Loretta Saunders’s life, resilience remembered at 10th-anniversary vigil
A vigil in Happy Valley-Goose Bay this week honoured the memory and legacy of Loretta Saunders, 10 years after the Inuk woman was murdered in Halifax.
Saunders’s parents, extended family and a friend spoke at the vigil Tuesday night at the Labrador Friendship Centre.
“I just want everybody to remember the passion that she had, the beautiful life that she had had before it was taken from her and kind of the legacy that she left behind,” said vigil organizer Samantha Newman, Saunders’s cousin.
Newman said Saunders had overcome so much in her life and her resilience should be remembered.
Saunders struggled growing up in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. She dropped out of high school and left for Montreal, living on the streets. Saunders struggled with addictions but also observed what was happening around her.
“She seen how the people out there lived, and especially the young Native women. She seen how they were treated on the streets,” Saunders’s father, Clayton Saunders, said through tears.
Saunders became determined to do something. She returned to Labrador, worked to treat her addictions, finished her Grade 12, and was accepted into Saint Mary’s University in Halifax to study criminology, Clayton said.
“She was gonna make a change in things, and she’s done a pretty good job in her little, short life,” he said.
Saunders was working on a thesis about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, talking to women, politicians and police chiefs about the issue, her father said. However, the family was worried for her.
“We warned Loretta,” her mother Miriam Saunders said. “She said she was going to take in boarders, roommates, and we said, ‘No, please don’t do that.’ She didn’t let us know.”
Miriam said Saunders was used to being able to trust others in Labrador and it was her nature to want to help others.
On Feb. 13, 2014, two people she was renting an apartment to murdered her because they didn’t have the rent, court documents showed.
Saunders was pregnant at the time, and Miriam said the family still wonders what she and her child would have been like today.
“When they took Loretta, they took a lot of love from our family,” Miriam said.
Death sparked national movements for change
Saunders’s death sparked movements beyond her home of Labrador. Vigils were held in Newfoundland, Quebec, Alberta, Ontario and the Maritimes.
Loretta also sparked the “Am I Next” Campaign, raising awareness of statistics and pushing the federal government to hold a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
The national inquiry started two years later, in September 2016, and Saunders’s mother, father and sister spoke to the inquiry in October 2017.
Saunders’s former university launched an advisory council on Indigenous affairs and a scholarship was created in her memory.
Her younger sibling, Diem Saunders, advocated for change. Diem won Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for 2017, and their advocacy work continued until their death in 2021.
Amnesty International statistics show Indigenous women are four times more likely to be killed than all other women in Canada.
Continuing the legacy
At the vigil in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newman performed for the more than two dozen people who attended. Her black Inuit drum had “Am I Next” painted on it in red letters.
“It kind of represents more of the internal anger, more the internal hurt rather than you know, going out and yelling at everybody in the room,” Newman said.
“It’s kind of a quiet protest and I want my drum and my drumming to be a quiet protest.”
Even though she was only nine when Saunders died, Newman was inspired by her cousin to work in mental health and addictions. She is joining others in her family who are continuing Saunders’s hope of a better future for Indigenous women and girls.
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