Colleen and I spent the week in Vancouver with Sonja, Julia, Ugo and Olivier, after arriving here on Sunday, August 4. It’s great to be with family, trying to slow down, and spending time with our wonderful and energetic grand son Olivier, who is almost four years old. Sonja returned to Prince George after we had spent hundreds of kilometers on our bikes riding together on Highway of Tears. Thank you so much Sonja for your support and encouragement to include Highway of Tears in this project!
We tried to contact media about the Change the Cycle and the rally that officially ended the tour on August 10, but it was difficult. We sent multiple press releases and I approached newspapers and TV stations personally riding there by bike, but in the end only CBC Radio Canada did an interview and filmed us leaving the UBC campus for the Change the Cycle rally to Crab Park in downtown Vancouver.
On August 8 I was invited to speak on Co-op Radio, a First Nations Radio Station in Vancouver. I called in from the top of Dam Mountain, overlooking Vancouver, which we had just hiked on with family and friends. The host was most interested in my experience on my tour of how the missing and murdered women were viewed and talked about across the country. I emphasized again that although almost everybody I spoke with had heard about Highway of Tears most Non Native communities showed little interest in the situation of First Nations women. Once I reached the Highway of Tears the topic suddenly had a place, a priority, and a great sense of urgency for action. The radio host also emphasized the urgency of the situation, in light of the over 60 Aboriginal women murdered or missing in Vancouver.
I had two phone conversations with Gladys Radek the founder and leader of Walk for Justice. She is presently facilitating a group of First Nations women and men walking across Canada from the East Cost to the Pacific to raise awareness about the missing and murdered women in our nation. When I spoke with her, the walkers were in the prairies on highway 16 where I had been a few weeks earlier. It was strange and familiar hearing the trucks rumbling by her as we talked, and we contemplated the experience of being on this road that is used so heavily by trucks extracting resources from the land. Gladys said that the walk is very hard on them particularly when talking with families of missing and murdered women. When people tell their stories, and when they visit places where women were murdered, it is very difficult. She said that some of the walkers dropped out because they found the stories of injustice too emotionally draining. She also expressed her frustration over the fact that there are still not even consistent statistics on the number of missing and murdered First Nations women on Highway of Tears and across Canada. Women go missing and nobody pays attention. She was very critical of the federal government for refusing a national inquest. There was however some hope that the provincial leaders would be able to unitedly press the government in that direction.
Some statistics say that there are 20 – 30 women murdered or missing on Highway of Tears. Amnesty International states there are 36, and some believe it could be up to 200. The estimated numbers across Canada range from hundreds to over 4000. These discrepancies speak volumes about the collective and political unwillingness to face the issue. However, it appears that the premiers and MLS of Canada have started to take this on and put pressure on the federal government initiate an inquiry on the missing and murdered Aboriginal women.
I met the director of the Vancouver Native Friendship Centre. We talked a about the strength and resilience in Native Communities. There is a lot of emphasis on native culture and tradition and getting different generations engaged and working together on culturally meaningful projects. This is not easy in a large urban area where people from many nations, traditions and languages meet. But she said they are successful by searching for ways to integrate as much as possible, and focus on their commonalities. She is optimistic that these projects will help the people struggling in urban communities. It appears that their strategy focuses on building strength and solidarity rather than engaging in political processes. She also explained briefly the concept of resilience developed by Darien Thira in BC who works primarily in the field of suicide prevention. The four main components of this work are: Connection (care), Empowerment (respect), Positive Identity (meaningful community), Vision and Transformation (spirituality).
I also spoke with the director of Warriors against Violence. This organization offers service to individuals and families dealing with a wide range of challenges including a Men’s Group based on a similar philosophy as the Men’s Group in Owen Sound.
On a bright and sunny Saturday, August 10, the Change the Cycle tour started its final stretch from the Fountain on UBC campus to the memorial stone at Crab Park in the lower east side of Vancouver near East Hastings. Julia had organized the rally and it was a huge amount of work getting the word out, organizing speakers and media, and dealing with the complexities of city permits and for the bike route and the rally. Colleen helped out with the last details when we arrived in Vancouver, and met us all at the park with a car full of food and drinks for everyone. Thank you so much Julia and Colleen!
