TLC Discusses MMIWG

Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher, and welcome back to the Learning Curve. Things are getting interesting out there, discussions are happening, but there's still so much confusion. So I'm so thrilled and excited that you have chosen once again to join us here on the show. Now, before I get into the topics for today's episode, I did want to mention, once again, thank you so, so much for the feedback, the comments and the emails. Please keep sending them. The last episode, we talked about privilege, and I've received so many emails thanking me for sharing that information. And that really gives me a hope as an indigenous woman, the idea that some. So many people want to learn about these very important topics. So please, if you have any questions, you can get hold of me at Sandy Boucher ca. You can message me through the Learning Curve Facebook page or you can go to my YouTube channel, Sandy Boucher. Once again, before I go on with this episode, I did want to mention that as a result of the privilege episode, I did share the information, as promised, on the Facebook page. So if you go to the Facebook page, you're going to find the link to Megan Berman's blog post. And she talked about the classroom and used it to explain privilege. And then, of course, there's the link to Peggy McIntosh's amazing work where she talked about white privilege and unpacking the invisible knapsack. So that was last episode. This episode, we have a very serious topic to discuss and one that I truly hope touches your heart. We're going to talk about missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. A topic that we need to be discussing and we need to understand. I actually have two amazing guests today. Tamara Bernard is an activist, a researcher, and an artist, and she has a personal connection to this issue. And we also have Lisa Desmolens from Lakehead University to offer her perspective. So, as always, grab a coffee, head for your favorite chair, and join us as we once again together, walk through the learning curve. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Learning Curve. My name is Sandy Boucher, and as promised, I have two amazing guests with me here today. So we have Lisa de Molay. Is that how we pronounce it? Awesome. I got it right this time. And Tamara Bernard. And we're going to be talking about missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and why it is so important that people understand this topic. Now, before I start talking to the two of you, I did want to say especially to you, Tamara, that this is such an important topic. And we have the challenge of a half an hour TV show. And I Know just everything about my teaching says when we start talking about this, we should be able to discuss it in full. And I want to apologize to everyone that's affected by this topic. Just understanding the restraints of a TV show. So I really wanted to put that out there. So to start off here, let's start off with something easy because this is a heavy topic. So are you. You're not from Thunder Bay? You're not from Thunder Bay? Where are you from?

I'm from Gal Bay, First Nation.

Oh, awesome. And you drove in. You don't live in Thunder Bay?

No, I live in Nipigan right now.

Awesome. So thank you so much for making the trip. That's amazing. Thank you. It's a gorgeous day for it.

It is.

Thank God for that. So. And Lisa, you, are you born and raised Thunder Bay? Are you from here?

I'm from Kitchener, Waterloo originally.

Oh, wow. And you came up north? I did.

My husband is from Bigtigong, Mishnawbeg, Pick River First Nation. And we moved up here when we had our third child.

Oh, that's awesome. And you're loving it and you're gonna stay and. Awesome. Okay. So missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. I know this is a topic that is so close to your heart, Tamara, so I'm just gonna turn this over to you now. I'm not gonna put words into your mouth. Explain to us why you're so dedicated to this topic and give us an idea of the work you do.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I started doing this work probably in my early 20s, around there, my late teens, when I learned about this legacy of the murder missing in my family, where my great grandmother, Jane Bernard was taken from us in 1966 here in Thunder Bay. And to this day, it is still cold case. And I became aware of the intergenerational impact of it due to the uncertainty of why, like, why did this happen? And the mourning that continues to happen in my family. Because there's no closure that has been brought or justice. And in part of that, they're continuously triggered by the continuous reporting, you know, the journalism, the media, always, you know, and that is something that really awakened my perspective, seeing my Nokomis, my grandmother, going through that because it's her mother who was taken and seeing how my mom was like that and other people in my family. And. And so that's where I shifted really early in my life to learn to look at these women as more than murdered and missing and to learn to ask beyond those questions of what happened from them, to be taken you know, and to honor who they are as a woman, a whole.

Wow, that's amazing. And yeah, that just made me think of so many newscasts I've seen and those pictures that get flashed. And to think of it from the perspective of a family member or loved one that's seeing those pictures over and over and getting re traumatized by this. Wow.

