A public inquiry is an official investigation into a specific issue or event that is ordered by a municipal, provincial, territorial or federal governmental body. Public inquiries are typically ordered in response to matters of significant public concern and tend to attract a great deal of media interest. Public inquiries have a long history in Canada. Until 2006, public inquiries were known as ‘Royal Commissions’. It was a Royal Commission which, in 1840, led to the passage of the Act of Union, establishing a single province of Canada. Since Confederation, over 500 public inquiries have been commissioned covering topics ranging from the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River, the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182, the contamination of the national blood supply in the 1970s and 1980s, and the disproportionally high rates of violence and homicide against Indigenous women and girls. Public inquiries examine the facts underlying an issue or event, including any factors that may have caused or contributed to it, and provide recommendations to the government to improve public policy.