The cyclists (adults and children) met at the fountain at noon to embark with me for the last 12 km through the city to Crab Park. CBC Radio Canada did an extensive interview with me in English, and then Julia in French. They filmed our colourful group, all dressed in lime green, along the route and broadcast 2-minute pieces on various news over the day. I very much enjoyed the host’s questions which allowed me a lot of latitude to talk about addressing violence against women issues, the missing and murdered women, the need for men to get engaged in change, the range of changes we need to focus on as individuals, our responsibilities raising boys who will respect women, the responsibility of the media in addressing issues of violence, and challenging the status quo of sexist and misogynist messages to youth.
Our bike group was an eclectic and enthusiastic group of friends and supporters. As we cycled the neighborhoods and busy downtown streets we chanted “Change the Cycle”, “End violence against women “, and “Join the Cycle”. The children were particularly excited about voicing our message and they could not be ignored.
Near the Via Rail station we stopped at the women’s monument “Marker of Change” at Thornton Park, where we were met by a great group of people. They gave us background information about this wonderful arts installation that commemorates the 14 women who were murdered at Ecole Polytechnic on December 6, 1989. It was designed by a woman artist from Capilano College and built in 1997. There are 14 bench shaped rocks placed in a 300-foot circle. The benches are made of polished granite from Quebec, each with the name of one of the 14 murdered women facing the centre of the circle. On top of each bench is an indentation and on the back is a commemoration written in seven languages. Around the periphery of the installation is a circle of bricks with the names of the donors stamped on them. We learned that the benches are the average length of a woman and that they also represent coffins. The indentation represents a vagina or wound. One bench had a rose laid on it. Julia and I then draped a black cloth over one of the stone benches. This was a very emotional momentS. It brought home the need for more work so we don’t have to face the coffins of our daughters, sisters, mothers and friends.
We got back on our bikes for the last leg of the journey to Crab Park, crossing Hastings Avenue, and biking down to the ocean. At the Park we were welcomed by a great group of people and accordion music by Sue Baines, a music therapist colleague from many years ago. At the Memorial Stone we started the celebration of ending Change the Cycle with a prayer by Noel Hanuse who works for Women against Violence against Women (WAVAW) in Vancouver. She also spoke about the missing and murdered women in Vancouver. She brought with her a friend who passionately gave more details about the realities of women going missing and being murdered and the lack of justice interventions. Ellen Woodsworth, a very well known social activist, former Vancouver City Councilor, and author, addressed the wide-ranging social context in Vancouver, BC and in Canada that contributes to violence against women and particularly First Nations women. She spoke of the need for solidarity across the world: Projects like this are sparks. We need many sparks to create a flame which eventually will reach to the core and result in change. She was followed by Dr Harry Stefanakis. In his work he counsels men who are abusive to women and he provides workshops on violence in BC. He emphasized the need for men to change as well as the challenges they have confronting and articulating their attitudes and behaviours. The collectively experienced guilt and shame are obstacles for men to address the problems they experience and to make changes. And in BC, as in many places, there is great lack of funding for programs for abusive men. Don Larson who created the memorial stone in 1997, also spoke a few words about how he felt the need to respond to the reality of women being murdered and going missing in BC. Here is the in-scripture:
The Heart has
In honour of the spirit of the people murdered in the downtown Eastside. Many were women and many were Native Aboriginal women. Many of these cases remain unsolved. All My Relations
Then I spoke to the group about my experiences on the Change the Cycle tour over the last seven weeks of riding and talking to people. We ended the rally and the tour with songs from our Aboriginal sisters and then a song that had everyone singing. We put some flowers and candles at the Memorial Stone, and then I took my bike down to the Pacific Ocean and mixed the water I had brought from Georgian Bay and mixed it with some seawater to end the tour.
Thank you to everybody who supported this project in so many ways across this country.
