Hi, my name is Wesley Flett, and I'm from The Pas, Manitoba. I have a sister who has been missing for four years already. It's really hard every day not knowing whether she's alive or gone. Brenda and I came from the same community to speak out on behalf of our brothers and sisters.
Millie was a good-hearted woman. She helped out anybody in the streets who needed help. Just to see her made you smile. She tried to help them to go back to school and get off the streets. One day I came back to the city for medical reasons. I went to see her in the morning at her apartment in the Winnipeg area and nobody answered the door for the whole day I was there. I must have gone back and forth about ten times that day. The next day I did the same thing. So we put in a missing-persons report to the RCMP in the Winnipeg area.
We did all we could, all our family, her siblings. She has four siblings. We put posters up for my sister in Winnipeg and all over. This is what we did just to get some answers for her and our family. We needed to get some answers from somebody.
My wife was phoning the officers in Winnipeg one time. One of the officers on the other line said they were not a babysitting service. She was crying out on the other end saying why couldn't anybody help us out. We didn't think about it for a while—we were just in shock. We started calling the RCMP again in Winnipeg asking could they please help us out, give us a little bit of information. They kept putting us on hold all the time. We got no answer there from anybody. So we just went out on the streets and started putting all these posters up, talking to other people.
We had a conference in The Pas. This one girl lost one of her sisters for five years. By word of mouth, just by talking to others all over Manitoba, we found that lady who was missing for five years. Now they're together again. I don't think you'd be able to split those people apart again. These are the kinds of stories we like to hear. It's so hard to speak. Most people don't have to walk the streets just to get a little information. They'll say they didn't see her. Or sometimes when you walk the streets, you might see another person who looks like her. You call out to them, but it's a different person. It's so hard to sound out “sister”.
We're just living on a day-to-day basis right now. It's kind of hard. My sister was really a humble woman. We're not going to give up searching for my sister. We're still out there in the streets putting up posters, talking to other people. We're not going to give up. We have big posters for missing ladies here; we get that word out there too. There are beautiful ladies out there who are missing. They didn't get home. We're still putting information out there to try to get them home, to get the closure done. It's so hard, especially when a loved one is missing or even if your neighbour's friend is missing for just a couple of hours or even a whole day. You want to know where that person is all the time.
Every time my sister used to go out of town, she'd give us a call to tell us where she was going and when she'd be back. That one summer she gave us a call to say she was going there. I told her to take care of herself and to phone when she got home, and she did. Then one day, as I said, we went knocking on her door. The last couple of weeks we were there. My sons were there and my cousins were there knocking on her door. We thought she went to the store and back, but she didn't make it home at all. She's still out there. We don't know where she is.
We're not going to give up finding her, or put closure to the family and all of that. That's one thing I'm never going to do—never give up. We need help from everybody.
We've been talking to people. We did this walk from The Pas to Winnipeg for two straight years. The oldest elder was 78 years old. She walked with us from The Pas to Winnipeg. We had athletes, runners, and even a small child. She was young; she walked with us. Their mothers walked with us. Their brothers walked with us. Anybody who wanted to walk with us was welcome to walk with us. These are the kinds of people we need to keep up our hope, and all that.
Even the chief and council when we were heading to Ottawa here told us to keep up the good work. He wants you to do your best. Even the parliament in Winnipeg told us the same thing. Everybody back home is asking what we're going to do. You have to do this. You have to do it. You have to do another one.
It's a really hard job to do, to get everybody and to organize everything, what needs to be done. But I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to give up searching. I'm not going to give up for anybody, for dismissing our murdered people here—women, brothers. I'm still going to do the hard work ahead of me.
But I just got diagnosed with cancer in February last year. I'm still fighting even though I'm sick. I'm going to get healthy again. I'm never going to stop.
The Creator gave me strength to keep on going, and that's what I'm going to do.
I'd like to thank all of the committee members here.
From The Pas, Manitoba, I'm Wesley Flett. Thank you very much.