Many expressed anger and sorrow at the People’s Gathering hosted by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in Carleton University’s Residence Commons on Feb. 27.
The event was held in response to the national roundtable on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) in Ottawa on the same day.
The AFN worked together with a number of other indigenous people’s organizations to facilitate a public forum where elders, leaders, families of MMIWG, and the general public could reflect on potential solutions to the problem.
An RCMP report released in 2014 documented more than 1,200 cases of MMIWG in Canada over the past 30 years, culminating to 16 per cent of murdered women overall.
Recently, the federal government turned down the request for a national inquiry into the cases of MMIWG, igniting more anger and public discussion over the issue.
Survivors and family members from all over Canada, including British Columbia, Nunavut, and Manitoba came to Carleton to share their stories. One of them was Dan Saunders from Happy Valley, Labrador, whose daughter was kidnapped and later found dead.
“She was murdered in cold blood,” Saunders said to the audience. “Those murderers, they murdered her at the same time, so they should be tried at the same time, not with two separate trials. But that’s our wonderful justice system.”
Like Saunders, many expressed frustration with how the justice system dealt with the cases of MMIWG. The gathering strove to open up discussion about three priority areas for action: prevention and awareness, community safety, and justice responses and policing measures.
Margaret Roscelli, the executive director of health for the Sioux Valley Health Centre, stressed the importance of Indigenous community-based solutions for the issue.
Roscelli talked about a project she is working on with other Indigenous groups: a healing centre to be built on the grounds of the former Brandon Indian Residential School in Manitoba.
“Healing is very self-centered, focused thing that you have to do with the assistance and support of other people,” said Roscelli. “It’s a major undertaking but we’ll get there . . . Now we have all the time to try heal ourselves and push aside all those effects that kept us downtrodden and marginalized, to try overturn them. It’ll be a slow start, but we’ll get there.”
Attendee Larissa Desrosiers, a Carleton music student, was encouraged by the People’s Gathering overall.
“The most important thing about [the topic of MMIW] is that it’s being discussed,” said Desrosiers. “We’re taking action, we’re standing up, we’re slowly building our networks. We’re making progress, as small as it is, and I think it’s an amazing thing.”
