Edmonton hosts first annual missing and murdered Indigenous relatives conference

A round dance on Jan. 10, 2024, concluded the City of Edmonton’s inaugural 2 day conference for relatives of missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIR). Photo supplied.

The City of Edmonton’s inaugural missing and murdered Indigenous relatives (MMIR) conference concluded on Friday with a feast and round dance to highlight Indigenous resilience in the face of settler colonial violence.

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Dubbed “Gathering: The Strength of Our Stories,” the two-day event brought together 250 attendees and volunteers from across the country to hear panelists and keynote speakers discuss the scale of the crisis and different approaches to addressing it.

The federal government initiated an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG), which released its final report in 2019. Concluding that MMIWG are victims of a Canadian genocide, the report produced 231 Calls to Justice.

As a result of this report, the federal government adopted its Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People National Action Plan in 2021, and Edmonton city council passed its own plan the following year.

The Edmonton conference widens this scope to include the relatives of all Indigenous people who went missing or were murdered.

Kyla Pascal, a strategic planner with the city’s Indigenous Relations Office, told Alberta Native News that while Indigenous women and girls, as well as 2SLGBTQ+ people, face “distinct issues when it comes to colonial violence,” it’s important to “recognize that men and boys are an important piece of the conversation.”

Pascal said the conference is a direct product of the city’s action plan.

“We really just wanted to create a space where folks could come together, we could hear some of the solutions from folks, both locally and across the country, and just be together, learn and work together, thinking about future solutions or collaborations that we can work towards for this issue,” she explained.

Keynote speakers included Rachel Wuttunee, who manages urban Indigenous relations for the City of Vancouver, and Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a Lubicon Cree climate and Indigenous justice activist from Little Buffalo in northern Alberta.

There were discussion panels on 2-Spirit and Queer and men and boys’ perspectives on MMIR, and how art contributes towards healing, as well as municipalities’ role in addressing the crisis.

MMIR is such a “big issue” that addressing it requires “coordination and support” across all levels of government, Pascal added.

While many Calls to Justice, such as those concerning child welfare and criminal justice reforms, are outside municipalities’ control, the city has a major role to play on the transit, housing and harm reduction policy fronts, she noted.

Another major role the city can play is “uplifting, supporting and funding community work” that addresses MMIR, which is the conference’s purpose, said Pascal.

In a Jan. 9 city news release, conference panelist Lorrie Lawrence with the Indigenous Artists Market Collective referred to events like the MMIR conference as “good medicine that is healing for all.”

“Coming together to share our experiences and teachings is the good medicine our missing and murdered Indigenous Peoples, their families and the community need to heal and to prevent more being lost,” said Lawrence.