Women's Memorial March honours MMIWG2S in Manitoba amid case of alleged serial killer

The smell of sage and sweetgrass filled the gymnasium at Magnus Eliason Recreation Centre Tuesday night as people gathered for the annual Women's Memorial March.

As marchers headed out the door to walk the streets of Winnipeg's West End, organizers handed out packets of tobacco and butterfly wings bearing the names of missing or murdered women, girls and two-spirit people.

"Hurt's very concentrated in our community," said Anna Huard, a liaison for the Southern Chiefs' Organization MMIWG2S Survivors Healing Program. "And then more so with the recent discovery of the four murders, tensions are high here."

Huard is referring to the victims of an alleged serial killer who has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder. This year's walk honoured those women — Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified victim known as Buffalo Woman — and many more as about 200 people braved a blustery night to walk a rectangular route of several blocks.

The federal government is putting $500,000 toward a feasibility study to determine if it's possible to recover the bodies of Harris and Myran, who Winnipeg police believe were taken to a landfill north of the city.

People held signs honouring their loved ones, while groups of marchers shared in song and drumming. The group made its way north on Langside Street, east on Sargent Avenue and then headed back south on Young Street where an Indigenous victim of homicide was previously found.

"It's really powerful that we pass by that space for us to really gain a sense of the location and feel that energy of that spot," Huard said. "It makes it very real and it's quite emotional."

The march, which started in Vancouver in 1992, is now held every Feb.14 in more than 20 cities across Canada and the United States. 

It was important for Margaret Cobiness to attend.

"I'm here to support all missing and murdered Indigenous women all across Canada," Cobiness said. 

She's fighting to help bring her own daughter, Kari Cobiness, back home to Winnipeg from Morocco after she travelled there to be with her children two years ago.

"She wants to come home," Cobiness said. "It's a struggle right now because things happened. She got hurt there."

Cobiness is also on hand to support her cousin, Charlene Williams, the mother of Jana Williams whose remains were found on Alfred Avenue near the Red River in March 2021.

Charlene finds it helpful and healing to take part in walks but what she really wants is justice for her daughter who she thinks about every day.

"She shouldn't have been taken away, not like that," Charlene said. "I want to look for whoever did this to her."

Sandra DeLaronde, one of the co-ordinators of the march, said several families who took part are still seeking answers in the death or disappearance of a loved one.

"We really want to ensure that the spirits of our loved ones are remembered," she said. "We have many families that have never received justice. So we want to ensure that even in light of the work that's going on with the landfill feasibility (study) that the other families are remembered. There are many families that have not had justice."