Absolutely. And that was kind of like where I started my advocating work about how we are more than murdered and missing and to bring positive attributions of who we are as Indigenous women. And again, to break down their stereotypes and the culture of. Of the murdered and missing, because we tend to focus that they're in British Columbia with relationship of runaways, sex works, and substance abuse. Right. So I hope by the work that I do, which is also my research for my graduate work at Lakehead University and my art installations I've done with CTV for See Me and other work, I hope that it really shifts the audience and even the viewers today who are listening to really think about who are our women and what are they beyond these deaths that we continue to portray.

Wow, that is powerful. Right? I am so glad I turned it over to you. Okay. That's amazing. Lisa. How are you tied into this? What's your work or your scope?

So I started much later than tamara. In 2015, I took a class of graduate students to see the Walking with Our Sisters exhibit memorial when it was here in Thunder Bay. And it really stuck with me. And it stuck with me for a number of reasons. Certainly people are always taken by the artwork that's there. But it was the ceremony. And like Tamara, it was this idea of let's honor their lives. Let's not honor the posters of the missing and those kinds of things. Let's honor who they were in life. And so I was quite intrigued by it. All of my students were quite intrigued by it. And I asked Walking with Our Sisters if I could do some research with their work on how they do the honoring on the ceremony for the families and all of the different aspects of this that are so different from what you would normally see in a museum, in an exhibit or a memorial. And the memorial is so unique in that often we're looking at people who have. Who are remembering from the past. And yet missing and murdered Indigenous women is a problem that's ongoing. And I think that that is what's so important. They support the families through these kinds of re. Traumatization that happens because as the exhibit travels, so, so much good work coming out of it to help with healing and with making people more aware of the issues of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Okay, I'm going to ask you a topic and forgive me for asking, but often I ask questions that I know the audience may be wondering about, especially if they're non indigenous. So why the focus on indigenous women? Like why not just all women shouldn't be missing or murdered? Like why are we focusing on indigenous women specifically Tomorrow smiling at me, I know she's going to kill me. Are you kidding?

No, no. That's a really great question. And I'm honestly asked that on a regular basis. Experience, especially in the work that I do. Like I shared, I'm continuously speaking in public art installations. You know, a lot of people go the why question. Why why don't we just focus on all of them?

All women, all things matter.

Yeah, exactly. And you know, I absolutely get it and all lives do matter. But the matter of the fact is, is that indigenous women are targeted at higher volumes of interacting with violence. And when I say violence, you know, I'm talking about the physical, you know, verbal and as well, I say literal as well in text, like I said media, you know, what is written about them, the portrayals. But in overall essence, Indigenous women are four times more likely to encounter violence and to be to have death as a result due to violence compared to non indigenous populations. And so that is why there is a greater focus on indigenous women. Because we have such a smaller demographic in Canada, but yet a higher representation of interacting with violence and as a result of death due to violence. Right.

Totally disproportionate. And it's dismissed as you touched on earlier. Right. It's just, it was her life's victim blaming. Like you wouldn't believe that. It's just not. She just ran away or whatever. And that just drives me insane. Like the stereotypes just like feed into this.

Right, Absolutely. And so that's kind of again why I do the work I do. Because for instance, my great grandmother's case, Jane Bernard, it's actually a double homicide with Doreen Hardy as well, was taken with her. And again, they were, it was swept under the carpet. They were picked up from Cumberland Street. They portrayed them as sex workers in the newspapers, you know, again, to create that pointing the finger of blame back at them like they shouldn't have been at that time and place. But the reality is they weren't sex workers, they weren't runaways. It was very common to come in the city to get substance of livelihood from Gal Bay. Right. And so sharing this, that was what really ignited the work that I do to break down that culture of what we believe is murdered and missing and what they represent. Because I feel like when we share the more aspects of these personal stories of women who don't fit that culture, it kind of shifts the audience and viewers to go, oh, really? Like, I didn't realize that. And even when I share that this is a case that's close to home here in Thunder Bay, that's still cold case, they're like, what? You know, they're still kind of taken off guard because they think. I thought this was mostly in British Columbia with, you know, cases related to Robert Pickton, you know, and so that's why I think it's important to really have those conversations to break down those barriers of culture that's created and shattered upon these women.

