Red Dress Day brought out more than a thousand supporters this week in Winnipeg, with many donning red clothing to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S+).<\/p>\n
At two separate events held in the city on Tuesday, participants carried placards and banners remembering the names and images of loved ones. Red Dress Day is marked in cities, towns and reserves across Turtle Island every May 5.<\/p>\n
The first gathering was held to show solidarity with the family of the late Mackaylah Gerard-Roussin, 20. Her killer was handed a life sentence for first-degree murder that same morning, moments before the march began.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A second march, held later in the day after rush hour, drew an estimated one thousand participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cMackaylah was a beautiful little lady, she had such great spirits for everyone,\u201d her grandmother, Irene Roussin, told reporters. \u201cEvery time she walked into the room, she brought a big smile on her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had life to live for \u2014 she had goals to be a psychologist for young children going through difficult times in their lives \u2026 That was all taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the Winnipeg Law Courts, Gerard-Roussin\u2019s family was joined by hundreds of people who held a ceremony, with \u00a0drumming and a sacred fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love you Mackaylah!\u201d cheered her loved ones in unison.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, the court scheduled the sentencing hearing for Gerard-Roussin\u2019s killer, 24-year-old Josh Benoit, on the annual awareness day.<\/p>\n
At the first event, Roussin told reporters that she and her family are \u201cso happy that we got what we got\u201d with the court\u2019s life sentence.<\/p>\n
Her granddaughter\u2019s body was found in 2022 on an all-terrain vehicle trail southeast of Winnipeg, after she went missing days earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt broke our hearts to find out what happened to our precious Mackaylah, I do not wish this upon anybody,\u201d Roussin added. \u201cHer memory, her name, will always go on and on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJustice has been served now. Somehow, some way, we will ease the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two large banners bearing Mackaylah\u2019s name and face led a march of about 300 people to the Oodena Celebration Circle, a gathering place where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet.<\/p>\n
At the end of the march, her father Kirby Gerard addressed the crowd. The crowd shouted their support for him as Gerard-Roussin\u2019s mother, Melissa, stood by his side.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a long, long journey just trying to get this verdict,\u201d Gerard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard losing a daughter; it really humbled me as a man. I\u2019m walking with each step a little more gently, and I\u2019m trying to move in a better way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd met the comments with drumming and shouts of, \u201cWe love you Kirby!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Red Dress Day began in honour of the late Hanna Harris<\/a>. The member of the Ts\u0117h\u00e9st\u00e1no (Northern Cheyenne Tribe) in Montana was murdered in 2013; her birthday was May 5.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chantel Henderson, a Winnipeg resident from Sagkeeng First Nation with ties to Pinaymootang First Nation, has played an important role in turning May 5 into an annual event.<\/p>\n After moving to \u201cMontreal,\u201d she organized a Red Dress Day event in 2015 as a Concordia University graduate student doing a thesis on MMIWG2S+.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt compelled to highlight this issue through the spotlight of the red dress,\u201d Henderson told IndigiNews.<\/p>\n Henderson\u2019s visibility as an advocate for MMIWG2S+ in \u201cMontreal\u201d led to her giving a keynote speech in Akwesasne in 2017, marking the inaugural Red Dress Day. Since then, events have been held each year on May 5.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI never thought that in a million years that including the red dress at a march would turn it into a movement and symbol\u201d for MMIWG2S+ people, Henderson said in an interview.<\/p>\n Hudson recently sat through an inquest into the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) shooting death of his daughter after a vehicle chase in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe first six weeks, we heard the police take the stand \u2014 their lethal force expert, their systemic racism expert \u2014 it\u2019s all been one-sided.\u201d<\/p>\n He recalled how the officer who killed his daughter did not immediately make a statement \u2014 until five weeks later.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe stated when he approached the vehicle, he thought he found Eishia to be an Indigenous male, found her to be a threat, that he shot my daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n But he said he was heartened to hear recently from other experts on police use-of-force and systemic racism in law enforcement, who disagreed with the testimony of the police\u2019s inquest witnesses.<\/p>\n \u201cHis actions were not justified,\u201d he said of what other experts said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t follow police protocol.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Listening to a second set of witnesses critical of the WPS felt validating, he said.<\/p>\n The parents of another Indigenous woman who was murdered, Ashlee Shingoose, also addressed the Red Dress Day crowd.