According to the National Inquiry into MMIWG, Indigenous women are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than any other women in Canada, and 16 times more likely when compared to women of European descent. This violence is deeply rooted in colonialism and upheld by racism, marginalization and poverty. It is systemic in that it pervades the systems by which we live.
In December 2022, we learned that four Indigenous women living in Winnipeg, Manitoba were believed to be murdered by one individual who knew the victims. The remains of two of the victims - Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran - are believed to be in the Prairie Green Landfill, which has led to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people demanding for a search of the landfill. Ten months later, the growing calls from across the country go answered.
Camp Morgan. Source: Christine Vanagas
So, when a National Day of Action was called to search the landfills on September 18th, 2023, I braced myself for the opposing arguments - and it did not take me long to encounter them. Aside from the concerns for human safety (which appear to be addressed in a feasibility study completed around the search), there is another camp which points to the $184M price tag to complete the search which argues that the money can better be used elsewhere. Some have even taken this argument further to say that they feel the money should go to support the families of the victims instead.
So where is the harm in this position?
I ask the reader to imagine this discussion as holding physical space. We can then examine the speakers for this argument. For the most part, they are accustomed to having a seat at the "proverbial discussion table." They are used to not having to fight for their voice to be heard and would, therefore, feel a high degree of comfort in expressing their opinion. It has become so natural that many may also consider it their right. This is also the space where discussions on where to spend wealth typically occur - and in doing so, assigns and reassigns the values which uphold the very colonial systems that ensure they have space at the table.
Who is not typically at this table? Who are the ones that have to fight for their voices to be heard? When examining the harm, it is also important to consider how the seating at the discussion table has been arranged throughout history - at the expense, exclusion, and marginalization of others. In other words, the arguments of money better used elsewhere might appear economically sensible because the voices expressing similar values sound familiar and were designed to be that way.
If we imagine the space of this dialogue to be a container, this narrative of "better use of wealth" becomes a space where systemic oppression and racism are insulated. I am not implying that all who hold this view are racist, but when one does not challenge the values assigned within the argument, we risk not exposing the racism and supremacist attitudes that live beneath the surface undetected. One such example is saying that the money could support the families when the families have clearly articulated what support looks like to them - it looks like searching the landfill. To say otherwise when one is not living through the trauma these families are living out, is to assume an attitude of superiority. It assumes knowing a more appropriate path to healing than those who are actually expressing how they need to heal.
Moreover, there is a danger in upholding this argument in that it signals to the world - and those who maliciously target Indigenous women - that Indigenous women and girls can be murdered, dumped in a landfill, and no one is coming to search for them. While those holding the view of money better spent on the living may feel like they are arguing in support of the families, they are actually getting in the way of their intentions by elevating the threat to Indigenous individuals across this country and placing targets on their backs.
If you want to bring the Bible into it - this argument does not hold up to Jesus' value system when He speaks about the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to search for the one. Let's consider what the counter arguments would sound like in this scenario: But what about the safety of 99? Is searching for the one without a guaranteed result the best use of Jesus' time and resources? What about human safety? Could He not simply support the families of the lost sheep instead?
In the parable of the lost sheep, Jesus assigns value very differently than the world. In fact, Matthew 18: 12 - 14 shows us that 'Jesus economics' places immeasurable value on one individual. When comparing it to the other ninety-nine, it does not make sense. It flips worldly common sense on its head. Nevertheless, we see elsewhere throughout the Scriptures that He clearly favours those who the world defines as weak, the last, and the least.
To embody Allyship in the form of Christ's compassionate love will often require unlearning the values of this world because Jesus' teachings embody values that are in radical opposition to the world's systems. One might even say His teachings were controversial or even unpopular for the religious people of His day. It does not make sense to the world to search a landfill, which is exactly why the Jesus I know would! As Christians, we are called to align our actions with how Jesus assigns value even if it means that much of what is required of us to be Christ-like does not make sense. We must live it and practice it until it eventually does!
I WEAR RED
by Christine Vanagas
I wear red
as it matches the cruel
taunts of bullies echoing
in my ears of yesterday
calling me 'Red Skin.'
It matches the bullseye
painted by my ancestry -
a convenient target for
the schoolyard cowboys.
I wear red
I wear red that matches the blood
that marks a highway of tears
across this nation -
this land our ancestors agreed to share
is witness to the murder of its daughters
and theft of its sisters.
So much blood
the ground can't contain it -
it spills over into our rivers
so we Drag the Red.
I wear red
I wear red to embody the love
that remains when strength is fleeting.
When search parties are called,
it is the only fuel that sustains us
as we carry, with heavy hearts, your memory.
It matches our ceremonial cloth that wraps
our grief-filled prayers as we whisper:
"I love you Helen Betty,
Jennifer Catcheway,
Tina Fontaine,
Tanya Nepinak,
Linda Beardy,
Rebecca Contois,
Marcedes Myran,
Morgan Harris.
I love you Buffalo Woman."
I wear red
I wear red to match my anger as I watch
231 Calls for Justice collect dust
until they drown in wells of public apathy.
It embodies the rage I feel
when I hear your answer is 'No'
when it should have been 'No More!'
As you play politics
with pretty campaign signs implying that
violence will increase under Indigenous leadership,
while Indigenous people endure the violence of inaction
that fuels a crisis of missing and murdered
and upholds the genocide of our matriarchs.
So I wear red as you offer
tokens of thoughts and prayers.
As you adorn yourself in hollow promises to support the families,
toying with the trinkets of your indifference.
As you sit in your limestone tower
and spit out your divisive rhetoric which
chooses human safety for some,
while our mothers, daughters and sisters
are assaulted with everyday dangers
that are not of our choosing.
Will I ever stop saying their names?
Will I accept anything less than searching the landfill?
To borrow from the language of my colonizer,
Sometimes the answer has to be 'No.'
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