We all know Tina’s name and owe her gratitude By: Niigaan Sinclair Posted: 3:27 PM CDT Friday, Aug. 9, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/08/2024 (714 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I owe Tina Fontaine more than any words, or column, could say.

On Aug. 17, 2014, the remains of two Indigenous people were found in the Red River: those of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine and Faron Hall. Faron was named the Homeless Hero by media after saving multiple people from drowning in the river.

At the time, I was part of a group organizing activist marches and events. We immediately went to work organizing a vigil to honour Tina and Faron, knowing how tragic the losses were to the Indigenous community.

We didn’t know what the overall reaction across Winnipeg, Manitoba and Canada would be, if any.

On Aug. 19, thousands of people — many of them non-Indigenous — went to Oodena Circle at The Forks. They carried candles and signs and gave their respect, showing deep sadness over the loss of Tina.

They heard stories of a beautiful, remarkable and promising young Anishinaabe woman. They also heard about her experiences of mistreatment, neglect and violence.

That night, a community offered words, songs and commitments. Many people shed tears and took with them a love for someone who has given all of us more than she ever received.

I wrote one of my first columns for the Free Press that night, wondering whether the evening represented a tipping point in the struggle for reconciliation. It led to a job, but I still wonder if what I said was correct.

One thing is definitely true: when history books are written, Tina will be recorded as one of the most important contributors to change in this community’s — and, indeed, Canada’s — path.

Here is a short list of what Tina’s life gave to all of us.

Her death again exposed the horrendous experiences of Indigenous children, particularly young girls, in the child-welfare system. Tina’s experiences showed how the foundation of Manitoba’s child-welfare system is callous and ignorant of the impacts of residential schools and poverty on Indigenous communities.

It wasn’t only the child-welfare system that failed Tina.

As Daphne Penrose, who was Manitoba’s advocate for children and youth at the time, wrote in her 2019 report, “Tina needed an array of services from child and family, education, victim support, law enforcement, health, and mental health systems… these services were unavailable, not easily accessible, or ill co-ordinated, which did not provide the supports and interventions she desperately needed.”

Many of these supports still don’t exist. Manitoba’s new NDP government intends to propose a strategy to address provincial gaps this fall.

Tina’s experiences resulted in two immediate, wide-scale changes.

The first was the rise of grassroots Indigenous organizations such as the Bear Clan, Mama Bear Clan and the Drag the Red movement. Ndinawemaaganag Endaawaad opened Tina’s Safe Haven, a youth centre named after her, in 2018.

Community patrols, Indigenous-led initiatives addressing poverty and homelessness, and overhauls to organizations such as Siloam Mission have since become the norm in Winnipeg — and a model for Canadian cities.

The second was public pressure on governments to address their systemic failures by implementing the 94 calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which issued its final report a year after Tina’s death.

The most important call eventually enacted was No. 41, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The inquiry created 231 calls for justice in June 2019.

Without all the public attention on the experiences of Indigenous women and girls and the MMIWG inquiry, there would likely have been less support for the search-the-landfill movement that helped lead to a different party winning last fall’s provincial election.

Wab Kinew, who credits what happened to Tina Fontaine as motivating him to enter politics, is now premier. Two women who came to prominence advocating for people like Tina — Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine and Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith — are in his cabinet.

The five-year anniversary of Tina’s passing also saw federal legislation seeking to directly address Tina’s experiences (and TRC call to action No. 4) take effect. The legislation, which had been called Bill C-92, enables Indigenous governments and groups to take control of First Nations, Inuit and Métis child welfare.

I have mentioned only the obvious changes. There’s much more work to do, of course. Racism, institutions and governments are hard to change.

Yet, anyone who works and lives in Manitoba knows that nearly every resident, including politicians and business leaders, knows the name Tina Fontaine.

We all owe her a deep debt of gratitude.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Niigaan Sinclair
Columnist

Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe from Peguis First Nation and a professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba. He’s been a columnist for the Free Press since 2018. Read more about Niigaan.

Every piece of writing Niigaan produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.