Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal hosting memorial march for MMIWG2S+

Montrealer’s took to the streets once again this year to commemorate and honour Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, Transgender, and Gender-Diverse+ (MMIWG2S+).

The march began at around 6 p.m. at Cabot Square before ending around 8 p.m. at Place du Canada.

The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal and the Centre for Gender Advocacy speakers were present to address the crisis of violence, which they say has seen little to no progress since the marked increase in 2019.

The Assembly of First Nations reports that indigenous women make up 14 per cent of all female homicide victims and 11 per cent of missing women, while only making up a little more than 4 per cent of the population of Canada.

“September of 2020 my daughter Chelsea went missing, she was missing for just a little over 20 months and she was found dead behind a mansion,” said Michael Kiernan, father of the Indigenous Woman Chelsea Poorman, whose case recently made headlines as several Vancouver police officers are currently under investigation for their handling of her disappearance.

“It was a big investigation and I find just coming to these things and showing support, trying to put an end to this genocide and get awareness of everybody, how everybody should get involved – the more voices the louder it gets the more attention it gets,” Kiernan went on to explain.

The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal and supporters are calling on their community to stand in solidarity with them and all Indigenous people. They are also asking for more government action and for Canada to honour their commitments to reduce the disproportionately high rates of violence their community is still experiencing.

“It’s important to educate people that this issue is still going on in spite of a National plan of action, which took the government a really long time to even start, and it’s not being implemented, it’s just on paper,” said documentarian, artist and Indigenous human rights activist Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel.

“We need to make these kinds of highlights on days like Valentine’s day to show our love for the families of murdered and missing Indigenous women,” she added.

According to the Calls for Justice progress report released in June of 2024, no progress or concrete actions have been made to support police services reform even though multiple reviews have been conducted over the years.

“It’s extremely difficult for Indigenous women in urban areas because a lot of them don’t have access to criminal justice systems and are highly discriminated against,” explained Branka Bradley, current community and cultural liaison at the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal.

“If they could get the same justice and equality as others that would go a really long way, just bringing that awareness and having the same peace to one another that would really help, and if we treated each other equality.”

But this annual march in honour of the countless Indigenous Women lost to violent crimes isn’t only to bring awareness – it’s also a call to action.

“I’d like to see more calls of action being made, there’s only been 11 that have been answered to bring awareness to the epidemic,” said Bradley as she calls for more government involvement.