This plea is to the families of 20 missing moms, sisters and daughters whose names and photos occupy convicted serial-killer Willie Pickton's second charge sheet. In a few days a judge will invite the defence to respond to the Crown's bid to shelve further prosecutions involving the 20 women, at least until the appeals of Pickton's six second-degree murder convictions are known, and perhaps forever.
But the families argue there will be no closure for them and no justice for their loved ones until Pickton stands trial again.
Many of them seem hung up on the idea that only by means of more trials can there be justice for the women whose years of unexplained silence may be the imprisoned butcher's doing.
With all due respect, there is a more memorable, dignified way to honour the street workers whose servitude to heroin, crack, crystal meth -- or all of the above -- made them easy pickings for predators.
Let's take the $50 million, or whatever it's expected to cost to prosecute the lifer a second time, and even a third, considering the catalogue of remaining charges, and open a full-service, drug-rehab centre for female addicts in the Downtown Eastside who want off.
I can't think of a more satisfying, humane way to celebrate the missing women's lives, as well as to acknowledge their despair, than to give their sisters the option to flee from what they couldn't.
While the east side is home to hundreds of Vancouver's drug addicted, it also is a source of income to scores of well-meaning service workers intent on alleviating the physical destruction that using causes. In other words, they make heavy drug use safer for addicts.
Neither they, nor the multimillion-dollar government-funded services they provide, devote much time or resources to helping junkies clean up.
Go figure: Governments spend more public funds providing clean needles, crack-pipe paraphernalia and injection sinks for addicts than they do maintaining detox and treatment beds for them.
It's easier for a druggie to find a clean rig or safe spot to shoot up than to find a safe place to clean up.
But what's most amazing is the lack of a co-ordinated team approach to helping recovering addicts. Finding out what is available, when and where is a daunting task. Imagine the difficulty for women whose brains are addled by years of drugs, sexual abuse and rejection.
I can count on two hands the number of inpatient withdrawal beds for women in the DTES: the Salvation Army's Harbour Light does its best with funding from Vancouver Coastal Health for six bunk beds wedged into an otherwise bare, institutional-type room. All are occupied.
The next step after withdrawal is stabilization: women just days off the drugs need time to regain their health and flush the dope from their bodies before entering the next phase: a long-term treatment facility that, ideally, provides life-skills training, high-school education, job opportunities, financial aid, etc.
And that's where panic sets in. At Harbour Light, otherwise known as Cordova Detox, a worker spends most of her day trying to tee-up rehab beds for women who have progressed through detox and stabilization.
Timing is crucial: if an addict who is struggling to stay clean is spurned because of a shortage of beds, you've lost her.
Manager Nancy McConnell says over the years they've lost many women to the streets because of a lack of beds.
"I expected an outpouring of public sympathy and an effort to build more facilities since the Pickton trial," she said. "But nothing has changed."
A relative of Dianne Rock, one of the 20 missing women, said she didn't want her sister's story gathering dust in a lawyer's abandoned legal file folder.
But how about on a plaque at the entrance of a rehab centre that offers her street sisters hope and the chance to escape a similar death sentence?
