The March for Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women

Yesterday I went to the march for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, trans, and two-spirited women. My understanding is every February 14th, there is a march, vigil or demonstration of some kind across each province in Canada. This march is designed to raise awareness that the problems related to violence against native women are not actually solved yet. Women still get murdered and go missing without much concern. 

There is little public push for accountability for the crimes committed. 

Native women experience violence at a much worse rate than other demographics in Canada. There are many stories that have been documented where systemic patterns of murder are ignored by police. Many of these cases remain unsolved allowing whomever committed the acts of violence to strike again. Incentivizing others to pursue actions by not penalizing perpetrators accordingly. 

A starting point for Google could be the Highway of Tears, which according to Wikipedia, had a victim as recently as last year. You’ll notice on the Wiki page how the RCMP says there are less victims than the Aboriginal organizations who keep track.

The government doesn’t seem to care about solving the problems

This issue gets tricky because the main plot points of yesteryear played out before we were all alive. However, those residential schools were open during my life. Some of those 80 year olds out there are guilty. For generations our government levied all kinds of hate and discrimination at a policy level against indigenous groups. 

The government has done a bunch of wild stuff to native folk including:

• Stealing land while violating treaties.

• Stealing children and placing them into schools where they were beaten into assimilation. In too many cases, children were killed and buried in mass graves. 

• Systematically annihilating the Inuit sled dog population to keep the “inuit savages” out of Montreal. 

• Failing to investigate cases of murdered & missing women in a timely fashion. 

• Forced sterilization of indigenous women.

There is probably a lot more.

I’m not an expert on these topics but fast research unearths a lot. The reality is our government has treated indigenous communities really poorly. There was a lot of grandstanding about reconciliation and bridging some gaps from Trudeau’s administration. 

The government even made September 30th a holiday (that Quebec ignored, since as Legault says, there is no systemic racism here). Otherwise the government has not done a whole lot.  

As it stands there are 181 measures in this “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act Action Plan” document. My understanding is that the government has only implemented 2 measures so far based on what was said last night. 

It seems like many issues don’t exist outside of campaign trails.

How a march works

In our city, any demonstration or protest needs to be registered with the police ahead of time. There needs to be a clear start point and end point. You have to give the cops an itinerary and in exchange the police are your security. This is even true for anti-police protests. 

From my limited experiences with marches you will arrive at the meetup location. There will be some speakers and special guests who explain the cause. For the missing & murdered indigenous women crowd there were people whose family members had been killed and other community activists/leaders. They share their stories speaking on the pain and rage they are feeling. There was also a vigil. 

Then there is the actual march part. Here you follow the route taken and chant, trying to draw attention. The folk in the Apple Store looked perplexed when we stopped right in front of their entrance (to let the crowd catch up). Once you arrive at the end point, there are more speakers & demonstrations.

The idea is to get people to pay attention and raise awareness, educating those who come. Yesterday we marched from Cabot Square to the Place du Canada Tower. Any just protest will capture the media’s attention and ideally people spread those articles. The people eating food in restaurants or engaging in commerce get this glimpse into the solidarity of the movement as the group marches by.

It feels a lot like being at a concert. Instead of just vibing to a song on your own, you are caught up in a wave of group emotion. Marches have a large number of people galvanizing behind the same goal. Seeing how many people are in pain to this day, visually, adds a lot of weight to their voices.

I felt a lot of passion from the stories I heard. I don’t know what else I can do but share my experience, and ask a valid question.

Where are all the men at?

This was the second Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women march that I went on. A big part of why I went is Bonnie works at the Native Women’s Shelter. Since she is so involved in the community, and it’s Valentine’s Day, I figured I would go. Both years I had the same thought, it’s weird how few men were present.

I guess that’s inherently a big reason why there’s a march. Men don’t seem to care that much. If Bonnie wasn’t there on Valentine’s Day I don’t know if I’d be there myself. I’m part of the problem in truth, not caring much about things that don’t directly concern me. 

Since I was there I got to hear the cries for men to come protect the women. In most cases it’s men committing these acts of violence against women. We need to take a more active role in preventing the violence.

I’m sure most people weren’t aware the march/vigil was happening. I can’t speak to its advertising efforts. There are a lot of causes out there and it’s overwhelming to keep up. Still if we were to focus on the most at risk populations in Canada, we’d all put more effort into staying informed.

Maybe there’s a better strategy out there.

Maybe people don’t see the point

For the most part I find modern protesting to be wildly unsuccessful on our continent. There have been modern European protests that have shown me we can fight back against the government. It just may be that on our side of the pond we’re less do or die about it.

I remember when Greta Thunberg came and half a million people filled the streets of Montreal. Then she left and nothing changed, despite it being championed as a huge win. Far too often a lot of protest efforts end up being aimless grandstanding.

While I may feel that way, something wonderful happened yesterday. One of the missing girls saw that her family was looking for her. She reached out and told them she was okay. One of the organizers had a read a statement from the family and it reached the girl. Maybe my preconceptions about the point of this kind of demonstration were wrong. The value may just be beyond what I know. 

On the topic of indigenous protection, the government actually has a mandate to follow, focusing the goal even more. The people are pretty clear in what they want, the government to live up to its end of the promise. In order for the government to care, the people need to show them they expect them to care. The masses should be outraged that the government is not honouring their end of the deal. 

Instead, it’s just business as usual. It requires all of us to put that pressure on powers that be. If you feel pulling up at a march isn’t how you want to contribute, take some time to think on what you can do. It’s the apathy that lets them win.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone