his family – including
his sons aged 9 and 4 – would be joining him.
The call was made from a phone about 50 kilometres west of
Prince George, on a section of road known as the Highway of Tears.
What happened to the family remains a mystery, but local First
Nations groups suspect foul play and say the story demonstrates how
Highway 16, a road offering a route away from the poverty of the
region, can leave people vulnerable to predation.
Like most of the young aboriginal women who have disappeared or
been murdered along the notorious stretch, the Jacks were on the
road because they were poor and the highway led to the promise of a
new job. Others have found themselves hitchhiking because they
couldn’t afford any other way to travel the vast, remote
“Poverty breeds a form of vulnerability,” said Wally Oppal, who
chaired B.C.’s public inquiry on missing women and travelled the
Highway of Tears corridor as part of his work. “There’s no
empirical evidence that says that one thing leads to another, but I
think our common sense tells us that people there living in that
area have been subjected to an inordinate amount of violence.
There’s one common factor. It comes back to poverty and
The 2011 National Household Survey found the unemployment rate
in Prince Rupert was 14.6 per cent overall. For aboriginals,
however, it was 24.4 per cent. (The overall national rate is 7.8
Aboriginal unemployment was higher than overall unemployment in
each community along the Highway of Tears – 21.7 per cent to 7.8
per cent in Terrace, 13.2 per cent to 7.8 per cent in Smithers,
20.6 per cent to 9.9 per cent in Prince George, and so on.
Unemployment has remained higher in the north than other sections
of the province in subsequent years, including in labour force
numbers released by Statistics Canada for April.
Mr. Oppal described some of the conditions he witnessed as
shocking and unacceptable, with substandard housing and poor
“I think you’ll find, in any case involving a predator or a
serial killer, the victims of the people preyed upon are vulnerable
people,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Oppal’s report, released in December, 2012, built on major
work from six years earlier.
In 2006, First Nations groups held a Highway of Tears symposium
aimed at improving safety along the 700-kilometre stretch from
Prince Rupert to Prince George. The symposium’s long-term
recommendation was to address what was forcing people to the
highway in the first place – First Nation intergenerational
The symposium r