A heartbreaking catalyst for change

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/12/2018 (2618 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been more than four years since Tina Fontaine died. Yet in the wake of a trial that gripped the province, and a verdict that shattered the hearts of many observers, Tina’s life — and the legacy she left behind — makes her the Winnipeg Free Press newsmaker of 2018.

By all accounts, the 15-year-old from Sagkeeng First Nation was a bright, happy young woman. Her aunt Thelma Favel said she was always respectful, and loved to bake with her family. She was separated from her mother but cared for by Favel, her ill father and other members of her family. She loved children and planned a future career working with them.

We never got to know this Tina, though.

Instead, most Manitobans first learned about Tina when her body was found in the Red River in late-August 2014. As has become the norm, the Indigenous community in Manitoba organized a march and vigil to mourn the loss of another young woman. Not so usual, however, was the reaction of thousands of Manitobans who joined them.

For one of the first times anyone could remember, an Indigenous young woman was everyone’s niece, sister, and daughter.

In the months following her death, Tina became the face of an endemic crisis in Manitoba and Canada surrounding murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Her story became a signpost of the mistreatment and violence Indigenous women and girls face. Her experience also represented how broken the child-welfare system, with a disproportionately large number of Indigenous children, had become.

Then, as the public learned about how Tina was failed by the health-care system, police and federal, provincial and municipal governments, the story of Tina’s life, and her death, became a condemnation of Canada.

By the end of 2015, when Raymond Cormier was charged with Tina’s murder, her name was well-known. Tina’s promising life, marred by oppression, neglect, and systemic racism, was a reminder of how astronomically far this country had to go when it comes to reconciliation.

So, in one way, Tina’s death appeared to be a watershed moment. The federal Liberals, winning a majority government in 2015, immediately promised to adopt the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2016 that the federal government discriminates against First Nations children in the child-welfare system and ordered changes.

The police officers who could have helped Tina just before she was killed were suspended before they resigned from the force, while the provincial government announced children in care would no longer be kept in Winnipeg hotels, as Tina once was.

Soon, Tina’s story was a primary driving force behind a public inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls — which the federal government granted in 2016. And, while the inquiry hit some roadblocks, public awareness on the issue of MMIWG appeared to be increasing; it even became a frequently used hashtag.

This year, in February, Cormier was found not guilty. Coupled with the acquittal a few weeks earlier of Gerald Stanley (a farmer who shot a young Cree man named Colten Boushie in rural Saskatchewan), things seemed to be moving in the wrong direction.

“It is unacceptable,” Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said after the verdict. “Everything has failed. How can we talk about reconciliation when the very nets that we’re asked to participate in do not fulfil what they’re supposed to fulfil?”

The question of what happens now in a world where Indigenous children are killed without anyone being found guilty is a dark one. Manitoba remains a province with one of the highest incarceration rates of Indigenous youth (approximately 80 per cent). Indigenous children remain massively over-represented in the child-welfare system (approximately 90 per cent). And, while Indigenous youths remain the fastest-growing and youngest population in Manitoba, there remains virtually the same oppression, neglect and systemic racism that factored into Tina’s death in 2014.

It’s hard to see hope now — even in positive stories, such as the opening of Tina’s Safe Haven, a 24-hour centre for at-risk youth in downtown Winnipeg. Every single story involving Indigenous peoples – from pipelines to Kapyong to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Indigenous-rights framework — seems impeded by the overwhelming violence experienced by First Nations peoples, especially women and girls.

What’s perhaps most hopeful is that Winnipeg Free Press readers demand more attention be paid to Tina’s story.

“Politics is nowhere near as important as the discovery of a young woman’s body and the failure of the justice system,” wrote Melissa, who didn’t offer her last name.

“(The story of Tina Fontaine) has serious implications for the structure of our society,” wrote Curt Pankratz.

“It is a story that will continue to impact our future,” wrote Sue Ralph.

What’s most remarkable is how many Free Press readers promise to never forget Tina.

“People will always remember Tina Fontaine,” wrote Daisy B.

“True reconciliation starts with making sure that there is no other girl with the destiny of Tina,” wrote Lucie-Madeleine Delisle, “the way we deal with this (the way we implement the commission & recommendations) will determine the future of First Nations and the role they could play in Canadian history.”

If attention can produce reconciliation, it’s here where we can begin.

It will take much more then that, though. Reconciliation will take work, commitment and a whole lot of change at every level.

This is the legacy of Tina Fontaine — to demand us to be better.

Here’s to 2019.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca