[Witness spoke in Cree and provided the following text:]
Tansi, Sheila North intinkason. Bunibonibee Cree Nation Neena Oahi. Nihminenten uchinow neesta eh pehachimowan oma uysikisken tumam animochikantek. Iskwewuk and Kuhkinow Kitinenminanuk Kukinow tuh minow punihikochik keethtom omatis weenwow.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Hello, My name is Sheila North, I'm very happy to be here to tell you all what I know about the topic we are talking about, so that our women, our people, may have a better life once again.
[English]
Hi, everyone. My name is Sheila North and I'm from the Bunibonibee Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. In Cree, to also acknowledge my ancestors and to honour our Cree sovereignty, I introduced myself and told you where I am from in Bunibonibee Cree Nation in northern Manitoba.
I'm glad to be here with all of you to share some knowledge and some thoughts on what we're talking about today, the red dress alert.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, committee members.
Thank you, especially, Leah Gazan for bringing us all together in this way and for raising the importance of this red dress alert and for all the championing you have done alongside all of us at the grassroots level.
Also, I thank the Creator for having us today and all the people from these original lands, these ancestral lands, as well as my good friend Dr. Anita Olsen Harper, who is here with me as a support. I have to mention that she's also the wife of my good friend the late Elijah Harper. I'm very honoured that she's here with us today. She has much more reason to be here than I do. She's such a beautiful person and one of our greatest academics in this country.
I also want to acknowledge my parents for having the courage to be good parents even though we've seen the struggles our country has gone through and the struggles that continue for indigenous people. I want to acknowledge all the women and girls, families, allies and supports who have always raised awareness about MMIW and the MMIWG relatives all over our country and North America. I have seen their tireless efforts to bring us to where we are now, able to talk about what we're talking about today.
I also want to tell you a little bit about my perspectives to give you some insight into who I am and where I come from and why I am talking to you about what I am.
I'm a kookum, a grandmother, of one and a mum of two. I come from two large, beautiful Cree families and I'm thankful to have been raised by Gilbert and Sadie North, residential school survivor and day school survivor. I grew up in Bunibonibee until I went to high school as a teen. It was a huge culture shock to go from my reserve to the city, Winnipeg. I almost lost my life a few times on the streets during that time of transition. I consider myself a survivor.
I'm also a former journalist. I worked in radio and television and on the web as a reporter for about 15 years, for CBC and CTV in Manitoba. I also realized my lifelong dream to be an anchor. I'm very happy about that.
I was also grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak from 2015 to 2018.
Most of my work and my life have involved missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. In my role as a communications officer, I created the hashtag #MMIW in 2012 to link conversations, families, advocates and allies together. When I first started working as a journalist and tackling MMIW stories in 2005, I realized then that I was survivor. Over the years since then, I have worked in many capacities to raise awareness of or to advocate for MMIW.
I wanted to drive home the common theme that kept coming up when I talked to families and friends of victims and survivors of MMIWG2S+ and that was the responses by police. Most of my experiences have involved cases handled by the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP in Manitoba. The common theme is police attitudes and responses to families and friends who looked to them for help in finding their loved ones. I can say that in all the stories I've ever done for the media and all the stories I have ever heard, police were dismissive, condescending and disrespectful.
In one story, Gail Nepinak was looking for her sister and put posters of her sister in downtown Winnipeg. It took 10 days for the police to respond to her. They didn't respond to her until I did a story on CBC saying she was looking for her. The worst part was that when the police did finally talk to her, they told her that her sister was an adult and she could go wherever she wanted and that maybe she had gone on vacation. That was a big slap in the face for Gail because Tanya had only five dollars in her pocket. She told them that her family couldn't afford to go on vacations.
In another story a young woman from Portage la Prairie, Jennifer Catcheway, went missing from her family. That is just west of Winnipeg. It took many days for the RCMP to talk to her mom, Bernice. When Bernice finally got a hold of the RCMP to report her missing, the police said that Jen was probably on a drunken bender, to wait for her to get home, and that she would be back soon.
Unfortunately, around four months after that incident, a young, beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed woman went missing from the same city, and what do you think the response from the police was at that time? I was working at the CBC at the time. I talked to both mothers on the same day. This beautiful woman deserved a response from the RCMP. They were very respectful. They got a search going, and they got the word out she was missing.
I did ask the RCMP why there were differences in how they talked to both mothers. The RCMP spokesperson at the time was [Inaudible—Editor]. I can still remember her name. She berated me, attacked me and said I was accusing the RCMP of being racist. Both women deserved justice, and both families deserved respect, but that's not what happened. Unfortunately, these are just two examples, and I share them with permission from the two families.
I believe the red dress alert needs oversight by families and grassroots people for it to be effective. Many of the police forces across the country have eroded the trust of many MMIW families and survivors. They are not trusted to do the right thing on their own, and to report on all cases of missing loved ones in a timely and respectful manner.
[Witness spoke in Cree]