<\/p>\n Shingoose\u2019s remains have not yet been found, but a search at the Brady Road landfill continues for her.<\/p>\n Melissa Robinson, who oversees MMIWG2S+ issues at the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, introduced Shingoose\u2019s family members and recounted that Shingoose\u2019s father, Albert, had visited Camp Morgan near the landfill site.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was down here in Winnipeg searching for his daughter,\u201d Robinson recalled.<\/p>\n \u201cFor months, he would fly down here and walk the streets trying to locate her.\u201d<\/p>\n Camp Morgan was named after Robinson\u2019s own cousin, Morgan Harris.<\/p>\n A search recovered<\/a> Harris\u2019s remains in the Prairie Green landfill in 2025, the year after her murderer was sentenced to four concurrent life sentences, with no possibility of parole for 25 years.<\/p>\n Little did the Shingoose family know their own daughter would later be identified as a woman previously known only as Mashkode Bizhiki-Ikwe<\/a>, or Buffalo Woman.<\/p>\n Before she was identified, the Anishinaabe spirit name had been used to replace the police\u2019s standard name for unidentified victims, \u201cJane Doe.\u201d<\/p>\n Albert Shingoose said it was an honour to be there and \u201cto unite as one big family.\u201d<\/p>\n And he urged supporters to work to search for other missing young Indigenous women like his daughter and support their families too.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to believe in our prayers, that we will bring home our daughters,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Robinson encouraged supporters never to forget all MMIWG2S+, including Tanya Nepinak.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Ashlee comes home, our direction will then turn to Tanya,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n \u201cTanya will be coming home also, I promise you all that.\u201d<\/p>\n Sue Caribou, Nepinak\u2019s aunt and a tireless advocate, spoke to reporters outside the Law Courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNone of our people deserve to be in no garbage,\u201d she pleaded.<\/p>\n \u201cOur loved ones are not trash. I want to bring Tanya home so bad. I haven\u2019t given up since she went missing.\u201c<\/p>\n Advocates say a WPS-led landfill search in 2012 was rushed and lacked adequate funding \u2014 so Nepinak\u2019s remains were never recovered.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nearly 15 years later, Caribou hopes a more thorough search for her body at the Brady Road landfill will bring her home.\u00a0<\/p>\n The suspect in her killing, Shawn Lamb, faced a second-degree murder charge for Nepinak\u2019s death.<\/p>\n But ultimately that charge was stayed and he was released in 2025, after serving two-thirds of a previous manslaughter sentence for the killings of Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith.\u00a0<\/p>\n Caribou said she attends every MMIWGS2S+ event she can.<\/p>\n Red Dress Day, in particular, is a particularly \u201cspecial\u201d day for her every year, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s special to me when I\u2019m surrounded by a lot of beautiful people,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n \u201cSupport each other, because it\u2019s really hard when you don\u2019t have closure for your loved one.\u201d<\/p>\n Another of Tuesday\u2019s participants was Krista Fox, who travelled to Winnipeg from \u201cNorth Battleford, Sask.,\u201d with the family of Ashley Morin .<\/p>\n The 31-year-old from Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation who reported missing in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was Fox\u2019s third trip to walk with Manitoban families of missing and murdered people.<\/p>\n She told IndigiNews she walked in memory of her grandson, who was only 14 when he died in gang violence.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were no charges laid,\u201d she said,\u201dso justice was never served for my grandbaby.\u201d<\/p>\n Sandra DeLaronde, one of the advocates in \u201cOttawa\u201d last month calling on the federal government to restore funding cut by Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s Liberals to several Indigenous organizations, spoke at Tuesday\u2019s larger second march.<\/p>\n DeLaronde\u2019s organization Giganawenimaanaanig<\/a> \u2014 which means \u201cwe all take care of them\u201d \u2014 spearheaded dozens of community consultations on the design of an MMIWG2S+ public alert system in Manitoba.\u00a0<\/p>\n If implemented, it would notify the public on their cellphones when an Indigenous woman, girl or gender-diverse person goes missing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe were entrusted to deliver a vision of what safety looks like in this province, as a model for the rest of the country,\u201d DeLaronde said.<\/p>\n The alert initiative, she added, would help address the 231 calls for justice<\/a> issued by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.<\/p>\n The inquiry\u2019s final report called for police to standardize their \u201cresponse times to reports of missing Indigenous persons.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n And it urged \u201call governments to create specific and long-term funding, available to Indigenous communities and organizations, to create, deliver, and disseminate prevention programs, education, and awareness campaigns designed for Indigenous communities and families related to violence prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve kept working on what we were given the responsibility to do, she said, \u201cand part of that is developing that complete system.\u201d<\/p>\n After facing criticism from Indigenous leaders, last week the Carney government reversed course.\u00a0<\/p>\n