Rally held in Vancouver for Manitoba teen killed in 2014

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Hundreds of people gathered in Downtown Vancouver calling for justice after a man was acquitted in the murder of an Indigenous girl from Manitoba.

Members of the Coalition on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in BC say they’re heartbroked and “appalled that on February 22, 56-year-old Raymond Cormier was found not guilty” in 15-year-old Tina Fontaine’s murder.

“Why aren’t people as outraged as if this had happened to a young woman of a different colour?” asks Audrey Siegl, a First Nations’ activist who was at the rally. “Why does the skin colour mean so much? Why was one of the singular focuses of the trial the fact that Tina had alcohol in her system? How about we look at the underlying facts of why Tina had alcohol in her system. Why was she alone in the city, why was she a defenseless, tiny, vulnerable young woman left on her own?”

Siegl says she wants to see a change, and believes it’ll take the general public standing up to the system for that to happen. “Who failed Tina is the rest of Canada, everyone who says they’re a proud Canadian –you failed Tina. Everyone who does not rise and do something different because of what happened to Tina… you are accountable for every death.”

Fontaine’s body was found in a river on August 17th, 2014, about eight days after she was reported missing. Cormier was charged with second-degree murder more than a year later.

His trial began last month, and the jury deliberated for 11 hours before finding him not guilty. The defence had said numerous forensic holes in the prosecution’s case left reasonable doubt.

“Her killer admitted to it to undercover cops, it was recorded,” says Jaye Simpson, who helped organize the rally. “The blanket that Tina’s body was wrapped in was his.”

She agrees with Siegl and believes the justice system doesn’t protect Indigenous people.

“We felt the need to rally because as Indigenous people we were the first on these lands and our lives are being taken and white folks aren’t being served to justice,” she tells reporters. “So I don’t understand why we have to uphold that justice system if it’s not working out for us.”

She calls a system that protects white people only “oppressive”, and says Fontaine was failed by systems that were supposed to protect her. Simpson and others want to see an appeal into Cormier’s case, as well as a change in the system.

Today’s rally comes just two weeks after a similar one was held for Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old Indigenous man from Saskatchewan whose accused killer was acquitted. “It tells me that Canada doesn’t care,” Simpson says. “Two cases in one month, it shows me that Canada doesn’t care as a whole. People are going to show up and show support and that’s so important, but when we look at a colonial construct, Canada is still invested in destroying Indigenous idea across the country.”

There was no DNA evidence linking Cormier to the teen, and doctors who were called to testify said they could not definitively say how Fontaine died.

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