YORKTON - Marking Red Dress Day, May 5, the Yorkton Tribal Council hosted an event honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
The event started with a pipe ceremony at the Yorkton Tribal Council offices followed by a memorial honour walk to City Centre Park for speakers.
M.C. Ivan Cote said the issue is a large one with more than 4,000 murdered and missing Indigenous woman in Canada, with half the murder cases unsolved. He added Indigenous women are 4.5-times more likely to be murdered, and make up 25 per cent of murdered women in the country, while Indigenous people make up only four per cent of the population.
“And, the numbers are ever-increasing,” he said.
George Cote, Chief of Cote First Nation said it is important to remember the missing and murdered women, because women are such an important part of Indigenous people are the “givers of life.”
In that regard it is important to remember, and to be proactive in keeping efforts alive to find the missing, such as reminding police to “continue to look for our people. Don’t give up on them.”
Tribal Chief Isabele O’Soup said that is where every individual can play a role.
“We’re all leaders . . . You can impact and help other people,” she said. “. . . We don’t need to be elected to do that.”
Ivan Cote said as fascism is on the rise, so too is racism, and that is effecting Indigenous people. He said people “are affected by this in one way or the other.”
O’Soup said racism remains all too real, pointing to a letter recently received suggested Indigenous women deserved what happens to them, including being left in a Winnipeg dump. She said that should not be tolerated.
“It’s all of our jobs to stop that,” she said, that while she has felt positive steps have been taken the letter proves far more needs to be done.
In the end O’Soup said we have to understand we all the same.
“We all live and breath the same air . . . We’re all just people striving for the same things.”
Yorkton Mayor Aaron Kienle said the day was more than about remembrance, suggesting it was “a call to action” to create a more inclusive and understanding community moving forward where everyone “feels safe, seen and valued” and to create “a more just and compassionate future.”
