In Calgary, Indigenous women lead march for Tina Fontaine
‘We can have no more stolen sisters in this country.’
By JEREMY KLASZUS
On Sunday, hundreds of people rallied at Calgary’s Olympic Plaza and marched through downtown to honour Tina Fontaine, support her family and call for justice for Indigenous people in Canada.
Fontaine was a 15-year-old girl from the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba. On Thursday, a jury found Raymond Cormier not guilty of her 2014 death. Tina was in government care when her body, wrapped in a blanket, was pulled from Winnipeg’s Red River.
“Tina should have been shielded and she should have been protected,” said rally organizer Autumn Eagle Speaker, reading a statement from Fontaine’s family. “She was supposedly ‘in care.’ Tina endured a horrible end, wrapped in bedding and discarded in the river.”
“We promise to raise the truth of how this world did her wrong.”
At the rally—which came just two weeks after a similar rally in response to Gerald Stanley’s acquittal in the death of Colten Boushie—people wore blankets to honour Fontaine.
They marched through downtown to Reconciliation Bridge, where they made tobacco offerings to the water on behalf of Fontaine’s family.
Here is some of what speakers at the rally had to say—in their own words.
Deborah Green
We’re here today for Tina Fontaine. She’s one of many… We don’t even know the real numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous men and women, girls and boys in this country. That has to stop and we all have to play a part in that.
Indigenous lives matter. We are not expendable…
My sister, Eleanor Ewenin, is on the list. Her murder was never solved. Not ever solved. When you’re thinking of Indigenous women in Canada, remember the many that go unspoken.
We can have no more. No more stolen sisters in this country.
Lowa Beebe
We will continue to constantly come forward and say “it’s enough.”
We’re all asking for the same things in this country as citizens. We’re all asking for our children to go into this country and to find that dream that we all dream. To find the things that Tina dreamt of and that her family dreamt of for her.
Our treaty is 141 years old here in Treaty 7. And 141 years later, we are still asking for the same thing. We did not surrender our land. We did not surrender any of our resources. We wanted to live in harmony with those that were here.
And that’s what we’re still asking for today.
Gitz Crazyboy
We’re all here today for Tina. We’re all here for the people that we’ve lost. The ones in our prison systems, the ones that the justice system has failed, that the CPS has taken. All the people we’ve lost in our lives. All the intergenerational trauma we face. We’re here for all of them.
We’re here to try to save ourselves.
There’s two possibilities we have right now as Indigenous folks. One is that this government is going to wake up tomorrow and realize that we’re being treated as less — and they’re going to have some sense of moral obligation. Even though they’ve gone 151 years without doing it, they’re just going to wake up tomorrow…
Or the other truth is that they’re not. And if that’s the case, if they’re not going to do it, then we have to save ourselves. Because they’re not coming. They’re not. And if they’re not coming, nobody here is safe. From the smallest child to the elders that we have here, nobody is safe. We have to come together to take care of ourselves.
The media’s so good at portraying us as people who want and want and want and want. And we’re always asking for stuff. Or we are angry. Or we hate. Or we’re blinded.
All we’re asking is to be seen as niitsitapi, as human beings. The same kind of justice every other Canadian receives — that’s the only thing we want.
Drezus
I’m a Cree Anishinaabe from Saskatchewan. I spent a lot of time here in Calgary growing up. Experienced a lot of racism. Experienced a lot of unity, too, like today…
As men, we need to dig deep. All the way back to our childhoods if you have to, man. Don’t be afraid. Dig deep. Because we have these guys to look after. We sit with a lot of trauma. That’s okay. Face it. Face it as men. Look in the mirror. Learn to love yourself so we can love our people—and most importantly our young women and young men…
I’m out here today for Tina Fontaine, Colten Boushie, Colton Crowshoe, Barbara Kentner — the list goes on and on and on.
