For nearly a decade, the mother of a missing Vancouver Island girl has lobbied the federal government for legislation that would match missing persons DNA with found human remains.
“Lindsey’s remains could be sitting somewhere in Canada in a coroner’s office and I would never know,” said Judy Peterson, whose 14-year-old daughter Lindsey Jill Nicholls disappeared in 1993.
It is believed Lindsey was hitchhiking and was last seen on a rural road outside Courtenay, B.C.
Speaking at RCMP headquarters yesterday on national missing children’s day, Peterson said her quest for the databank makes her feel like she’s still doing something to look for her daughter.
When Lindsey had been missing seven years, Peterson decided to enter her DNA to see if it matched the DNA of any unidentified human remains.
She said she was horrified to discovered that such a databank didn’t exist in Canada, or rather, she explained, the software existed, it just hadn’t been switched on.
“What if she has been murdered? What if her body is human remains somewhere?”
In 2003, Peterson received a call from then federal solicitor general Wayne Easter who told her the legislation was on the agenda.
Gary Lunn, the Liberal MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, introduced a DNA Identification Act in 2003, dedicating it as Lindsey’s Law. It still hasn’t passed.
“Naively I thought it would be passed that winter,” Peterson said. “In fact I went out and bought a coat to go to Ottawa. It’s almost worn out now.”
