Tina Fontaine inspires action, hope 10 years after her death at age 15

The curtains in Thelma Favel’s living room are closed, as they have been since her grand-niece Tina Fontaine died in Winnipeg in August 2014. They conceal the gravel road where Favel used to see Tina hop and skip home, waving.

Among the dozens of family photos covering Favel’s living room walls — her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren and kids she’s fostered — pictures of Tina gaze and smile back at her in the dimmed afternoon light.

“She was so full of life, so happy,” Favel said from her home near Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation last week.

“Everything in my house reminds me of Tina — everything, especially her room. That’s where I feel so much closer to her,” Favel, who was Tina’s primary caregiver for most of her life, told CBC News.

In the last 10 years, Favel has lived through losing the 15-year-old and seeing the man accused of killing her be acquitted in 2018. 

“These 10 years … have been so hard,” Favel said.

Favel has also seen Tina become a national symbol of violence against Indigenous women and girls — but loved ones are still being murdered and going missing, she said. 

For the anniversary of Tina’s death, Favel and her friend Marilyn Courchene are planning a feast and walk in Sagkeeng, the community about 100 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg where Favel helped raise Tina, to honour all missing and murdered Indigenous people.

Favel will also read a handwritten letter at Tina’s heart-shaped gravestone on Aug. 17, the day her body was pulled from the Red River 10 years earlier. 

“The shadows of the past are the light of tomorrow,” it begins, her cursive handwriting stretching across two pages. 
Favel, who is undergoing cancer treatment, says the letter is her way of saying goodbye to her grand-niece.

“She’ll never be forgotten, but it is time to let her go.”

MMIWG crisis

Favel’s emotions before and after Tina’s death sit with her to this day.

She last saw Tina at the end of June 2014, before the girl left for Winnipeg to reconnect with her mother. 

In the weeks that followed, Tina was in and out of family and friends’ homes, hotels and a safe house until she was last seen Aug. 8.

During that time, the 15-year-old came into contact with child and family services, hospital staff and police. 

“I get very angry,” Favel said, recalling her struggle to get information about Tina at the time.

“If only somebody was able, like, would come to me and say, ‘K, we’ll help her.'”

More than a week after she was last seen alive, Tina’s 72-pound body, weighed down by rocks and wrapped in a duvet cover, was pulled from the Red River near the Alexander Docks.

Sagkeeng, which has a high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, has experienced more tragedies since Tina’s death, Favel said.

Jeanenne Fontaine, Tina’s cousin, was killed in Winnipeg in 2017. Samantha Hiebert went missing in 2019. Courchene’s niece, Leah Keeper, was last seen in 2023.

“This can’t keep happening,” Favel said.

The community has lost so many people, it’s creating a second community quilt to fit and honour everyone, Courchene said last week.

Courchene is hopeful, though, that awareness is growing in the community and the province

Developing family law

Oginaakaan (Chief) E. J. Fontaine of Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation says he believes the community could have better protected Tina if it had had the jurisdiction and responsibility to care for its children and families.

The First Nation is now in the process of developing a family law that will do just that, with hopes of finalizing it next year, he said.

Bill C-92, an Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families, which affirms Indigenous nations have jurisdiction over child and family services, became federal law in 2020, giving Indigenous governments the ability to take over child welfare services.

In May, Fontaine was among the Manitoba First Nations leaders who were present as some signed a relationship declaration with the province that pledged the jurisdictional transfer of child welfare to the nations.

The declaration says the province is “committed to contributing funds and resources to support the delivery of child and family services by First Nations to their members.”

Sagkeeng’s family law, which is getting input from the community, is being designed to make sure that the First Nation’s children, both on and off reserve, remain connected to their culture, and that families are healthy, prosperous and stable, Fontaine said.

“The foundation of our community has been shaken terribly by our kids being taken away from their families,” leading to crisis, depression and poverty in families, he said.

Sagkeeng is also working on launching a healing centre for people experiencing addictions, along with a women’s shelter. Grant proposals to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to build and operate the shelter were recently denied, but Fontaine said they’re working to get those decisions overturned

Provincial progress

Tina’s death fuelled outrage across the country and helped galvanize the federal government into launching the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The inquiry published its final report in 2019, listing 231 calls for justice in areas including education, health and justice. 

Favel doesn’t want people to forget her grand-niece and the lessons learned from her case, but she fears the inquiry’s report is collecting dust. 

Last year, a CBC analysis found only two of the calls for justice had been completed and more than half hadn’t been started. 

Since then, an Indigenous-led rapid access to addictions medicine (RAAM) clinic has opened at the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre in downtown Winnipeg, addressing one of the calls for justice that hadn’t been started as of last year.

The provincial government also established an MMIWG gender-based violence committee of cabinet and an 18-member Matriarch Circle earlier this year, which will help guide the province’s first strategy around missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.

The strategy that’s expected to be released this fall includes an already announced $15-million provincial endowment fund supporting MMIWG2S+ families, which the province hopes families will be able to access by fall, Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine announced last week.

Fontaine, who is from Sagkeeng, said the government is also looking into renewing its action plan on child exploitation, known as Tracia’s Trust, which hasn’t been updated since 2008.

The Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth’s office says it’s been calling for changes to the strategy for years, including through recommendations in reports, one of them the 2019 report on Tina’s case.

That report made five recommendations and three have been completed, said Sherry Gott, the Manitoba advocate for children and youth.

The two incomplete recommendations are to develop a plan for youth mental health, and to evaluate how the province can introduce safe and secure treatment facilities for youth at risk of addictions and sexual exploitation.

“I continue to call on government to come up with a plan for youth, particularly a response for youth that are experiencing crisis and mental health [issues],” Gott said

Gott’s office is currently investigating the 2024 deaths of three youth whose situations bear similarities to Tina’s, she said. Gott didn’t elaborate due to confidentiality concerns.

Bernadette Smith, Manitoba’s minister responsible for addictions, homelessness and housing, did not say whether a youth mental health strategy was in the works.

“We are looking at what’s needed and where the gaps are, and we’ll continue to develop and work on the gaps that are there,” Smith said, pointing to recently announced funding for Huddle NorWest to help reduce youth wait times for counselling services.

Both Fontaine and Smith, the first First Nations cabinet ministers in Manitoba, say Tina left an impactful legacy.

She brought families and people together, Smith said, remarking on how little support was available when her own sister went missing in 2008.

“Right across Canada, people are getting involved and saying, ‘We want to be a part of this. We want to be a part of the solution,'” Smith said.

“[Tina has] really left a legacy of hope for, you know, community.”

Awareness, hope

Favel’s front door opens and closes with family and friends stopping by, a door Tina also passed through.

“There’s not a day that goes by we don’t mention her name,” Favel said.

Earlier this year, Favel learned the man acquitted of second-degree murder in Tina’s death, Raymond Cormier, died in Ontario in April.

It’s news that brought her to tears, Favel said, “because he took all the answers with him: the why, the how. I’ll never get that closure.”

Cormier’s death doesn’t make the 10th anniversary of Tina’s death any easier, Favel said.

The feast and walk beginning at St. Alexandre Catholic Church on Aug. 17 at 10 a.m. bring her hope, she said.

They may also give her the courage and guidance to open her living room curtains again.

“I held onto her for 10 long agonizing years, because when she died, part of me died also. Now, she wants me to let her go,” Favel reads from her letter to Tina.

“Be happy and be at peace my sweet girl,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “You’ll now live in our hearts and our memories, and no one can ever take that away.

“Bye Tina.”