Members of Sagkeeng First Nation in eastern Manitoba honoured the legacy of Tina Fontaine this weekend — a decade after her death.
About 100 people marched across the community, about 125 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, in support of Fontaine’s family on Saturday, 10 years after the 15-year-old’s remains were pulled from the Red River in the provincial capital.
Fontaine, from Sagkeeng First Nation, went missing on July 2014. Her body was found wrapped in plastic near the Alexander Docks on Aug. 17.
Her death drew global attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) in Canada, helping motivate a national inquiry into MMIWG, which delivered its final report in 2019.
“Tina started an earthquake when her body was found 10 years ago today,” her aunt, Thelma Favel, told the crowd.
“For all men, women, boys and girls that have been taken so tragically, we just have to keep praying this doesn’t happen anymore. It has to stop some time.”
Fontaine had come to Winnipeg to reconnect with her mother after her father’s murder in 2011, and was soon surrounded by a world of addiction, homelessness and the sex trade. She was in the care of Child and Family Services when she died.
On the eve of the 10th-year anniversary, the government announced $986,000 in federal and provincial funding for Ndinawemaaganag Endaawaad, the organization which runs the Tina’s Safe Haven, a Winnipeg drop-in centre for at-risk youth between the ages of 13 and 24.
The organization said it will use most of the money to support its health-care programming.
Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine, who is a member of Sagkeeng First Nation, said Friday the lives of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people are sacred, and that there needs to be resources in place to protect them.
“We honour her little spirit and the legacy that [Tina] gave all of us,” the minister said. “Tina Fontaine, in her death, has literally saved thousands of lives of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited.”
WATCH | A goodbye letter to Tina Fontaine
On the 10-year anniversary of the day Tina Fontaine’s body was pulled from the Red River, her aunt, Thelma Favel will read a goodbye letter in her community.
The community placed signs and a wreath honouring MMIWG in front of a bronze monument built in their memory.
For some members of the family, it was time to let go.
“It was so devastating to hear she was gone,” Favel said. “I was holding onto her, I was keeping her alive in my heart and in my mind, but today I’m saying goodbye.”