Manitoba counting on Indigenous matriarchs to guide MMIWG2S strategy

Manitoba's families minis‐ ter is bringing some trusted advisers with her to the provincial legis‐ lature.

Nahanni Fontaine has en‐ listed a 18-member team of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit individuals to offer their expertise and advice.

The Matriarch Circle, which met for the first time Thursday, will guide Fontaine's department on the formation of Manitoba's first strategy around missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people. Their input will be welcomed, the minister an‐ nounced.

"This space was never meant for Indigenous women," Fontaine told re‐ porters outside the legisla‐ tive chamber.

"This is an opportunity to claim space and reclaim space, but also in the midst of an ongoing genocide against Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited, it's a way to, symbolically in many ways, say that enough is enough," she added.

"We're taking up our space. We're taking up our rightful place."

The unpaid group, which includes actor and former Churchill MP Tina Keeper and knowledge keeper Karen Swain, will meet at least twice a year.

Members come from a range of backgrounds, in‐ cluding people of Afro-In‐ digenous, Anishinaabe,

Anisininew, Cree, Dakota, Dene, Inuit and Métis de‐ scent. They're knowledge keepers, authors, artists, ac‐ tors, athletes and story‐ tellers, the province said in a news release.

Preventing future tragedies

Issues like the ongoing call for a landfill search for the remains of two First Na‐ tions women won't be on their agenda, Fontaine said, but rather a focus on stop‐ ping future tragedies from happening.

"Ultimately at the end of the day, our government wants to prevent any more MMIWG2S," the minister said.

"There's also an opportu‐ nity and a fundamental need for us to also celebrate In‐ digenous women, to also highlight and lift up all of the amazing work that Indige‐ nous women are doing."

Cora Morgan, the govern‐ ment's special adviser on In‐ digenous women's issues, said it makes sense for the government to centre Indige‐ nous perspectives in this work.

"Historically and part of our traditional ways of being, it was women who had a fi‐ nal say in in changes that were to be made," she said.

"Now that we have this new government, we have a lot of Indigenous people who are representing, it was ap‐ propriate that we had them guiding the way for strategies on MMIWG and the protec‐ tion of women and girls."