‘Make it safe for our young people’: Hundreds march in Tina Fontaine’s memory

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This article was published 22/02/2018 (2498 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The message Friday was one of love and reckoning, as hundreds marched through Winnipeg streets in honour of Tina Fontaine.

The demonstration began at 10:30 a.m., outside the Winnipeg courthouse where Raymond Cormier, 56, was acquitted Thursday of second-degree murder in the 15-year-old girl’s death in August 2014. In the bitter morning cold, a prayer was given and the smell of burning sage and sweet grass filled the air, before people began streaming down York Avenue toward The Forks.

The prayer was led by Thelma Morrisseau, one of the march’s organizers, who asked for healing for Tina’s family and loved ones.

“This day is a day of love and peace and unity for our daughter, our granddaughter, our niece, our little sister that we have lost… We all feel it, too, because it could have been our daughter. It could have been our granddaughter. We don’t want this to continue. We want it to stop,” Morrisseau said.

As she spoke, Thelma Favel — Tina’s great-aunt, who raised the girl on Sagkeeng First Nation, 145 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg — inconsolably wept at the centre of the gathering, a red shawl wrapped around her slumped and shaking shoulders.

By the time the march got underway, some 400 people had gathered. The faces in the crowd represented a cross-section of Canadian society, unified under the banner of justice for Tina.

In the middle of the march, a truck drove slowly flying flags: one Canadian, one First Nations. Those walking waved flags of their own, or held signs and placards above their heads adorned with messages such as: “Every girl is our daughter”; “Honour our sisters”; and “Second-rate justice for First Nations people.”

Amid the quick, rhythmic beating of handheld drums, a loud cheer erupted from the front of the march, and echoed down the line like an audible wave.

In between chants for justice for Tina, demonstrators also referenced Colten Boushie, the 22-year-old Cree man shot to death in a confrontation with Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley in 2016. Earlier this month, Stanley was acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing, sparking nationwide outrage.

As the march made its way to the Oodena Sharing Circle at The Forks, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights loomed symbolically over the procession. Looking back toward the courthouse from the foot of the museum, the end of the line of people coming down York Avenue wasn’t visible.

By the time they had filled the sharing circle at The Forks, the sun had risen in the sky and the temperature along with it.

Favel was the first to speak; briefly, clutching sweet grass, roses and a feather in her hand, while doing her best to stay composed.

“Please, I just want the violence to stop. Make it safe for our young people. Tina, I know is here beside me right now… Thank you so much. My heart is just over pouring with love,” Favel said.

Others who spoke included: Niigaan Sinclair, professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba; Nahanni Fontaine, NDP MLA for St. John’s; Derrick Henderson, chief of Sagkeeng First Nation; Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs; and Chickadee Richard, an Anishinaabe elder.

While the speeches varied, the responses didn’t. Each time a speaker finished addressing the crowd, a large cheer erupted, accompanied by the banging of drums.

What Favel has lived with since Tina’s 72-pound body, wrapped in a duvet and weighed down with rocks, was pulled from the Red River in August 2014, is a “bloody nightmare,” said Nahanni Fontaine.

The politician also highlighted Sagkeeng First Nation has one of the highest rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the country.

“After years and years and years of leadership by MMIWG families, first and foremost, alongside Indigenous women who for the last 40 years have stood and fought and yelled and cried with our blood and our sweat and our tears, Tina Fontaine still does not have justice. She is representative of so many missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across the country,” the MLA said.

“She was our hope. She was families’ chance at justice. And that hope and faith in the community and the justice system and we all failed her. And that is what is so significant about Tina. She was just a baby.”

The crowd then grew quiet, as a moment of silence was observed in honour of Tina. For 60 seconds, all that could be heard was the soft sound of the wind and the breathing of those in the crowd.

Before the demonstration came to a close, Dumas delivered a fiery and impassioned speech, calling on Canadian society to finally deliver justice for Indigenous peoples.

“I’m very angry and I’m very upset with what happened yesterday. We tried to give credit to the system that it would be fair and would be just. But each and every time, that system smashes you in the face it reminds you that it’s a system of technicalities and its actually not about justice. We’ve been asking for justice for 40 years,” Dumas said.

“We want justice and we’ll have it and we’ll make sure that we get it. Because 40 years is too long to be talking. We demand it now and it’s going to happen now.”

In addition to the Winnipeg march, demonstrations in Tina’s honour had also been called for Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary and Halifax.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe

Ryan Thorpe
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Ryan Thorpe likes the pace of daily news, the feeling of a broadsheet in his hands and the stress of never-ending deadlines hanging over his head.

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