And even in the cases where the woman was a sex worker, I mean, I can remember back when my kids were young and money was incredible, incredibly tight, and I would have done anything to feed my kids. Bottom line, just putting it out there. And we, we look down on these people for the poverty that they live in. I mean, that is their reality. Right. And. And that doesn't earn them a death sentence or it shouldn't. Right. And. And so often that's just what we're going to dismiss them as or assume they all are, like you were saying. Right.

Especially when you think about in the last Winston de Gledu case that happened, you know, in Ottawa, I believe, and where she, you know, she was a sex worker who she consent for those interactions to happen with exchange of capital gain, which did not consent to be murdered. And again, in the relationship of poverty with sex work, again, that's another culture that's created towards these women who are in that profession. Not all of them are in poverty. Some of them do choose this as a lifestyle choice because it's something that they enjoy doing. Just like how we may enjoy going every day to do our advocating work or being a professor or being a lawyer. Right. So those other things, those are great, other great conversations to have someplace.

Exactly. And it's not all the same. It's not. There's always this. This temptation to. It's always the same thing over and over. And it's not, as you said at the beginning, individual lives, individual women and women who had lives before this tragic end or before they went missing. Right. I love that. I'm so. That's going to resonate with me for a long time. So thank you for that. So we are Going to break for a commercial now, but we're going to come back and continue this very important discussion, so stay tuned. And we are back with Tamara and Lisa to discuss a very serious topic. Topic missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And during the break, we were talking about something that I really want to talk about. So we've already identified that it's disproportionate.

Right.

Compared to the size of the population. But it's under reported. Right. So this problem, we don't even know how bad this is. Or do we? I'm putting that in your court, guys. You're the experts. So, Lisa, did you want to comment to that officially?

I think that we rely on the RCMP data that came out, although really it's. We don't have a good sense because they may be under reported because of whether or not it gets investigated. There's a lot of reasons why we don't have a good sense of. Other than to know that certainly indigenous women are overrepresented in terms of violence.

Exactly. And that brings us to the whole topic of the challenges between indigenous people and the relationship with police services. Right. Because. And this is just. It's snowballing. Right. If you don't believe that they're going to help you, then you don't report. And every time they don't help because they didn't report, it's. It's just getting worse and worse and worse. Right. It's definitely something that needs to be resolved. I have no idea how we would resolve that, but it's definitely something that needs to happen.

Absolutely. And there's also, in relationship to that is the discrepancy of protocol, how to response from all authorities. Right. There's not a protocol across our nation that they all follow, you know, especially when it comes to identification purposes.

Wow. Okay. I didn't realize that. Okay.

Yeah. So there's a lot of gaps within. Why the data that we need to know, what is the representation, as in statistic, of our murder, missing indigenous women, is it's so ambiguous, like it's. To this day, we don't know because of so many layers.

Yeah. And out of curiosity, is jurisdiction playing into that? Is that part of. Of the problem, that we don't know who's responsible as far as police services or. No, because I know when we get into, is it indigenous police services, is it mainstream? There's always that gray area.

Do you want me.

Or I say it?

Yes. Okay. Just from what I have reviewed myself with the literature and conversations I've had with many survivors and family members that there tends to be this communication gap with like rsmp, with local authorities, to our Anishinaabe or indigenous authorities as well. And when there is that gap, because it's not building allyship, you know, that common goal to find, you know, or there's data that they don't find important, that's getting swept by one authority that should have been brought. So again, it comes to the discrepancy of protocol. It all really ties down to.

And so, yeah, and sad, but true. I wish I could say that surprises me, but it doesn't. And doing this show and talking with so many different people about so many different topics, it amazes me how often it comes down to a problem with some system or lack of system that either the system is restricting and you can't do what obviously needs to be done, or. Or it's adding to the problem because of the failure in protocol or whatever. Right. So often.

And I have one good example because, you know, so much of what we talk about, there aren't good examples. And I know that I did some work with Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre, their new name, and the police, and they did develop a protocol so that police could contact them with the permission of people in situations where there was domestic violence, violence. And there's a possibility that things could escalate, but there aren't charges being laid. So there are some good examples of where community is working together to make things more responsive to families and particularly to women who could be in bad situations. We need so many more of those.

Right? We do. We need. I would love to have a list of those good stories instead of trying to cling to find them. So I'm action oriented. You know me very well. I'm the entrepreneur. I'm always. Next step. What do we do? So you two are so dedicated to this cause and we thank you for that. What are you hoping happens if you could wave that magic wand? What. What needs to happen or what are you working towards?

