.hangryinuk on how we continue to fail Indigenous families, survivors and victims
By now you’ve heard how the many institutions and systems entrusted to protect us failed Tina Fontaine, the little 15-year-old girl who was found dead on August 17, 2014, in Winnipeg’s Red River, wrapped in a duvet cover, weighed down by rocks. A jury found Raymond Cormier not guilty of second-degree murder. There were tears and audible gasps of disbelief from the crowd in the courtroom.
I remember when I first heard Tina was missing. It was just before what would have been my sister Loretta’s 27th birthday. Loretta was murdered a few months before Tina, in February 2014. You may remember her story. She was killed over a rent cheque: Blake Leggette and Victoria Henneberry were subletting her apartment and she had come to collect the $430 they owed her. Leggette killed her while Henneberry watched. They dumped her in a hockey bag along a highway near Salisbury, N.B. She was 26.
We failed Tina before the trial even started I think back to the one of the first Globe and Mail headlines about the trial—“Tina Fontaine had alcohol, drugs in system when she was killed: toxicologist” —and it not only upset me because it smeared Tina and her memory, but because I and countless others have long been advocating for change in the way the media reports on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
I remember speaking at various intermediate and secondary schools in Ontario’s Simcoe County in fall 2017. I told the kids how necessary it is to challenge how we internalize narratives, and how the media frames these narratives, if we want to change the reality of this issue. They got it. I also shared how damaging it is if we use racial slurs, derogatory terms or discriminate in private, even jokingly. An off-handed comment or dirty joke speaks volumes about how we see and treat people.
We know that Indigenous women and girls in Canada report rates of violence, including domestic abuse and sexual assault, up to 3.5 times higher than non-Indigenous women. Right now, the Inquiry is still in the process of its truth-gathering phase, the goal of which is to allow people to share their stories, through community and institutional hearings, expert panels and even in poetry, song and artwork.
My story made headlines in December, when I was admitted to a hospital in Ottawa with acute liver failure brought on by taking Tylenol. My friends and family advocated for me to be seen in a hospital in Toronto. I was in critical condition, but I was denied a spot on the transplant waiting list or the chance to receive live donor tissue because I was told I hadn’t remained sober for the previous six months. To me, and many others, the six-month sobriety rule feels outdated and discriminatory.
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