Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
WOMEN’S MEMORIAL MARCH FOR MMIWG2S+
Winnipeg Art Gallery
Friday, February 14, 2025, 5:00 p.m.
(please check against delivery)
Allies and advocates for freedom from fear, fellow Manitobans – welcome to this walk against violence.
It’s a powerful feeling to join you here in the heart of Treaty 1 land and in the heartland of the Red River Metis to raise our voices for the safety, freedom and dignity of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people.
This walk is a journey for justice all across this province — located on the treaty territories and ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe, Oji-Cree, Dakota, Dene and Cree nations and the homeland of the Red River Métis and on lands that are the ancestral home of the Inuit.
I look out tonight and I see strong, committed women and girls and allies. I see people who are determined to be seen and heard as they call attention to the urgent need to reduce violence and address the roots of violence.
Some of you have been personally touched by losing a loved one to this violence. No words of condolence can fill the emptiness that leaves. Your determination to save others from the loss you’ve felt is an inspiration to us all.
For those of us who haven’t felt the effects of gender-based violence in our own families, I am sure that we have all from time to time felt its ever-present threat.
And so we all come together – all ages, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, all orientations and genders – to make sure that governments, media and society at large pay attention and take action. This annual walk an important part of that advocacy.
The attention that we are focusing on this issue tonight will help to bring about the many kinds of change — in education, housing, employment, social supports, preventative policing and more – that will be needed to end the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people.
Thank you for coming out tonight and helping with each step to make Manitoba and Canada better and to save lives here and across our country.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich and Shalom
