May 5 is Red Dress Day, a time to remember our stolen, Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls 2S+. We also honour the survivors, the families, and the warriors, those who stand up and speak out about the genocide that has happened, on this land, since Contact.

No one knows exactly how many murdered and missing women there are in Canada. There have been studies, commissions, inquiries, but how can you quantify all the women that were just gone, never looked for by police, women and girls who were trafficked, traded as slaves and just taken? They disappeared from Indian Residential Schools, from Indian Hospitals, from our communities, from the streets when they are walking home from school or heading to the corner store for a late night snack.

Indigenous families look for them, they speak out. They do not forget. A word of advice: Just get out of the way of the children and families looking for their Moms, their Kookums, their chapan. They will come at you with the strength of the sun, seeking justice and looking to bring their Moms home. The family of Morgan Harris, one of the four women murdered by a Winnipeg serial killer in 2022, stopped at nothing to bring their mother home. Winnipeg Police said Morgan Harris’ remains were believed to be in the Prairie Green Landfill. Police said it was unfeasible to search, hazardous, too much. That wasn’t good enough for Cambria Harris, pictured below. She stood up, the oldest of Morgan’s children, she mobilized a city, Indigenous warriors and allies, and, her advocacy helped topple a provincial Manitoba government that refused to search the landfill. Cambria asked this question: “What if it was your daughter?”

Morgan Harris’ remains were found in record time, in a dump that the family was told, could not be searched. It also cost a fraction of what was quoted – not $184 million but $18 million. Also found were Marcedes Myran’s remains. She was killed by the same man who killed Morgan in 2022, along with Rebecca Contois and Ashlee Shingoose. Rebecca’s remains were found in Winnipeg’s Brady Landfill. Searchers are currently looking for Ashlee at the Brady site.

Every single one of the stolen had a family, had someone who loved them. Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls 2S+ matter. Their names need to be spoken and they need to be found. Below is Cambria Harris, Morgan’s daughter, and, the camp she helped establish at the Brady landfill site.

– Tanya Talaga

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