Around 50 people gathered in Peace and Friendship Park in downtown Halifax for a rally bringing awareness to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls on Feb. 20.
Heavy rain and strong winds couldn’t stop dedicated marchers. Throughout the rally, signs and umbrellas blew in the gusts as participants marched and reflected.
“MMIW [missing and murdered Indigenous women] is a mass genocide in Canada that has been going on for over 50 years,” said Kyra Gilbert, one of the organizers of the rally. “It’s a continuation of the systematic racialization against Indigenous people. We are standing out in the rain today for our sisters because they died in the rain and they’ll continue to die in any sort of weather.”
The significance of marching
Organizer Alex Marchand said this event is an opportunity to show the governments that the crisis of missing and murdered women and girls isn’t being ignored.
“You know, when we had this mass outpouring of support at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, you saw bills being changed and people taking real action,” Marchand said. “This is our way to give the community in Kjipuktuk [Mi’kmaq name for Halifax] that opportunity, to really show that they are about it.”
Participants were asked to wear red to the march, and many also carried red signs.
“The colour red is the only colour that the spirits can see,” said Gilbert. “It calls them home, in tradition.”
Why Valentine’s Day?
The march was originally scheduled for Valentine’s Day. The date was picked to coincide with another missing and murdered Indigenous women rally in British Columbia that has been running for 35 years.
“The significance of doing it on Valentine’s Day is that some of our loved ones were taken away, our sisters, our brothers, our lovers, our partners and we don’t have that time to cherish with them to remind them that we love them,” Gilbert said.
The march went from Peace and Friendship Park on Hollis Street to the gazebo in the Halifax Public Gardens, where organizers and volunteers hung up red dresses — meant to symbolize the missing and murdered Indigenous women. Marchers gathered and listened to emotional speeches and “The Honour Song,” — a spiritual anthem acknowledging respect for Mi’kmaw culture. It is performed at gatherings and celebrations, typically with a hand drum.
Stacey Gomez, a rally participant, sang along to “The Honour Song.”
“I think that it’s a responsibility for all of us here in Canada to be aware of what is happening to our Indigenous relatives and take action,” said Gomez. “Today is also about love, love for our community including Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit people who are going missing. We feel that heartbreak.”
The rally aims to spread awareness that there is a genocide of Indigenous women happening in Canada. The Canadian government launched the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2016, but Gilbert isn’t pleased with their progress.
According to the 2022 National Action Plan progress report, an implementation plan intended to bring awareness and justice still needs to be put into action. This would require the inclusion of families and survivors of MMIWG to be at the forefront of the action plan and develop an accountability structure for the National Action Plan.
“There are a bunch of calls to justice that the government has not met. They’ve only met about maybe 10 to date and there is over 200 total,” Gilbert said. “We’re calling out to the government and also calling out to our sisters and loved ones in ceremony. Because even though they are not here in person, they are here in spirit and they deserve to be honoured.”
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