Tears flow as MMIWG2S licence plates unveiled

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This article was published 08/12/2023 (672 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Specialty vehicle licence plates supporting various teams, sports and special-interest groups have become a common sight on Manitoba roads in recent years.

Announcements of new options don’t usually elicit an emotional reaction, but that was not the case Friday when plates honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people were unveiled at central Winnipeg support agency.

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith wiped away tears as she told reporters that Indigenous charitable organization Ka Ni Kanichihk will receive $30 from each $70 set sold by Manitoba Public Insurance.

The simple, stark licence plate designs feature either a red dress or a red handprint.

The funds will go to education costs for students from families who have been impacted by MMIWG2S, including Patience Bushby, who was just two weeks old when her mother — and Smith’s sister Claudette Osborne — went missing in 2008.

“What I want most of all is to make my mom proud, I want to graduate high school, to go to university or college … funds granted from the licence plates can help many children whose parents were also taken and are not there to help financially,” Bushby said.

“I love my mom, I miss her every day.”

Smith proposed the specialty plates and received royal assent on May 30 after receiving unanimous support in the legislature.

“Today marks a significant moment in the history of our great province,” said the MLA for Point Douglas.

“As a community, we are showing our shared pursuit of justice, compassion and remembrance for all MMIWG2S families.”

Other families who have lost loved ones were consulted about the design. Some attended the announcement.

“(The families) didn’t want anything on the images… (they) were, like, ‘I don’t want anything on them, because I didn’t want them to be prettied up, because my family member — it wasn’t a pretty issue, they didn’t die in a pretty way, they went in a tragic way,” Smith said.

“And I want that to be a reminder to the public, to the community, to those that are seeing that.”

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Among those watching was Star Anderson. Her cousin, Tania Marsden, was found dead in the Assiniboine River three weeks after her 18th birthday in 1998. Her killer has never been found.

“We need this visibility to press for action and accountability,” Anderson said. “This should be a concern for everyone, not just the families impacted. Harm to one is harm to all of us.”

There will be 6,000 plates made. If they are sold out, Ka Ni Kanichihk would receive $180,000.

Plates can be purchased at Autopac agents across the province.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak 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.