For myself, I can speak as somebody who's personally affected by this, you know, the next step. And as we already touched upon the many, many layers to find the statistics and the knowledge that needs to be built and capacity for awareness and representation as data, I feel like as somebody who's personally affected, that that is really important. But also what's even more important, as shared previously, is to look at these women's lives as a whole and to think before beyond their deaths, because as a family member and working with other women and families when we write about these stories of our women beyond their death, it brings not only ourselves to heal, but the women who are survivors and the community as well. And it almost brings an essence of reclaiming the representation of our women. Right. We then represent them as. This is who they were. They are waterkeepers. You know, they were artists and full of traditional knowledge and teachers and, you know, water protectors. And it's one of those things where we need to bring that back, you know, and it's part of that process. While we reclaim and rewrite that story of our women, we're also igniting our future generations by learning through those stories.

Exactly. And I love that. That is so powerful. I am so glad I asked you to be a guest on the show, because just listen. Listening to you, it takes one instant. Like, don't let those people be defined by one instance when they had so much. And I can just imagine as the daughter or granddaughter. Yes. I want to hear everything my grandmother was or my great grandmother was, or my mom or my sister, not just some horrific end because of someone else's actions. I want to celebrate who she was because that reminds me of all I can be. Right.

Exactly. And that's exactly what my intention is for everything that I do in a good way. And that was my TED Talk for we are more than murdered and missing to portray as well and to hopefully again, igniting the audience to kind of shift their lens and perspective a little bit, to really look at our women in a new way.

Awesome. I'm going to be asked, so who was she on a regular basis now, I can see me getting really annoying about this one. So thank you for that. And, Lisa, your work, where are you? What are you working towards?

I think that for me, it's. Some of my participants have told me that it's in the doing. Honoring is in the doing. So whatever it is that you choose to do, then it has to be something that you actually do. So I volunteer with what Walking With Our Sisters. I do research so that I can better understand issues so I can get that out to different audiences. But I think that that's the big takeaway for me is that you have to do something. Even the initiative that, however small, that I help to facilitate with, between the police and Thunder Bay and Indigenous Friendship Centre, you just have to do. And if all of us start doing, then things will start to change and happen.

And that's a common theme that keeps coming up in this show that goes back to our very first episode with Jenna Rae Yerxa, when she talked about allyship. And it's not a business card. It's not a title. It's action based. It's what you do. Now, before we end here, we have talked about Walking with Our Sisters a few times. And just for the people in the audience who aren't aware of what that is, did one of you want to give a brief synopsis of what Walking with Our Sisters is?

Walking with Our Sisters was started by Christy Balcour, and she's part of a national collective that is doing. They have an exhibit memorial. They display vamps that people made made by caring others who sent them in. And that is the exhibit. That is the display. They also use ceremony to honor families. And it's a touring exhibit memorial that's going around across North America. There were two places in the States, and it's an opportunity to actually walk with the sisters. So when you go through the display, you are walking with them.

Wow.

It's a way of honoring.

Exactly. That display is still traveling.

It will continue, I believe, until 2019.

Okay, so I'm wondering if you Google Walking with Our Sisters, you should be able to find out where it is next. If someone wants to travel and go.

See this, they have an active website. You can also, if you're not going to be able to get there, be able to see videos and different vignettes of places that it's been.

Wow, that's amazing. Powerful. Thank you so, so much. And thank you, Tamara. Like, every time I get to chat with you, it's such a joy. And you brought such perspective and such power and such clarity to this topic, and I think that was absolutely needed. So you did a great job. Thank you very much. And Lisa, thank you for adding your perspective in doing by coming out here today. So that was absolutely amazing.

Thank you.

So, as always, those of you in the audience, we're encouraging you to do, to have those conversations, to use the information you use today to challenge maybe something that's being said in that coffee shop or you've overheard at school or on the bus to dare to ask the questions. And when there is a display or an event come out, show your support. You don't need to take over the event, but being a good ally means you're there in spirit, in body, showing that you actually do care. And that's what walking through the learning curve is all about. Thank you again for joining us today and for taking the time to listen and learn. You give me hope every single time you turn into this TV program. So thank you. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.