About 500 people gathered outside the Toronto Police headquarters for the 18th annual Strawberry Ceremony on Valentine’s Day.
The ceremony, organized by No More Silence, was held to honour at least 600 missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, trans and two-spirited people.
“We’ve been struggling with this phenomenon in our communities, and yes it’s devastating for the families, but it’s devastating for us too,” Indigenous Elder Wanda Whitebird told organizers and supporters in attendance.
Whitebird led the ceremony, reciting prayers and introducing members of the community who sang songs to those who joined. The ceremony’s name refers to the word ode’min, which is strawberries in Ojibwe. Ode means heart in Ojibwe. Within Indigenous cultures, strawberries are traditionally a woman’s medicine.
Whitebird said the strawberries also represent the transition Indigenous women undergo from young girls into women.
“It’s a time when our young women come on their moontime and they fast from berries,” she said. “And at that time through that whole year we as grandmothers and aunties, we teach them about who we are as women.”
It began outside the Toronto Police headquarters before making its way to the intersection of Yonge and College streets, where organizers occupied the intersection in song and round dance.
“Toronto Police headquarters continues to be our place of gathering to underline the complicity of police and the settler colonial state,” No More Silence said in a statement.
This is the first time the ceremony has been held in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indigenous activist Joey Twins spoke at the ceremony to share her experiences of violence and trauma.
“My name is Joey Twins, and I am a product of the residential schools’ ’60s Scoop,” she said. “I personalize this day because my mom was murdered when I was six years old, and no justice was served for her.”
The 18th annual Strawberry Ceremony comes after four Indigenous women were murdered in Winnipeg in 2022.
Rebecca Contois, Morgan Beatrice Harris, Marcedes Myran and a fourth unidentified victim who has been named Buffalo Woman by community advocates, were reportedly murdered by Jeremy Skibicki in 2022.
Winnipeg Police said partial remains of Contois were found near an apartment building in May and later found in the Brady Road Resource Management Facility landfill in June.
Winnipeg Police said in a Dec. 14 news release that they will be working in collaboration with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs to determine the feasibility of a recovery search of the Prairie Green landfill, where the remains of Myron and Harris are believed to be.
This comes after Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth said at a media conference on Dec. 1 that police would not be conducting further searches of the landfills, which resulted in a backlash from community members and the families of the victims.
The federal government provided $500,000 to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in February 2023 for a feasibility study of the landfill for recovery efforts.
The federal government launched a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in 2019 which confirmed acts of genocide towards Indigenous communities in Canada.
“This genocide has been empowered by colonial structures, evidenced notably by the Indian Act, the ’60s Scoop, residential schools and breaches of human and Indigenous rights,” the report said.
No More Silence organizer Audrey Huntley said the acknowledgment and confirmation of genocide provides validation.
“I think that was the best thing to finally come out of that report,” she said. “That they finally used that language, the appropriate language and made that official.”
However, Huntley said more needs to be done to help Indigenous communities recover from the impact of violence. She said this starts with decolonization.
“I don’t know if enough people make the connection between land and our safety.” Huntley said. “So, we’re not going to stop this violence unless we really decolonize, which means shifting the power relations, and it means giving the land back.”
As the 18th Strawberry Ceremony concluded, Huntley said the ceremonies will continue for as long as the violence continues.
“We’ll keep going back to police headquarters, you know, until the violence stops,” she said.