There are so many important women in my life.
Some of these women are family members, friends, colleagues.
I am certain that every single person in this audience today
has a woman that they love dearly.
Could be their mother,
their daughter,
their sister,
their grandmother, even a colleague.
Maybe you're smiling right now because you're thinking about them.
Maybe that smile changed into a chuckle
because you remember a fond memory that you have with them.
Do you feel that right now?
All of us are reflecting on love,
that love when we close our eyes,
when that Sun hits our face
and it warms our head all the way through our body.
I encourage you all to hold onto that today
because that's what we're going to talk about.
We're going talk about what is missing in society today.
There is a lack of love and respect
for our murdered and missing indigenous women and girls in Canada.
I am not saying that there is not love.
I am not saying there's opposite emotions of love towards these women,
but it can be greater, much greater.
I am hoping today
[that] the love that we've just built together
by reflecting on the women and girls that we love in our lives
will encourage you to see through a new lens in light
how beautiful these women are.
The beautiful truth, the hidden reality.
But first, Boozhoo, Aanii, Tamara, an Indigenous girl
from Bear clan from Gull Bay First Nation.
I am an indigenous woman that currently is challenged every day,
living with the intergenerational trauma of the Canadian residential school legacy
and as well as one of my family members
being taken and listed with their stolen sisters.
I share this because I live in this fast-paced society
that is so disconnected to the land,
very academically focused,
very career driven,
and I'm walking it
wearing a moccasin on one foot and a high heel on the other,
doing my best to maintain a balance.
So today when I'm speaking with you,
I hope you can see how two worldviews are being weaved together
to show the beautiful resiliency and strength of indigenous women and girls
living here in the physical world and in the spiritual world.
I want to share that I use the term "indigenous"
to acknowledge all the women and girls that are status and non-status.
This is very important
because the representation
that we're using today in our Canadian society
for our stolen sisters
is based on a statistic of status women
that are First Nation, Inuit or Métis.
We need to acknowledge a part of honouring them
is the history of [dis]enfranchisement,
where an indigenous woman when she married a non-status man
lost her status and Aboriginal rights along with their children.
We also need to acknowledge the Sixties Scoop,
from 1960s until the '80s,
where indigenous children were taken away from their families and communities,
and brought into foster care and adoption.
They also lost their status and Aboriginal rights.
I'm sharing this
because there's hundreds of indigenous people in our nation
who are fighting for their identity and their Aboriginal rights
and to regain their culture and family ties.
And I want you guys to reflect upon [this]
because they could be very visible as an indigenous person,
and statistically speaking,
an indigenous woman has higher chances of being a target of violence
compared to to a non-indigenous person in Canada.
When a visible indigenous person who does not have their "status"
go murdered or missing,
they're not acknowledged in that representation;
they go into a different category.
My hope here is to honour all of these women
and to show
how controlled the actual culture and the representation of these women are.
Part of the culture is, that I'm sharing with you today,
and I'm going to share that culture is a trend,
and I'm going to share it, that I'm going to say
that it's, perhaps unintentionally, this is happening in our country.
But the culture of these women
in research and in educational textbooks, the media and other publications,
unintentionally perhaps,
are focusing on these women as ...
sex workers,
runaways,
homeless,
substance abusers.
This predominantly happens in British Columbia.
With that type of culture
that we continue to use and educate our youth,
our future seven generations,
by dishonouring our past seven generations,
Where does that lead us to?
I'm hoping
that you will see how this culture of these women
reinforce the idea that it's okay to have a lack of moral panic,
and I'm saying that because that culture puts the blame back on the women.
They're to blame.
And when I speak about moral panic, I am not saying we don't have it,
but I'm saying that it could be much larger,
just like the love, and it starts with love.
When I say it could be much larger,
I'm talking about a moral panic
that is not in just indigenous families and communities
or in organizations or agencies led by indigenous peoples.
I'm talking about a greater moral panic
that is for both nations - indigenous, non-indigenous -
to unify together, empower one another
and feel that same fear,
that fear that something we love, our livelihood, our safety
is being taken.
It is a common, living, moral panic.
When it's common, it becomes a common goal to solve it,
becomes a common action together.
Together, we unite, empower,
and that's part of the healing steps that need to come forth.
I've shared now the culture,
the misrepresentation in the statistics,
and I shared earlier
that we lived, my family lives with the legacy of someone being taken.
So tonight, I am honouring my family's case,
but I'm honouring all women
in the spiritual world and on the physical world.
My great-grandmother, Jane Bernard, and Doreen Hardy
were taken in 1966,
right here in the Thunder Bay district,
and it's a cold case to this day.
Now, we remember the culture?
Jane,
she was 43 years old.
Doreen,
she was 18.
They were not sex workers.
They were not homeless.
They were not substance abusers or users.
They were not runaways
and they were not in British Columbia.
And more importantly,
this happened in 1966,
where as statistics that we use for all our research and education
use a representation from 1980 to 2012.
So - and they are status.
I'm sharing this to hope for you guys to shift a little and see,
What are we educating our society?
Because we use that education to guide our research,
use the research that comes out to guide our media.
Because this type of representation
not only dishonours the women in the spiritual world,
but it dishonours the indigenous women and girls
here in the physical world as well.
I say that because with the lack of moral panic in that culture,
it begins to question,
What is my self worth?
Am I worthy of justice?
Is my life as equal as a person who is not indigenous?
Am I worthy to find out, Why does this keep happening?
So as I shared earlier,
you know, my great-grandmother Jane,
she's listed with the murdered and missing,
and then there's my grandma Irene, who is a survivor of violence,
and there's my mother, Christian, who is a survivor of violence,
and then there's me, Tamara, a survivor of violence.
That's a lot of energy, a lot of healing,
a lot of questioning of my self-worth.
And then you see this in the media and in education as well, coming at you.
It took me eight years and counting
to say, "I am worthy of love.
I am worthy to be loved."
This is important because ...
so many indigenous women and youth that I've worked with
question their self-worth every day.
Every day is a challenge.
Every day is an obstacle -
to live in our society,
to wonder if they're going to be safe or if their children are going to be safe.
Their stories echo,
much like my family echoes.
But you know what else?
We are more.
We're so much more.
We are more than murdered and missing.
We are language.
We are medicine.
We are land.
We are culture.
We are life givers.
We are so much more than murdered and missing.
I hope today
that you think when you see
our sisters in the media, our publications, our research
that you reflect upon how we are more than that
and how the hidden reality, the beauty of us, is more.
How our voice is more, our stories are more.
To create that shift within society that needs and that starts with love,
to generate that moral panic that is needed
to honour the past seven generations
and the future seven generations.
Because if we don't make that shift,
I'm scared to know where our humanity is going.
I am scared to see where we're going to lead our research and our education.
I hope today you truly leave
with not only my voice
but the hundreds of voices that I carry with me every day
by working with these women and youth.
I hope that we could ignite a new way of learning, doing, being.
Because I am Tamara Bernard,
and I am more than murdered and missing.
(Ojibwe) Thank you.
(Applause)