First, I want to acknowledge the Algonquin people, on whose unceded and unsurrendered traditional territory we are doing this important business.
Hadih. I am Wet’suwet’en, and also the founder and executive director of the Tears to Hope Society in Terrace, B.C.
We are, first and foremost, here as family members. My niece Tamara Chipman went missing in September 2005 along the Highway of Tears, which runs from Prince Rupert to Prince George. The Highway of Tears' name originated when my cousin Florence Naziel started the very first Highway of Tears walk, after my niece went missing, working with her niece Karen Plasway. They wanted to come up with a name for her walk, and they sat down and talked about so many women who were missing from our community of Witset. They started drawing tears. There were just so many that they couldn't fit them all on the napkin, so they suggested it was like a “highway of tears”. That's just a little bit of background on where the name came from.
There was a walk from Smithers to Prince George in 2006, which led to the 2006 symposium in Prince George. That was led by Matilda Wilson, whose daughter Ramona Wilson was found murdered near the Smithers airport. She was 16 at the time, and this year marks 30 years of her family waiting for answers. That will be coming up in June.
My sister Gladys Radek and Bernie Williams also continued the hard work that these family members started. They organized seven walks across Canada, starting in B.C., to call for a national public inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls across the country. Our families testified at the inquiry. Tamara is still missing to this day, and we still have no answers, like so many other family members. The number one thing we hear from family members is that they feel like their cases aren't being investigated or taken seriously.
I'd like to add that missing men matter, too. My cousin Phyllis Fleury has also been searching tirelessly for her son, who was 16 at the time and went missing from Prince George. This is an issue that affects our men as well.