Sask. advocates hope proposed Red Dress Alert becomes reality

Gazan’s fellow MPs unanimously backed her motion last year declaring the deaths and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls a Canada-wide emergency. The motion also called for funding for a new alert system similar to those that exist for missing children and seniors.

Now, MPs are discussing with experts and stakeholders about how to implement such a system across the country.

It’s an initiative that’s long overdue according to Lori Campbell, the Associate Vice-President of Indigenous Engagement at the University of Regina.

The member of Montreal Lake Cree Nation said Indigenous women have, historically and currently, been mistreated and undervalued across the country and hopes the discussions around the Red Dress Alert system to change that narrative.

“We’ve seen with the Amber Alerts that 80 per cent of the children that have gone out through the Amber Alert have been located,” she said. “The longer it takes to get the information out there, the more challenging and unlikely it is that we’ll be able to locate them and bring them home safely.”

A 2019 report from a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls found deliberate rights violations at the heart of violence against Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse people.

With the final report came 231 calls to justice directed toward governments, social service providers, industry and Canadians, but relatively little progress has been made to-date — particularly on the federal side.

Michelle LeClair, the Vice-President of the Metis Nation Saskatchewan (MN-S) said governments have not been taking those Calls to Action seriously.

“I think the alert system is great, but it also adds to the conversation that needs to be had again and again and that’s about the safety of our Indigenous women,” she said. “The general citizen needs to be concerned about the number of women that go missing, the number of our women that are being murdered and we’re not really addressing it in a meaningful way.”

Between 2009 and 2021, the homicide rate among Indigenous women and girls was six times higher than for their non-Indigenous counterparts, Statistics Canada concluded in a report released last year.

That report also found that homicides involving Indigenous women and girls are less likely to result in the most serious murder charges than cases in which victims were non-Indigenous.

Another Saskatchewan advocate in favour of the Red Dress Alert system is Krista Fox from North Battleford.

“This is something I have been pushing for for years,” she said in a statement to paNOW. “I am a huge MMIP (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples) advocate and have voiced my concerns over an alert for some time.”

In 2022, Fox walked across Canada to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

Fox walked to draw attention to the crisis of all MMIW in Canada and to raise awareness of missing North Battleford woman Ashley Morin, who disappeared in July of 2018. RCMP believe Morin, a 31-year-old woman from Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, was the victim of a homicide.

Other North American jurisdictions already have similar alert systems, including Washington state’s “Missing Indigenous Person” system, which coexists with the existing Amber Alert and Silver Alert programs.

In Canada, there are alert systems for individual First Nations including the James Smith Cree Nation which launched its system earlier this year.

The new feature is on the Talking Stick app, which is an anonymous chat app developed by the company in partnership with the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN).

The app is designed to allow First Nations leaders to issue emergency alerts about missing persons, public safety emergencies, or natural disasters.

The Union of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq has a similar system for its member First Nations while Aboriginal Alert, a website providing details on missing Indigenous peoples, has existed for some time. As of early March, the website has more than 340 Indigenous women, girls, boys and men reported missing, with a large number in the prairies.

(Credit/Aboriginal Alert)

While the Metis Nation does not have its own system, LeClair noted that once a citizen goes missing, information is quickly posted on social media and shared by thousands of people.

While the news of the potential alert system is good for Campbell, she wants to make sure it is done correctly.

“Good intentions sometimes can cause unintentional harm and I think this is another instance where we also need to ensure that it’s Indigenous-led so that Indigenous people feel confident in it and feel like it is a positive resource for them because we haven’t had a lot of trust and historically there’s reasons for that.”

LeClair added that the Red Dress Alert should follow the same criteria as the Amber Alert which is issued if a child is deemed to be in grave danger, something she said every Indigenous woman faces.

“We’re always in grave danger because of just being Indigenous and I’m really hopeful that if we do have an alert system, that it’s done in a meaningful, impactful way,” she said.

Gazan’s Red Dress Alert proposal is being examined by the House of Commons Status of Women committee, which has already heard testimony from several experts calling for the initiative to be Indigenous-led.

Such a model, they say, would mitigate the problem of police inaction, as well as bureaucratic red tape, to better ensure members of the public are notified of a disappearance promptly and efficiently.

-With files from Angela Brown and The Canadian Press

by Derek Craddock

Sask. advocates hope proposed Red Dress Alert becomes reality

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